Global recession?!

[Torque]

sheesh crack me up... the neo-cons sure did run the empire and its fiat currency into the dirt rather quickly... not to mention they used a chinese credit to do it.

[Holden McGroin]

Oh yeah neo-cons.

Neo-cons: nominated for the most overused term of the last 50 years.

[Torque]

true they're just right wing socialists... but that's a dirty word in the empire.

[Holden McGroin]

And there is not one liberal out there who conributed to this via Mastercard or a bad mortgage.

[myelo]

Yah, it DOES look like an S&L bailout, but the reasons for doing so were mostly to prevent a run on banks causing a 1929-ish domino effect, which would have cost heap much MORE money

A Bear bankruptcy would have been a mess no doubt (think Enron). But it would have been very beneficial by publicly exposing all the actions that led to this mess in the first place.

Instead, the Fed (in other words taxpayers) has put up $30 billion with a "b" in guarantees so JP Morgan can buy Bear, although it's closer to steal. By Friday, the fed was convinced they had to have a deal to avoid Bear bankruptcy before the markets opened Monday. JP Morgan went into the negotiations with what you always want -- the ability to walk away. The fed felt they had to have a deal and JP Morgan knew it. And Jamie Dimon rolled them up. He got Bear's best assets, including a $1.5 billion building and the taxpayers are on the hook for any future losses.

Meanwhile the message to everyone else is, If the going get's tough, it's OK to panic. The taxpayers will bail you out it you do.

Over the long run this is going to cost us much more than a Bear bankruptcy ever would.

[Chairboy]

I hate the idea of this bailout.... 

...but the national credit is so rickety right now that if B&S had bluescreened the way it appears it would have unassisted, by midday monday the entire credit system would probably have completely frozen.  Trillions of dollars in value lost overnight, the entire country might even have collapsed.

The market will find stable positions without interference, but the situation w/ B&S was already so rotted from the inside because of decades of government fiddling that it could have destroyed our banking systems.  With respect to the distinguished gentleman with the ammunition, that should be the contingency plan for when things go tango uniform.  But avoiding the TU situation should come first if possible.

The long term strategy is to divorce the government from the market in a structured fashion so that the economic machine can do what needs to be done.

[Ripsnort]

For the record, I am a bad American. 

Home paid for; Mortgage = 0, shop I am building paid for, car paid for, credit cards paid off monthly.

Total debt = 0

Bastige!    I still have 9 years left on the house. Then I retire 3 years later.

[Bodhi]

A Bear bankruptcy would have been a mess no doubt (think Enron). But it would have been very beneficial by publicly exposing all the actions that led to this mess in the first place.

Instead, the Fed (in other words taxpayers) has put up $30 billion with a "b" in guarantees so JP Morgan can buy Bear, although it's closer to steal. By Friday, the fed was convinced they had to have a deal to avoid Bear bankruptcy before the markets opened Monday. JP Morgan went into the negotiations with what you always want -- the ability to walk away. The fed felt they had to have a deal and JP Morgan knew it. And Jamie Dimon rolled them up. He got Bear's best assets, including a $1.5 billion building and the taxpayers are on the hook for any future losses.

Meanwhile the message to everyone else is, If the going get's tough, it's OK to panic. The taxpayers will bail you out it you do.

Over the long run this is going to cost us much more than a Bear bankruptcy ever would.

Well said Myelo.  Well said.

[Arlo]

Oh yeah neo-cons.

Neo-cons: nominated for the most overused term of the last 50 years.

And to think ... last week I thought you all voted that "chickenhawk" had that honor. I suspect "traitor" and "patriot" were certainly in the running.

[Xargos]

But it would have been very beneficial by publicly exposing all the actions that led to this mess in the first place.