• by September 19, 2008

Like all [Karl Greenberg's] stories, but congratulations for thinking to call [marketing consultant] Jack Trout on Bank of America buying Merrill.

Frankly, I think Merrill is vastly overvalued. It's probably worth $20 billion -- not $50 billion -- because its brokerage business is hopelessly broken.

Now BofA has bought the largest mortgage holder and the largest brokerage. Lewis is either years ahead of his time and patently crazy -- or one of those visionaries smarter than the rest of us.

But for the sake of BoA depositors and shareholders (and employees, he definitely has some explaining to do.