Taxpayers Assume Burden As Bear Gets Bailed Out

Wall Street investors couldn't applaud enough last week when the Federal Reserve rode in and rescued investment bank Bear Stearns from bankruptcy.

But now, Main Street wants to know what justifies a taxpayer-backed bailout of the investment bank, especially with no congressional oversight. And, skeptics wonder, why undertake such a plan when it doesn't help the mom-and-pop store struggling down the road or the thousands of Americans who might lose their homes?

Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland, blames Fed chairman Ben Bernanke for not getting more concessions out of the banks. Morici said the banks acted irresponsibly in who they issued loans to, and that the Fed should have forced them to agree to tighter regulations before moving forward with a bailout.

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Comments

[GerryS]

Let the rich eat cake, to the masses, nothing-

[elpollo]

Maybe it's time for the Great Decider to call a Jubilee and free all the slaves and mortgage holders.

[Shaddup]

Republican govt.=Privatize profit, socialize debt.

[Buckywunder]

Yep, otherwise known as socialism for the rich.

[LivingStardust]

Screwed. Oh, sorry! Must be in the form of a question. What is "screwed", Alex? I'll take "Rigged Systems" for $1000 . . .

[WIpatriot]

Hoo-boy, I hope they printed enough shares to give each taxpayer a share....

[wm1066]

Taxpayers didn't 'assume burden', our politician on both sides gave it to us. They could have stopped this but they played politics instead. And now the middle class is getting wiped out while these high rollers get a free ride, and don't have to go to jail. Our leaders are in thier pocket.
Our Representatives are signing our names to this debt.

[rmcneal103]

The taxpayers of the United States need to understand that under any Republican administration, responsibility is for individuals not corporations. Corporate welfare is the name of the game.

[elpollo]

What a ridiculous headline. Bear didn't get bailed out. Bear and its stockholders were sacrificed and dismembered for the benefit of other big four investment cartels. How does getting $2, or even $10, on the dollar represent a bail out of a company? I don't know whether the stupidity of this journalism is intentional deception or just ignorance. Of course, its the American taxpayer who took the royal screwing. Now if Bernanke publicly converted his entire personal portfolio to Treasuries and then traded them 1 for 1 for BS's mortgage SIV's, then I would be impressed. I'm not so impressed with him doing it with $29,000,000,000 of our money.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

$2 is greater than 0. I guess they didn't teach you that in elementary school.

[outnow]

Why don't we just bail out everyone. Just set priorities. The poor need it most now. Keep doing it until the distribution of income and wealth are reshaped in American to pre-Reagan contours. Turn about is fair play. Imagine jobs and infrastructure a "we" society.

[Sundialsvc4]

I think that not only should a large number of bankers be sent to jail, but a great many "civil officers" of this government need to be impeached to go to jail along with them. Whatever this present situation may be, it's not "news." It's been brewing for years and ignored for years, and yet it goes by very-familiar names: fraud, usury, embezzlement. The only difference now is the number of zeros involved. So what are we supposed to do about it? Oh yeah, wink-wink-­borrow-win­k-wink a few more trillion(!) dollars right out of "the thin-air box where money now comes from," throw it at the problem and the problem goes away? No. The root cause of the problem is and always has been that since the early 1980's greedy people have been drinking the kool-aid that says that money grows right out of thin-air instead of being earned through the production of goods, and the kool-aid that says that anything remotely labeled "national defense" must be an over-arching priority at the exclusion of all else. Those ideas were dead-wrong. Ronald Reagan is both dead and dead-wrong. It's time to get this country back to real-work again, not throwing leprechaun dollars at excuses.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Oh yea socialism is really really bad.