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Bear Stearns’ Bailout by the Fed, JPM: A Century Old Conspiracy

The banking industry is the only industry allowed to legally fix prices.....

The banking scandals keep getting bigger. Something needs to be done. Perhaps the 5-20th biggest banks need to be broken up. Also foreign ownership of the banks should be questioned if the FED continues to exist.

Bears Stearns was a corrupt organization - creating and selling CDOs as AAA rated, when in reality only about 10% of the assets in the average CDO being "legitimately" AAA rated. What BS.

Bear Stearns Should Go for More Than $6 - Barron's

Even at $2/share BSC is getting bailed out. They had a massive margin call - they reported that they have $43 billion worth of garbage MBS. There is no more value left in their account. With the $43 billion in MBS, BSC probably has negative equity. If any of us small investors got a margin call on all our holdings, because our account had gone to zero, we can't tell our brokerage to please not liquidate our assets since we have a house that's probably worth $500,000... Why should BSC be treated better than us? Taxpayers are footing the bill now for all the risk which BSC created in the first place by creating those CDOs and ridiculously leveraging over 30X.

If anything, the government/taxpayers should be getting that $2-$2.50/share for taking on this huge amount of risk, which BSC created.

BSC singlehandedly is the worst offender in this subprime mess. BSC has severely tarnished America's business reputation, and they are a huge reason why much of the market is illiquid right now.

BSC shareholders deserve nothing. Without the taxpayers immediately taking on this $30 billion in garbage MBS, the company is DOA. Punish foolish BSC shareholders who have known about the precarious leveraged situation at BSC for the past year, don't screw the taxpayers.

Why Bear for $5 May Make Sense

So the bondholders only have to write options for about 30-40% of the float to virtually ensure the sell to JP.
The float is 115,810,000 shares.

So they have to write puts and calls for at least 40 million shares? Completely unrealistic... What is the daily volume on the total # of options for BSC?

My guess is that the government is going to have to somehow force BSC into some sort of bankruptcy if the resistant shareholders hold their ground. If I were a BSC shareholder, I wouldn't settle for a weenie $2...might as well force the bondholders and banks to compromise a better offer.

IMO, the government is going to have to force a quick bankruptcy to end all the potential litigation quickly.

28/36- Why House Prices Must Fall

One thing that will really suffer by the decline in housing prices is the taxes cities and counties reap from new home building. In Seattle, one needs $200,000 just to pay for building permits and other various fees, before anything is built. These fees have been skyrocketing this past decade.

Property taxes certainly will drop as well.

Now that there will be a decline in this property tax base, cities are going to start scrambling for new tax revenues.

Did JP Morgan Overpay For Bear Stearns?

Quoting one's self is a big ego booster!

JP Morgan is giving the FED the crap holdings.

The FED is doing exactly what it was created to do: protect JP Morgan interests.

If this deal doesn't work out, the FED can always bail out JP.

Google "Fiat Empire".

The Bear Necessities: Law of the Jungle Rules

I was short BSC at the beginning of its decline this past year, but I didn't hold onto my short - too volatile with too many major short squeezes...

I haven't checked lately, but BSC had $48 billion in subprime holdings about 9 months ago. They were also leveraged at 23X before the subprime meltdown occurred. So I knew they were basically insolvent 9 months ago...

But FED officials constantly hinted on CNBC that they wouldn't allow BSC or Lehman to go under. So just like how the big banks are protected by the FED and immune to any investment mistake they make, I realized that BSC was protected. So just like the big banks' shareholders stock prices are protected from BK, so is BSC share price from that dreaded $0.

I think the fear of the rumor that BSC was going insolvent and collapsing has really been a huge weight on the equities market. Now that BSC has been publicly shielded by the FED from insolvency and that this splinter has finally been removed from the market's hand, I would think that a pretty significant short squeeze is coming to this market over the next 3-5 days. The VIX at 31+ seems ready to top out on Monday morning if it hasn't already.