Accountablity Series:See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

I am a big fan on "This American Life", and I would highly recommend everybody to listen to one of their most recent episodes - The Watchmen, which takes a hard look at mechanics of the recent/current economic meltdown. The program was structured on the basic premise - all the congressional investigations and hearings are just for the show, there is no interest by the members of Congress to get to the truth of the matter, and all Congressmen are interested in is to appear like they are working hard for the interest of the people.

Today I recalled the episode as I was watching Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding Bank of American - Merrill Lynch merger.

Yes, some of the questioning appeared to be tough, while some Congressmen pointed out inconsistencies between Mr. Bernanke's testimony, emails from Fed officials, and statements from BofA President, CEO and former Chairman Ken Lewis.

Yet, not a single person asked Fed Chairman about Merrill Lynch bonuses. Just a reminder to those who forgot - back in October 2008 Fed "gave" Merrill Lynch $10 billion and $15 billion to Bank of America. It also "gave" $20 billion plus additional guarantees to Bank of America to buy Merrill in January 2009. Sometime in February it became known that Merrill Lynch "gave" their executives $3.6 billion in bonuses despite having $27 billion loss. Awarding these bonuses shortly after the company received TARP "injection", pushing the date of the award just before BofA's purchase, and doing it before the staggering loss was made public - all this shows machinations bordering - or maybe even crossing - the legal line.

Besides AIG paying 100% on Goldman Sacks' insured assets, this was the quickest turnaround of taxpayers' money from the US Treasury into private pockets. Yet, not even a half-year later, Congressmen - and the media, and the public - have largely forgot about it.

It was reported that Tim Geithner knew about bonuses well before the information became public. Did Bernanke know about them and when did he learn about them?