Alright, help me out here. For some, my earlier confessions of being a financial klutz remains true. I have no comprehension of figures like one billion dollars, much less one trillion dollars. I am slipping even further into the abyss with the release of the quarterly report of Bank of America. (NYSE BAC)

Apparently, famed magician David Copperfield is now on the B of A payroll, because the financials for the first quarter of 2009 for the banking giant are nothing short of magic. Come on David, you can tell us, was it sleight of hand, a great escape, or disappearing debt that resulted in B of A’s turnaround, to report a 2 + billion dollar “profit?”

According to the New York Times’ Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Bank of America booked a $2.2 billion gain by increasing the value of Merrill Lynch’s assets it acquired last quarter to prices that were higher than Merrill kept them.

“Although perfectly legal, this move is also perfectly delusional, because someday soon these assets will be written down to their fair value, and it won’t be pretty,” he said.

Investors reacted by throwing tomatoes. Bank of America’s stock plunged 24 percent, as did other bank stocks. They’ve had enough. Ah yes, it is slieght of hand it seems.

This latest trick, is on the heels of many other B of A problems. The investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office into a financial conspiracy, and the ongoing questions around how forthcoming B of A president Kenneth Lewis was when he signed off on bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives, just to name a few.

Here’s a financial institution that went from receiving an exorbitant amount of federal bail-out funds to reporting a profit of billions, before the ink of the signing of the loans was even dry.

Why did Bank of America adjust its figures to reflect this amazing turnaround? It may simply be more of Lewis’ arrogance, an effort of the B of A board of directors to put on a “happy face,” or an effort to redirect public and stockholders attention away from their own internal strife. Or just maybe it is some other type of leverage approach. All that i know for certain, (based on the history of B of A in recent times) is that the manipulation of their financial figures has an ulterior motive.

Whatever the reason or reasons may be, it stinks. You’re either broke or your not, and any paper manipulations only serve to raise both the ire and the suspicion of people like you and me.

Then again, maybe it’s all simply black magic. Whatever it is, those of us affected by these shenanigans can rest easy. Whatever the motive of B of A is will come to light under the intense scrutiny of transparency, right? …..Yea, right!