LEWIS' LAST LAUGH

BANZAI7 NEWS--Bank of America Corp. owes Kenneth D. Lewis, who is quitting as its embattled chief executive at year's end, $68.8 million on his way out the door.

Lewis accumulated that amount in his 40 years of work at Bank of America and predecessor companies.

David M. Schmidt, a senior consultant at executive compensation firm James F. Reda & Associate although the public may object to the high pay that bank executives have earned over the years, Schmidt said, there is nothing unusual about any of the pieces of Lewis' exit package.

And therein lies the problem with our system of finance, executive compensation and corporate accountability. Screwless Lewis builds a gigantic house of cards for his shareholders and for the piece de resistance blows the whole thing up in a vanity merger with Merrill the Subprime Blimb. He walks with $68.8 million and his shareholders are left holding the bag. Who cares if he accumulated it over 40 years. How many billions of shareholder equity went poof under his leadership?

Meanwhile the take home salary of the President of the largest bank in Japan is reportedly about USD $300,000.