WHAT IS TOO BIG TO FAIL?

Let's assume you know a guy named Tony, who loves his beer.He spends all of his beer money in one beer joint owned by a guy named Bennie.

You suspect Tony may have a brain that has been permanently anesthetized as a direct result of his prodigous beer consumption.

Tony fails to notice,at first, that just about every time he comes in the front door of the bar, Bennie the bar owner ducks out the back door and goes up to Tony's house where he and Tony's wife get it on.

Finally, Tony's beer drinking capacity diminishes due to liver problems, and he starts going home earlier. On one of those visits he thinks he sees Bennie, the bar owner, going out of Tony's back door - and the Bennie look-a-like appears to be in a big hurry. He confronts Bennie the nedxt day. Bennie refuses to admit any wrongdoing.

For a period of 19 months Tony starts coming home early a lot more frequently after that.For some unknown reason Tony doesn't head directly for the back yard to assess the comings and goings of the bar owner via the well traveled rear exit.

Tony insists on entering the house from the front door.Bennie has little incentive to deny his nocturnal cravings once he hears Tony approaching.

Finally, Tony has had it. He's sick and tired of this arrangement.In his extreme state of anger he confronts Bennie in the back room of his bar and threatens him.

He says, "Look Bennie, I know whats been going on. If you don't stop this stuff I'm going to make a strong stand. But, if you make 'substantial improvements' in your behavior, I'll spend my money here again". Bennie laughs at him.

Pretty lame, right?

Do you feel as if Tony has to be the biggest fool in town as well the least courageous? Yeah, me too.

Recently, it was the Treasury Department - not Tony - who took a stand. But instead of Bennie being the target - it was Bank of America (BOFA); along with Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, et al. .

It seems that a long time ago(2009) Treasury's auditors concluded the big three mortgage servers were failing the government via their violations of the rules of Making Home Affordable (MHA)work.

The audit discovered more homeowners had been kicked out of the program by the banks than are receiving assistance. Yet, the banks continued to accept incentive payments,ie, $24 million last month.

Now, 3 days ago, Treasury has decided to take a "strong" stand! They are going to withhold those incentive payments to the Big Three.(Wow!)

Let's review. The purpose of Treasury's incentive payments to the banks via the MHA was to lower monthly payments, reduce loan balances, or enable distressed borrowers to sell their homes before they're seized.

Treasury, in their benevolence after making this drastic decision, has also announced,"the withheld funds will be returned to the three banks once they make "needed improvements."

It's only a voluntary program and only God knows why. Was it Treasury's stated goal to help homeowners or just increase the dole to banks?

You have to ask another question, "When we bailed out the banking industry - once more - who was in charge of the governments monitoring team? Bud Selig? Treasury has long been criticized for it's lack of oversight.

Per one article, BANK OF AMERICA is the worst MHA performer of the big three. The bank is accused of having "poor internal controls for identifying and contacting homeowners. It's error rates were also more than four times Treasury's benchmark when calculating borrowers income."

Here's the kicker though: Treasury (not unlike Tony above) waited 19 months to take action.In 2009 they only confronted/threatened.

The article states,"Instead, The Obama administration spent the next year and a half defending itself against accusations levied by federal auditors, members of Congress, and consumer groups - that it was soft on big banks "abusive" behavior due to it's reluctance to follow through on the threat."

You think?

The Obama administration has no exclusivity when it comes to a political party willingly pandering to the absurd morality of the banking industry; and particularly BOFA.

Question: Who's watching the henhouse? And, why is it so damnably difficult to take positive action to put the Bank of America out of what appears to be a moral misery?

You gotta wonder, at which Christmas parties - and in which administration - did BOFA obtain all those revealing and embarassing photos?

If graft or blackmail is not fueling these mindless political decisions it has to be stupidity; and it may well be the reason this country's economy has been so slow to recover.

When will we finally come to the conclusion that we're improperly labelling the wrong institutions as "too big to fail", and, instead take the steps required to institute the AT&T/Bell approach with some of our financial institutions?

None of them is "too big to fail"! I'd start "substantial improvement" with examining legal means to disassemble The Bank of America.

Like Bennie the bar owner - BOFA is laughing in our face.