So I was mildly surprised when Wells Fargo announced their Q1 profits, a little skeptical when JPM did the same, in utter disbelief when Citi did so, and now Bank of America’s $4.25b profit claim has me convinced they are just out-and-out lying and making  up numbers.  What’s next, record profits at Washington Mutual?  And as it happens, I’m right to think these numbers are pretty meaningless.

Credit-loss provisions more than doubled to $13.38 billion and climbed from the prior quarter’s $8.54 billion, while the net charge-off rate rose to 2.85% from 1.25% a year earlier and 2.36% in the fourth quarter. Credit-card losses increased to 8.62% from 5.19% and total nonperforming assets jumped to 2.65% from 0.9% in the prior year and 1.96% in the fourth quarter.

So, yeah, more FAIL is definitely on the horizon unless some more last-minute accounting rule changes allow banks to count their credit card losses as if they were paid off in full.  Since BAC is the second-largest credit card issuer in the country (behind Chase), a 3.5% jump in losses in that division is no joke.  Well, it’s no joke for BAC, it’s definitely a joke here.  In fact, while I’m sure a lot of attention will be paid to the net profit number, the real tale is in the other numbers – more bad loan assets, less credit card revenue, and so forth and so on, because no one has a job anymore and can’t pay back the bank and the profits this quarter were largely because of Merrill and just aren’t sustainable, but screw it because good news is good news so whatever.

Seemingly no one else is buying this news either; BAC stock futures are down and the cost of CDSs on the company’s debt went up, after the earnings report was released.  Oh, and everyone still wants Ken Lewis fired.  This is sort of like when the Ravens won the Super Bowl and Trent Dilfer got the boot in the offseason, because he fails at life and his job.