When you don't have billions upon billions in legal fees to cover, the world is your oyster.

After a year of layoffs, topless hecklers, people who won't stop yelling at him, jokes that sting, and continuing to "reap the benefits of what Countrywide sowed," things are looking up for Brian Moynihan. Bank of America Corp., the second- biggest U.S. lender, more than quadrupled Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan’s 2011 compensation to $8.09 million. Salary was unchanged at $950,000 while his stock awards surged to $6.1 million from zero the previous year, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender said today in a regulatory filing. The figures conform to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission guidelines. [Bloomberg]

And then decided that sticking with the "worst deal in the history of American finance," which has cost it $40 billion in cleanup so far, made them at least look like responsible adults, facing the consequences of their actions, rather than deadbeats trying to take the easy way out. Long before Sanford Weill suggested last week that big banks should split up, Bank of America executives and directors considered the idea and then decided against it, said people close to the nation's second-biggest bank by assets...Chief Executive Brian Moynihan and his team looked at a possible bankruptcy of Countrywide Financial Corp., the troubled mortgage operation it purchased in 2008. Management also studied whether it made sense to break off Merrill Lynch, the securities firm it purchased in 2009. Mr. Moynihan ultimately recommended to his board that neither action made sense. The company decided Merrill had become too big of a profit center and splitting it off could expose the brokerage firm to the sort of funding problems that killed off other Wall Street firms in 2008. Meanwhile, it felt bankruptcy of Countrywide might invite more legal and reputational troubles for Bank of America while exposing other subsidiaries to problems. Bank Breakups, Not So Fast [WSJ]