It Is The Bank of AMERICA After All

Just nationalize the lot of them and end this.

Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank, is seeking billions of dollars of government aid after it realized that credit losses at Merrill Lynch & Co, which it bought on January 1, were much higher than expected, a person familiar with the matter said.

A spokesman for the bank declined to comment. Bank of America has already received $25 billion under the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. The bank is scheduled to report its quarterly results on January 20.

"Bank of America appears to be in meltdown," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors in Rochester, New York, which owns the bank's shares. "But what is the government going to do, and how big will it be? Everybody's assuming the worst."

Keith Davis, a bank analyst at Farr, Miller & Washington in Washington, expressed concern that Bank of America may have grown too fast, buying Merrill and the nation's largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial Corp, since June.