By well meaning escaping a MAJOR recession if not outright depression.
Wading carefully into this conversation is a bit dangerous, but there were days over the past two months where I felt we were on the verge of global financial collapse. I knew of Bear’s troubles and of others. Had the Fed not arranged the merger and simply let Bear fall, that might have been really ugly, uglier than any of you can imagine. Money market funds would have possibly broken the dollar, derivative defaults everywhere and serious panic that the markets could absorb the hit. But equally as bad would have been to not open the discount window to others. While it philosophically cuts me to the bone to admit we needed government intervention, we were right on the edge of a cliff and Bernanke made the right call. Flame away.