FL city government gives BofA a smackdown! This is how it's done.

[sixmile]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sunrise/fl-sunrise-bank-of-america-20091117,0,933596.story
'It pays to be nice.

Just ask Mayor Roger Wishner, who helped kill a multimillion-dollar city partnership with Merrill Lynch because parent company Bank of America has been accused of being mean to the little guy.

Two weeks ago, city commissioners voted to hire Merrill Lynch to help sell up to $103 million in bonds. On Monday, commissioners changed their minds and went with Goldman Sachs instead.

Why the change of heart? Bank of America, which acquired Merrill Lynch in January, has taken heat recently for not being very helpful to customers needing help renegotiating their mortgages to avoid foreclosure.

Wishner and Commissioner Sheila Alu led the charge Monday to knock Merrill Lynch out of the running to join in a $103 million bond deal to replace the city's aging water and sewer system.

"The parent company is going to make money off this when you sell these bonds," Wishner said. "The message should be loud and clear: You will not make any money off our residents and utility customers. Go back and tell them what happened in Sunrise. You won't do business with the city of Sunrise."

Alu chimed in.

"Today is the day you need to start treating the little people with some respect and dignity," she said.

Alu, a customer of Bank of America for years, complained she herself got a rude "no" after asking to modify the payback plan on a student loan she took out to pay for law school.'

snip

[piratefish08]

1. Just imagine the smackdown if this could happen at a FEDERAL level.

The city of Sunrise should be commended and DC should take a lesson.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Riiiiight. And Goldman Sachs is so much more compassionate

and so willing to help the little guy.


They're all parasites and they all need to be removed and the tax dollars they've looted returned to the citizens and the states and the counties and the municipalities.

$103 million in bonds? That's not much more than a single GS exec's annual bonus. They ought to be paying for the water and sewer system replacement.


Wankers.



Tansy Gold

[Roland99]

5. My thought exactly!! That's like giving business to a rapist over a drug dealer

:wtf:

[ixion]

8. yeah, me too... so Goldman Sachs, who was directly involved in the fiscal meltdown

and who thumbs their nose at Main St. every chance they get, is somehow more ethical than B of A?

:rofl:

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. What did we ever do before the profiteers enabled the world to keep spinning?

That city can't sell their own bonds?

[sixmile]

6. Bond issues are complex financial transactions

which require access to large investor pools; which Goldman has in spades. It is a necessary evil for municipalities hoping to raise money by selling bonds that they have to use an investment bank. There are smaller, less evil ones, though, I agree.

[Shagbark Hickory]

7. I wonder why they are so complex. Makes me think something can be done about that.

So cities can DIY.

[Warpy]

4. Bank of America has done some astonishingly boneheaded things lately

First, they bought Countrywide. Instead of auditing that pig in a poke and reducing the damage while working to send the worst of them to prison, they just stonewalled the whole mess.

Then they bought Merrill Lynch, another pig in a poke that was mostly bad debt. They have forced out their own investment bankers in favor of the Merrill guys who'd been playing fast and loose with investors' money for years. Service is rotten because of the transition and because they absorbed bad management and tossed out good.

Getting rid of Ken Lewis was just window dressing. A lot of the major problems are still there, taking home millions in pay and bonuses.

I would dearly love to see them nationalized at some point, just to get real auditors in there and prosecute the worst of them.

[bluescribbler]

9. Off to the Greatest Page

Good to see someone stands up.