Comments on: Bernanke Defends Bear Stearns Bailout

Fed Chair Says Failure To Save Ailing Investment Bank Would Have Led To "Chaotic Unwinding"

[sgtrds]

The minions of this administration are always, always going to make whatever decision favors the rich. Period.

[yongamerica]

Ben Bernanke''s actions have only propped up bad failing businesses at the expense of the people who pay the majority of the Feds budget, the middle class. The ones who are struggling to feed their families and put gas in their car.

[yongamerica]

It''s called Capitalism. A company takes a risk and if their assessments are correct, they reap the reward, or take the loss.

It is not the business of our Federal Government, especially when it is trillions of dollars in debt, to bail out a company that has made billions in the past decades through speculative business deals. Any corporation that operates in a high risk business prudently has the cash to fall back on when it makes a dire mistake.
No No No No, this corporation is the vampire of business, put the stake in its heart.

[trishab4]

I just can''t believe it. Thirty billion dollars ($30,000,000,000) owed to the Federal Reserve, represent more than 200$ per active IRS-contributor. And that money is erased from the assets column of the Fed which is owned by all us, US fellow citizens.

As per Bernanke, had the Fed not bailed the Bear Sterns Bank, the whole system would have collapsed. Does that mean our finances are so stretched tightly, any financial mishap would collapse our system? Who Would be next? -SCUMS- ...... oh !yeah! and Uncle George goes spreading more money we can''t afford to Ukrain in order to win them into NATO. What an idiot!...

[forthepeopl1]

TIME TO SELL EVERYTHING AND TAKE ALL MONEY OUT, SELL YOUR 4O1S AND HIDE THE MONEY PEOPLE..

THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL THEY WAKE UP TO AMERICANS PLITE, STARVING,HOMELESS, AND OUR VETERANS.

[randynason]

What''s the matter? Wasn''t Bear Stearns a member of the Skulls? You can believe that if Stearns was a close friend of Bush, Cheney or any of the notorious members of the Republican *** Club, that they would have been helped out financially ASAP with big, heaping portions of taxpayers money.

[fstop100]

Has G.W.written all over it!

[bobnjersey]

[While members of the panel were generally supportive of the decisions, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., asked, "How big do you have to be to be too big to fail? ... Who let our financial system become so fragile that one failure jeopardizes the health of the entire system?" Bernanke said that if Bear Stearns had been allowed to fail, it would have led to a "chaotic unwinding" of Bear Stearns investments held by individuals and other financial institutions. ]

a very good question ... and yet it didn''t get answered.

[cvthree]

Our government is so inept. I wiah we could clean house and start over with a new bunch. We might even get a few months of responsible governing out of ''em before the lobbyists get to them.

[eskieville1]

I hope this is the end of Milton Freidman & supply side economics! Hopefully Freidmans attitude that the private sector and the market will correct all problems and is good,while government is bad and does nothing good has been destroyed. Anyone for privatizing Social Security?

[popstom1]

Everbody run do not walk and get your money out
of ever bank there is then watch the party

[popstom1]

remember the savings and lones that dady Bush bailed
out to save the two little BUSH''s

[popstom1]

Hears is your OIL taxes at work

[lochlan-2009]

and this will stop them from doing it again how?

Looks like it encourages them to do it again, maybe for even more next time.

[oscarez]

Insider trading. Thats what JP Morgan did with the help of the FED. Where is the SEC when you need them. Oh thats right, Bush is trying to do away with the SEC.

[newsreader2]

Should of been allowed to go DOWN. Bail out the rich, give more food stamps to the poor.

[antoniof123]

So the neo con party balls out a corportation and can''t find enough money to pay for children''s health care. What was it now about the same amount of money.

It is funny but the neo cons just want to do it their way and not the way of their masters the American people. Wonder how many of the 23 neo con Senators will not be going back to Washington in January.

[oscarez]

Word on the street is that the Bush family had all its oil money invested in Bear Stearns.

[oscarez]

There are no ethics in the banking world, only greed and the desire to become rich. To bad! Our founding fathers would be so proud. Now would be a good time to withdraw your savings and put in in your sock drawer.

[kofiananimus]

Oh, OK, I see now. The free market should stay completely free and unregulated unless a corporation makes foolish risks and falls on hard times... then the government should just hand them taxpayer money if their efforts to regain their footing fails. If a human being, on the other hand, hits hard times financially, well then tough luck. That seems fair sarcasm . Compassionate, free-market conservatism at its finest.