Though not surprising, this is still a fairly damning revelation, in this morning’s Wall Street Journal:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. — a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA — according to testimony by Kenneth Lewis, the bank’s chief executive.

Mr. Lewis, testifying under oath before New York’s attorney general in February, told prosecutors that he believed Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill, the struggling brokerage giant. As part of his testimony, a transcript of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lewis said the government wanted him to keep quiet while the two sides negotiated government funding to help BofA absorb Merrill and its huge losses.

   At a minimum, you would think shareholders would have a right to be pretty enraged if material facts were covered up. And, a minor side point, it’s also against the law to withhold information from shareholders. Oh, the law–how quaint.

   But, if the allegations are true–and I have to say that it puts the average person in a difficult position…do you believe Ken Lewis (the head of the disastrously run Bank of America) or Henry "Emperor Caesar" Paulson (who tried to seize huge power with the first lame attempt at a bailout last year–remember, he wanted sole authority with no power of review over how the bailout money would be spent)–it spotlights, once again, how much we have to change the economic system and empower the people to have more of a hand in how the financial world operates (starting with reducing the power of the Fed).