Posted on 02/24/2009 2:33:53 PM PST by An Old Man
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.
Virginia Hammerness, the 75-year-old heiress to the family’s banking fortune and a big stockholder, told CBS 5 in San Francisco (via Huffington Post) that the bank’s current "idiot" managers’ actions are "totally repulsive." More than that, they’re ruining her family’s legacy
Giannini founded Bank of America (originally called Bank of Italy) in San Francisco’s North Beach in 1904 because he was upset that banks then usually only lent money and did business with rich clients. He wanted a place where the city’s immigrants could bank, as well. How did he judge each loan candidate? Not on their credit history, for sure. But rather, their character. Back in the good old Giannini days, she said, a mere handshake could secure a bank loan — and guaranteed repayment in full. Those days are clearly over.
Hammerness also had something to say about the $121 million in bonuses Merrill Lynch paid its executives just before its merger with Bank of America. Her family, insisted Hammerness, should have known then and there not to get involved. "Bank of America should have said ‘forget it," she said. As a side note, a judge on Monday said former Merrill CEO John Thain can disclose the names of people who got bonuses at that time, after New York Attorney General went to court to force him to give the information.
Well, to be fair, the low wage labor immigrants is who Bank of Italy served. The problem isn't immigration, it's too much immigration combined with not enough assimilation. It's also immigration from incompatible cultures.
>Profits regardless of consequences< refer to the never ending line of illegal low wage aliens, and the greedy employers that employ them by the millions.
That is an odd statement coming from someone who was most certainly a Catholic!
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