Working for BofA I have thought for a while now what A.P. Giannini would have to say about Ken Lewis and how banks are handling their clients today.

We are told that we are customers first and the associates feel that way but then to hear how our execs handle the top end of the bank.  Makes us sick to our stomachs. 

BofA has over 50 branches down in the Camen Islands and we all know there is propably money being hidden there and maybe the Congress can get to those funds.  I would love to see how much money is actually there being hidden away. 

I use to be proud to say I worked for BofA but now…I try not to let too many people know.

This is what truly ate me up; I sat in the lunchroom here at work with three staunch conservatives who were grumbling about universal health care and calling it "socialism".  Of course this got me going; first off, I had to point out that socialism in and of itself is not a bad thing, without some form of it we would not have fire and police departments supported by our taxes.  Then I had to point out that I had been noticing for some time that all of our legislators in DC seemed to have NO PROBLEM with that "socialized medicine" when it was THEIR sorry *sses that were making use of it, it’s only when the rest of us speak up and say "hey, how about passing some of that on to me" that suddenly we get this uproar over "socialism" and "entitlement".  AND, the part that REALLY toasts me is, why shouldn’t every man, woman and child in this country feel entitled to health care?  In the US?  And how come wanting access to health care is an inappropriate sense of entitlement, but having your hand out for taxpayer dollars to keep the bank you screwed up from going under and then using those dollars to shell out BONUSES to the very people who sunk the dang boat is not? 

Of course they just shook their heads and left, because I "just don’t get it" and there is no point in trying to explain.  LOL!

I love the story of how A.P. Gianinni set up a bank in the back of a carriage in San Francisco after the earthquake so that people could survive the days and weeks after the 1906 quake.  For quite some time he was the only bank in town.  After Bank of America moved its head offices out of San Francisco, I was worried that something bad like this would happen.  There have been too many mergers and acquisitions, and not enough attention to the details.  They acquired Countrywide and Merrill Lynch and previously had merged with Nations Bank and numerous others.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America  The Countrywide and Merrill Lynch acquisitions weakened the bank rather than strengthening it.

Giannini’s granddaughter is right to be upset; the stock price plunged from something like $50 a share to something less than $5.  That is not the result you want from a merger!   

"A.P. Giannini, the man who founded Bank of America in the early 1900s, likely is "rolling over in his grave" over how the company he built has been managed, hypothesizes his granddaughter."

When I was a teenager I had something of an internship at very busy merchant BoA, with a 50 person teller line! On Fridays I used to be put at the head of the line because I was so fast, and was always balanced out and out the door in 10 minutes after the bank closed. 

The manager of the branch office was an extremely nice grandfatherly man who knew A.P. Gianinni and he made a point of everyone knowing, valuing and honoring the founder’s ethos, ethics and intentions. They even had Founder’s Day and the manager would tell stories including about the 06 Earthquake and what AP did, he’d been part of it too.

In San Francisco the gilded doors of the bank that AP built are on Grace Cathedral on Nob Hills. I used to live on Nob Hill and there was something substantial and sustaining about walking past Grace Cathedral and seeing those doors and knowing all they stood for.

 I was also exceedingly fortunate to work for EF Hutton when George Ball was at the helm. He was an is a highly ethical man who set unquestioned standards. I admired him and the company, and left when he did resigned, knowing that Robert Foman would trash the old and venerable institution, which he did. I rec’d a very nice email from Mr. Ball on 7/23 the day my brother died, saying that "EF Hutton was great place because of people like you."

America’s financial CEOs are shameful, greedy idiots. It started in the 80s when George Bush Sr and Sandy Weil ‘reorganized’ Wall Street according to their theiving ways. The M&As started, people were thrown out of their jobs, and everything was for a buck. Then in 2001 they got their greatest prize. Totally deregulated derivatives, and wrecked the US and global economy.

People often mistake a focused drive for making money with virtues that are not necessarily there: honor, decency, humanity, wisdom. Those were the qualities and values of A.P. Giannini and there are very few like him today—-and when they are needed very badly.