Geithner Says Goldman Would Have Failed, BofA Closer To Nami

If Goldman Sachs does indeed pay its top executives stock bonuses rather than cash ones, Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner should be somewhat appeased, since he's more than a bit ticked off at the prospects of Goldman and other banks paying top dollar to their bankers and traders this year. In an interview today, in addition to saying stop the in$anity of doling out big bonuses, Geithner noted that Lloyd I Ain’t Shooting Blankfein and Jamie Blood Dimon and the rest of the big banking chiefs still standing would have been reduced to ashes, like the Brothers Lehman, and now floating atop the sea somewhere near Somalia if the government hadn’t stepped in and starting bailing when it did.

And today, Bank of America, which either devoured without swallowing or was force-fed Merrill Lynch by that same U.S. government, raised its $19 billion and now is hours away from exiting TARP and supposedly a few days away from naming a new chief—it sure will be a lot easier to find someone willing to lead the gargantuan (mess that is) BofA now that the bank can pay the man or woman who will lead it in 2010 more than half a million a year for his or her troubles. Expect some serious courting being done by the BofA board over the weekend and, come early next week, the revelation of who will succeed this man:

AP Photo/Susan Walsh