Bear Stearns as Wall Street's whipping boy

Jaime Diamon JP Morgan's CEO strode confidently through the hallowed but silent halls of Bear Stearns building on New York Madison Avenue. He came as conquerer, and the 5th largest investment bank lay at his feet as though he were Titus carrying off to Rome the booty of the looted second temple in Jerusalem and was on the point of exiling Bear's 14.000 employees into the exile of unemployment.
He bought Bear for a risible us$248m, by wiping out the stock options of its employees and burning its institutional investors and insiders. But that is another story since a fierce campaign is in formation to challenge the buyout which has left blood everywhere. Diamon is not alone he had the Fed as a willing accomplice and now lender of last resorts for Wall Street's fragile big banks who have hid debt owing to those creative instruments known as CDO, ABS, and the like. Which simply shows how bad the economic climate is under Herr Bush's minions, that is, the toilet attendent Bernanke and the court jester at the Treasury Henry Hank Paulson who gave up his empire at Goldman Sachs to tame America's market. Let's laugh out loud, juding by his klewless performance as Herr Bush's money man.
Bernanke could've saved Bear from a highway robbery and collapse but the collusion of Herr Bush and Wall Street was necessary to teach Bear a lesson and send a warning to investment bankers world over. You do not mess too much with our wealth and our standing.
Bear didn't get the Fed's us$2bn bailout but JP Morgan did, and JPM will lend it to Bear who will never repay it once it is absorbed into the mighty house of Morgan. Bear will firm up JP Morgan's weak asset management and investment arms for sure, and this sleight of hand will spare JPM from opening its books. Although JPM says it is homesafe from outstanding subprime debt and its fallout, rumour from inside JPM says the bank has a 9 figure exposure on that count...think of it...a multi hundred billions of debt!
So here we are again, the toiletroom attendent and the slick JP Morgan CEO whistling and laughing all the way to the bank with the rate or taxpayers monies which they won't ever repay.
Nonetheless the weakness of the US house of finance under Herr Bush's direction has humbled the mighty superpower and put enough grease under its wheels to slip rapidly on the road towards a second rate power. That is a lesson to learn from the Bear Stearns hijacking.