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Paulson Defends Bear Stearns' Rescue ( Rescue? but they needed liquidation)
Forbes ^ | 03.16.08, 12:16 PM ET | Forbes.com Staff

Posted on 03/16/2008 9:03:57 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson did the rounds of America's Sunday morning TV shows to talk up the U.S. economy, promote confidence that financial markets would get through their present troubles and reassure a skeptical American public that the Bush administration was on top of the situation.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Late Edition" on CNN, Paulson defended the Federal Reserve's decision Friday to come to the rescue of Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC -

news - people ), the Wall Street investment bank most hurt by losses on trading in mortgage-related securities (See " Bear On The Bubble"). He said that in the risk to financial stability outweighed his concern about moral hazard.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bearstearns; bush; economy; endofthedollar; paulson; stpatricksmassacre; subprime; treasury
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Remember the Washington Mutual commercials making fun of all the old stodgy bankers? Maybe we need to go back and have some of those guys running the banks.


21 posted on 03/16/2008 10:04:05 PM PDT by sharkhawk (Here come the Hawks)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Yeah, but Bear Stears did get effectively liquidated today...


22 posted on 03/16/2008 10:10:31 PM PDT by HarryCaul
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To: NormsRevenge
Thanks, that is a risky scheme.

Not as risky as it once was! Literally - this sort of activity on behalf of the fed goes directly into the mathematical models used to gauge risk. With every such action, the associated terms in the stochastic differential equations are modified in favor of accepting shakier manipulations. We are just watching that spring get wound up tighter and tighter.

23 posted on 03/16/2008 10:13:48 PM PDT by M203M4 (True Universal Suffrage: Pets of dead illegal-immigrant felons voting Democrat (twice))
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To: Shady
Ain’t gonna be pretty today in Lower Manhattan. Hold on.

Monday morning's theme song on Wall Street: "It's Raining Men."

24 posted on 03/16/2008 10:21:39 PM PDT by BlazingArizona
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; the invisib1e hand; NormsRevenge; SierraWasp; Grampa Dave

“Fed is printing more money....”

But is it printing enough?

Let’s think about this a minute. Some complain that the fed is injecting too much money in the economy. But how much money has been “burned” out of the economy by all the losses that home owners, banks, shareowners, etc. have sustained. I would venture to guess that it’s well over a trillion... and counting - all gone from the economy. So if the fed is injecting money to keep the current situation from destroying even more wealth, is that bad? In fact, should it do even more? Do we want another great depression? Check out Friedman’s “Free to Choose” - he claims the depression happened because the fed did not do ENOUGH.

I really don’t know what the answer is. But it’s something I never hear addressed. I imagine given that we had a bubble, things were overvalued and that may have to be flushed out of the system, but as the bubble pops I hope we can do something so we don’t end up with the gum down our throat and choke on it!

This money thing is very complex... if someone in FRdom understands this stuff, I would sure like to hear from him/her.


25 posted on 03/16/2008 10:52:54 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

2 dollars a share??? liquidation? what is the difference?


26 posted on 03/17/2008 12:52:30 AM PDT by Fred (Looking Forward to Impeaching the other Clinton)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; ex-Texan
"Fed is printing more money....

If the current currency trending continues, the ink the Fed uses to print the American dollar -- will be worth more, maybe a lot more.

Dollar plunges to fresh lows against euro, yen --again!


27 posted on 03/17/2008 1:24:37 AM PDT by M. Espinola (Freedom is not 'free'.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; ex-Texan
"Fed is printing more money....

If the current currency trending continues, the ink the Fed uses to print the American dollar -- will be worth more, maybe a lot more.

Dollar plunges to fresh lows against euro, yen --again!


28 posted on 03/17/2008 1:25:38 AM PDT by M. Espinola (Freedom is not 'free'.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Fed is printing more money....

for all the extremely pedantic posters who have clogged up other threads on Friday with their sophmoric obsession with allegory-free postings it is hereby stipulated that the term "print money" is used herein as a convenient shorthand for the process of creation of additional debt based fiat money via the mechanism of ledger entries by existing member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and is not meant to imply actual printing of physical federal reserve notes by the US Treasury in every instance.

29 posted on 03/17/2008 2:47:33 AM PDT by Jack Black
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To: M. Espinola; Travis McGee; TigerLikesRooster; Pelham; Calpernia; the invisib1e hand; ...
Bear Stearns Insiders Unloaded 27,316,339 Shares in February !


Bear Stearns Stock Fell Dramatically Over the Weekend


Stock Sold for $ 2 Billion Profit at on February 14th

Insiders unloaded 27,316,339 Shares for about $ 70 + per share on February 14, 2008. For a profit of about $ 2 Billion ! ! ! !

What did they know and when did they know it ?

Bernanke and Paulson have a lot of questions to answer.

30 posted on 03/17/2008 9:15:54 AM PDT by ex-Texan (Matthew 7: 1 - 6)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
He said that in the risk to financial stability outweighed his concern about moral hazard.

And this liberal approach to fiscal policy is exactly why we are in the mess we are in.. Corporations get whatever they want, and we get screwed. Can't let them collapse, heaven forbid, they might not fund our next election campaign.

31 posted on 03/17/2008 9:19:11 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Did you see on TV, Paulson was vigorously shaking his head “no no no” side to side, while saying our financial system is sound etc.

The conflicted body language was amazing. It’s worth watching.


32 posted on 03/17/2008 9:28:49 AM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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