I thought accounting shenanigans were unsustainable

There is nothing like tax season to put things into perspective. I'm even madder than ever. So far, five financial institutions have shown 1st quarter 2009 profits due to hundreds of billions in bailout funds, government guaranteess for their bad assets, government guarantees for their bad loans, suspended mark to market rules allowing them to value the assets at a phantom price and a gullible electorate. I thought accounting shenanigans were unsustainable; I am very very wrong indeed.

The most egregious reporting came today when Bank of America claimed to have earned over $4,000,000,000 in 1st quarter profits, more profit than they made in the entire year of 2008, as if they did not recently receive over $25,000,000,000 in TARP funds and antoher $120,000,000,000 in loan guarantees. This is the biggest accounting b.s. heard around the world. How in the most bold face of lies can a bank show profits while being held afloat by the taxpayers. We are running with the mandate that some institutions are "too big to fail," and the bankers have moved beyond silently laughing at the gullible taxpayers to rubbing our faces in their government sanctioned ponzi-scheme-like balance sheets in broad daylight at our expense. What a life!

Thankfully, investors met Bank of America's outlandish claims with an even more resounding skepticism than I had anticipated so at least some people are paying attention. Instead we have fools throwing tea parties and protesting about taxation without representation as if George Bush didn't already spend their money while encouraging them to drink the fancy tea he made them believe they could afford. And now poor Obama in order to survive has surrended fully to the financial industry.

The general consensus that America's future depends on saving the financial sector was a battle cry of and by the entitled. Banks have an insatiable appetite for gains, ill-gotten or otherwise and they will take every penny the government has if it let's them.