Current Events: Banks show profits for first two months of 2009, refuse more bailout help

Since the bailout issue is sooo politically explosive we have avoided it like the plague, but good news on a national level is always welcome.

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank, expects to make money for the full year after posting a profit for January and February, Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said.

“We have been profitable for the first two months of the year,” Lewis told reporters after a speech to the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club in Boston today. “We expect to be profitable” in 2009. In his speech, Lewis said the bank may earn $50 billion this year, measured before taxes and provisions, and the company won’t need more federal aid.

Lewis becomes the third CEO at the nation’s biggest banks to report his company was profitable in the early part of this year, joining JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. He has promised the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank will get through the credit crunch without more help from U.S. taxpayers.
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