Bank of America has been one of the hardest hit banks during the credit crisis and recession.  And Ken Lewis should be the banking CEO that gets hit the hardest (in the face), but no on is stepping up to the plate... investors did split his title... he is now only CEO instead of Chairman and CEO.  Way to go.

B of A has received more than $45 billion in government aid already and the stress test revealed that they may need to raise as much as $34 billion more.  The bank will have the chance to raise the capital on its own before going to the government again, but coming up with $34 billion from private investors is no easy task.

Bank of America could also shed assets if needed, such as a portion of its stake in China Construction Bank. A lockup provision expires tomorrow that would allow Bank of America to sell about a third of its stake and hopefully fetch around $8 billion.  They'll probably sell it back to China... they pretty much own everything anyway.

Read more here.

Out of the original $700 billion, only $109.6 billion is left in the government's financial bailout fund.

The Treasury Dept. expects the fund tol be boosted over the next year by about $25 billion as institutions like Goldman Sachs pay back the fund.  That would bump the total up to $134.6 billion, still relatively small when looking at the situation. 

The details behind the numbers of the bailout were made available in a letter from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel.  A letter...who writes letters these days?  At least use some email, no wonder the government is so inefficient.

The Treasury has already given over $115 billion to AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America and the automakers.  Now it's looking like they will need more.  The $109.6 billion is what's left to provide additional funds to the auto companies and deal with any of the nation's largest banks found to need more cash after the "stress tests" are completed at the end of this month.  That's ALL that's left at this point, unless an emergency bailout bill gets sent to congress and somehow passes...

The Obama administration already tried to get more money in a bill sent to congress requesting $750 billion, but lawmakers said there's no way they'll approve boosting the fund.  Thank goodness... We're in huge amounts of debt and trying fix it by spending more money...this seems a little backwards to me.  I agree that you need to help out the banks to ensure there isn't massive failure, but how is the US government going to pay all this money back when there's additional money needed for social security, pensions and actually running a government.