Bank of America to buy Countrywide

``In a conference call Friday, however, [Lewis] said the opportunity to purchase Countrywide at a significant discount -- roughly 31 percent of the company's common stock book value, or 2.9 times its 2009 projected earnings -- was indeed "very compelling."'' -- We can't wait to see how much liability BofA just bought. And what those 2009 earnings actually end up being (our guess: negative). For the record, we note Countrywide's market value dropped from about $23 billion to $4 billion in a year. Impressive.