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....All this led to the sub prime collapse. I hope to God we are past the worst, won't comment on Lehman, but stand firmly behind Bernanke. The sub prime mess spilled beyond commercial banks, investment banks and bond insurers. It ran all the way to the municipal markets where there were nearly a trillion dollars of bonds at risk of downgrades.

Exactly. And ALL those problems still exist. You haven't seen nothing yet in California, for starters. There's untold numbers of people who have still not yet defaulted on their mortgage payments. It'll take several months before that all begins to have additional severe effects on the economy/market. Is it 3 months or so before lenders can go after people for default?

As far as the AMBAC & MBIA ratings...I don't believe their joke ratings (which were bought and paid for) have been re-evaluated to honest ratings (and will not be AAA any longer). So...beyond the ratings currently in place...who will truly put their trust into whatever ratings AMBAC or MBIA places in the future? Had they given accurate and honest ratings....how many of these junk ratings would have been given AAA?

The banks will continue to have announce write-downs. And as, no doubt, many will seek to raise capital by transferring at least some assets into actual values (and we are looking at way less than what they could otherwise get...because credit has now become more restricted, and corporations/people are likely less able and/or willing to spend their monies on properties, etc.), they will continue to be worth less and less and more and more banks/corporations continue to try to dump their assets. (Meredith Whitney also spoke to this problem....they will be competing against each other to get rid of these assets...this will only further reduce what they can sell it for; and to less and less interested and/or qualified buyers.)

All these problems haven't gone away because of the Bear Stearns "deal." And the economy isn't going to "get better" because of Bear Stearns, either. It's way beyond just "BS".