<p>What chutzpah. NPR doing a good number on them now.</p>
<p>Chutzpah indeed! </p>
<p>Bear Sterns senior management is attempting to obfuscate the matter in the hope of obscuring their obvious and full culpability in this colossus failure. And the intended audience for these self serving statements are their own rank and file subordinates that have lost so much</p>
<p>The Fed deserves <i>some</i> blame for abandoning sound monetary policy, and creating a corporate environment based on the limitless expansion of credit and the acquisition of unbacked fiat notes.</p>
<p>Any financial concern would have howled to the heavens of the Fed had tried to restrict new investment vehicles. Some of the other banks did not get themselves in the same trouble because they were not stupid.</p>
<p>Vyse: RONPAULRONPAULRONPAULRONPAUL THE FED IS EVIL.</p>
<p>Even if that particular critique of the monetary system had any validity in and of itself (it doesn’t) it still has nothing to do with the housing bubble. Nothing at all.</p>
<p>^^well, I don’t know about that. Suggest you read this:<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/476071-ny-times-can-t-grasp-credit-crisis-join-club.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/476071-ny-times-can-t-grasp-credit-crisis-join-club.html</a></p>
<p>Sorry, but I gotta go with Bear on this one. Greenspan kept rates too low for too long and this resulted in a bubble in housing. People bought housing as an increasing investment, but it did not turn out that way because the fed raised rates too high (remember the inverted yield curve). This tipped us into a recession. Bear Stern didn’t violate any laws. They held the same type of assets that others held. Unfortunately, those assests could not be priced in a market with an irrational fed.</p>
<p>Anyone banking on never ending price increases above inflation is a fool. The Fed will always overshoot a bit on rates–it’s a blunt tool. You have to factor that into your thinking. Dumb lending to dumber.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why Bear is blaming the Fed. They levered up way over their head, and when they were reaping all the profits before this debacle they never bothered to send a check to the Fed. Why should the Fed bail them out now? </p>
<p>I feel sorry for the employees who own about 30% of Bears stocks and all the other investors.</p>
<p>Where is Eliot Spitzer when we need him.</p>
<p>We got an update on our consolidated PLUS student loan that was variable until 2006. Rate reduction of 1% , </p>
<p>2.875%, 23 years remaining, fixed.
worked for us. Play the game.</p>
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<p>Too late to help Bear stop a run on the investment bank. If Bear has a complaint against the Fed, it could be that the Fed didn’t get this program up and going in time to help Bear combat the run.</p>
<p>“Bear Stern didn’t violate any laws.”</p>
<p>So? It’s 100% legal to make bad investments and go broke. People do it every day. That doesn’t make it the government’s fault.</p>
<p>If the fed had not changed the rules that Sunday night the rest of the investment banks would have fallen like dominoes and there might have been a panic. Bear just happened to be the first and the Fed wanted to make an example of them. The Fed could have just changed the rules an hour earlier and let Bear come to the Fed for the money.</p>
<p>
Can’t say I understand your point. The fed isn’t the government even though it is called federal.</p>
<p>Spot-on opinion piece in NY Times by Paul Krugman</p>
<p>Partying Like Its 1929</p>
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</p>
<p>[Link</a>](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/opinion/21krugman.html?em&ex=1206244800&en=c854dcd802a071c6&ei=5087 ]Link”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/opinion/21krugman.html?em&ex=1206244800&en=c854dcd802a071c6&ei=5087 )</p>
<p>toblin, that is a very nice link. Thanks.</p>
<p>This reaction seems a bit like a teenager who just crashed the family vehicle by taking it for a drunken joy-ride.</p>
<p>Teen (screaming at parents): You shouldn’t have left the keys lying around!</p>
<p>Those who invest with IBs are supposed to be sophisticated able wealthy investors and should know better. They are not people off the street investing the milk money.</p>
<p>Respectfully barrons, I think you are missing the greater point. This is not about “qualified investors.” Given the current financial crisis, every citizen in this county has both an unwitting and unrepresented interest in all “IB’s”. Recent events events sadly demonstrate the profoundly negative affect of this financial paradigm on all citizens.</p>
<p>That is all after the fact stuff. Obviously it has had a negative impact on everyone. But the people running the shows are to blame–not the government. These are not small time folks investing and they should have known what they were buying too–too much trust in the scummy IBankers.</p>