Certain people still say that BA’s purchase of ML was a good idea.
The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $25 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion. via kos
That $4 billion in bonuses was from TARP funds.
Just sayin’