My thoughts exactly.
Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.
The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. They have lost “confidence” in each other, you see, because none of these oh-so-wise captains of the universe have any idea what kinds of devalued securities sit in one another’s portfolios.
As Chomsky says, more often than not capitalism means ”free markets for thee, not for me.” So much for the concept of moral hazard.  Every time the “Masters of the Universe” innovate themselves into financial armageddon it’s taxpayers like me that have to make sure they don’t have to face any scrutiny (in Bear Stearns case that means litigation) for frittering away billions.
-mg Â
March 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Interesting that the first class action suit — by BSC shareholders no less — was filed yesterday. So who was it that the Fed bailed out? This is a test.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
The Fed (taxpayers) financing a buyout of BSC by JP Morgan meets my criteria of a bail-out. “So much for moral hazard”…bingo!
March 18th, 2008 at 10:12 am
As if Sam Molinaro is going to have to pony up cash in the event of a judgment!
March 18th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
This isn’t a bail-out in the way you guys are using the term.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080314/bear_stearns.html
The Feds are extending the same kind of credit already offered to banks. And since it is a loan, it has to be paid back. Which is considerably different from just handing out taxpayer money.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:36 am
No one is going to be driving round the Bear Stearns shareholders homes to see what their counters are made of or to check that their children are in public school education. That’s because when the very rich get government welfare, conservatives sit back and applaud: it’s a conservative principle that the very rich deserve government handouts. Conservatives never complain about Halliburton snd other war profiteers feeding at the government trough.
I’ll note for Sharon’s benefit that it’s well known: if you owe the bank a few thousand, you have a problem. If you owe the bank several million, the bank has a problem.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:22 am
And since it is a loan, it has to be paid back.
If you think there won’t be default-o-rama on this stuff, I got a bridge I wanna sell you – read up yr history, S
March 19th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Exactly, see comment #3 for further instruction. And the government isn’t “loaning” the money out.
>Which is considerably different from just handing out taxpayer money.
Sure, they’re just printing money as fast as they can so they can devalue the accumulated bad debt (or hallucinated “wealth”, depending on how you want to look at it) of those genius Wall Street Playaz. It’s debt forgiveness via inflation.
March 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
And since it is a loan, it has to be paid back.
Is that an attempt at humor?
Big Bad Government is stepping in to prop up a private company that, because of their own idiotic decisions, is now financially insolvent. Is there anything more here that needs to be said? It’s a simple lesson in double-standards, ye who wish to be called “conservative”.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Big Government is a good thing when conservative media organs tell us to think so
April 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Wrong again, Sharon:
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/04/treasury-agrees-to-absorb-any-losses-to.html