Forum Post: Bank America scams a few more $billion from taxpayers while OWS chants

Late on Tuesday night this little story flashed up on Bloomberg: "Bank of America hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

''The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren't authorised to speak publicly."

Translating from "Bloomglish" into English: a cabal of powerful "counterparties" (read banks) had, with the connivance of the US Fed, shifted a load of derivatives (probably the gnarliest credit default swaps on their books) from that part of the bank not backed by taxpayers to that part of the bank which was backed by taxpayers.

While the denizens of Occupy Wall Street mill about outside their windows, the doyens of Wall Street have blithely orchestrated another leg-up from taxpayers, hand-in-glove with their pals on the privately-owned US Fed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-regulators-over-moving-merrill-derivatives-to-bank-unit.html