Bear Stearns

With the interest rate cuts Tuesday the FED has now done 5 actions in ONE week!! UNPRECEDENTED in my memory (which unfortunately is longer than I wish it was)

Tues 3/11: Helicopter drop of $200 Billion Dollars into the banking system Fri 3/14: Helicopter drop of unknown amount of $$ into Bears Stearns via Chase Bank Sun 3/16: Helicopter drop of additional $30 Billion Dollars into Bears Stearns via Chase Bank Sun 3/16: 1/4 point rate cut Tues 3/18: 3/4 point rate cut

Now if this isn't a "Central Bank Panic" I do not think one exists. Obviously serious "Systemic Problems" in the US Financial System are driving the FED to do these multiple interventions so close together, and with all this liquidity and Government BAILOUTS being injected into the system everything financial in normal times would now be screaming towards the moon (FED rocket fuel money - direct liquidity injections, 3 in the last week alone all of which were of HUGE size, - usually finds it's way into the easiest investments to make first, bonds and stocks, and only later into the real economy). Enough said on that.

Next point: Bear Stearns paid out BILLIONS of dollars in Bonuses in January. If they had filed for bankruptcy then those Bonuses would have to been paid back to Bear Stearns under Bankruptcy Law.

VOILA ... since they did not file bankruptcy, but were instead "sold" for a mere $250 million (1/4 the value of their NYC office building) , the TAXPAYER, via the FED, ends up footing the MULTI BILLIONS DOLLARS in costs and expenses that would otherwise have been paid out of those returned Bonuses!!

In other words ... and I am somewhat LIVID on this one: The Taxpayers GAVE those high paid INDIVIDUAL Wall Street Bankers at Bear Stearns a departing PERSONAL GIFT OF SEVERAL BILLION DOLLARS by allowing this deal to be structured as it was!!

When was it the US Government wrote YOU a check for the MILLIONS of Dollars that some of those people (who caused their own problem in the first place) just got? (oh and this does NOT even include the "going away" money that JP Morgan will be paying many of those same people out of the $30 Billion Dollar Government payment they are receiving. There are various estimates I have read on how much more TAXPAYER money will be going to those people, ranging from $1 Billion Dollars to $3 Billion Dollars!!)

Wall Street Bankster Types FIRMLY believe in the COMMUNIST system, as first perverted in the ex USSR: From the "Lesser types" ALL that you can afford to pay, To the "Anointed types" ALL that you can get your arms around and carry away as you leave the premises.

Where do I sign up to get paid Millions if I succeed ... and Millions if I fail?

... now if I was a Wall Street Bankster what SMALL percentage of that am I expected to give to each of the two major political parties for this "FED insurance"? I will write that check right now...

This is CRONY CAPITALISM written in HUGE block bolded letters!!

If you didn't see or hear about Jimmy Rogers rant on this you owe it to yourself!!

My old Republican Party has definitely descended into a worse morass of special interest groups than the Democrats ... only this one is not based upon any "idealism" driving the special interests, just RAW BRIBERY via MONEY.

Looks Like Bear Stearns Execs Will Lose Some Bonus Money.

"Not only that, but these people are losing their life’s savings (employees own 30% of the company) and likely their jobs.

I am irate over the deal because the Federal Reserve didn’t step up to the plate and loan them the money to fight off the run on the bank they experienced, and then forced them to give away their business at a fire sale price to fat cat JPM. It looks like they wanted to make an example of Bear, or perhaps it was revenge for Bear not participating the Long Term Capital Management bailout a while back."