

Bank of America feels just awful about it's role in packaging and selling a bunch of junk mortgages and inflating the economy with bad debt until the bottom fell out and more than 5 million people lost their jobs and more than 2.5 million went on food stamps, except for BofA's executives, who still got paid. So it's decided to pay $14 billion to BlackRock, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and a bunch of other extremely wealthy institutions to make up for it. Are we square?

BofA is setting aside $14 billion to settle claims that Countrywide Financial, the mortgage giant that it bought in 2008, lied about the value of billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgages it sold prior to the real estate meltdown. At least $8.5 billion of that will go to BlackRock—an asset management firm with a $3.6 trillion portfolio—the Bank of New York, PIMCO, and other huge institutional investors.

The rest will go to families who were forced into foreclosure after they lost their jobs as a result of the crisis sparked in part by Countrywide's negligence. Just kidding! The rest will go to other really wealthy investors.

[NYT, photo via Getty Images]