JPMorgan to buy Bear for $2 a share

[balover]

What a deal! Does this mean more is to come? Maybe time to move back to the States and go bargain hunting...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/jpmorgan_bear_stearns

 

[VMSmith]

As Baron Rothschild said, the time to invest in when blood is running in the streets. And we are nigh on there in the U.S.No need to go back to take advantage of it, though.

 

[bigbadwolf]

What a deal! Does this mean more is to come? Maybe time to move back to the States and go bargain hunting...

Only if you have friends in high places:

The Fed will provide special financing to JPMorgan Chase for the deal, JPMorgan Chase said.

Addendum: The Bear Stearns building alone is worth $1.2bn -- and JP Morgan gets that for its purchase price of $256m. Plus the Feds will underwrite any bad loans from Bear Stearns (at taxpayer expense of course). So it's all gravy for JP Morgan, with no downside. Talk about a government for the rich, by the rich, of the rich....

 

[RWS]

Quoting "bigbadwolf":
". . . . Talk about a government for the rich, by the rich, of the rich.... "
It's been this way for a long, long time. It's worse in Argentina, though. Come to think of it, is the situation different anywhere?

 

[bigbadwolf]

It's been this way for a long, long time. It's worse in Argentina, though. Come to think of it, is the situation different anywhere?

The European social democracies (but emphatically not England). Even countries like Argentina -- which have the same level of economic inequality as the USA at least are more responsive to popular sentiment than the USA. In terms of corruption and crony capitalism the United States now resembles a thord-world tinpot dictatorship.
In the USA, at least you had the New Deal and Great Society, which if not the real thing, at least provided the sham of a faux social democracy. But even those are gone and we're right back to the terms and conditions of the Gilded Age.
Addendum: Good article in the NYT on the disgraceful use of taxpayer money to bail out Bear Stearns:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/business/16gret.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=4a3f016adb366f6d&ex=1205899200
This is called "socialism for the rich."

 

[RWS]

Hmmm . . . . It's been a long time since I lived in Germany and (briefly) France, but I'd suggest that this corrupt cronyism is merely better disguised in some other lands. Sad to say, abuse of power may be an inescapable human tendency -- that's why laws and their enforcement are needed, aren't they?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Hmmm . . . . It's been a long time since I lived in Germany and (briefly) France, but I'd suggest that this corrupt cronyism is merely better disguised in some other lands. Sad to say, abuse of power may be an inescapable human tendency -- that's why laws and their enforcement are needed, aren't they?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This phrase of Acton arguably captures the difference between, say, France and the USA.

 

[RWS]

Who am I to argue with Lord Acton? But that truth shows exactly why the United States succeeded for so long in keeping corruption fairly limited -- there was far less power accorded to the central government, and most of that diffused among the numerous legislators.

 

[Smartypants]

The US finance system is about to implode.... deflation here we come!

I'm just waiting for the derivative bobble to burst. There we're talking trillions, trillions baby!

http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_01/hamilton091001.html Learn about the derivative weapons of mass destruction, as Warren Buffet calls it...

That article was written in 2001. 7. sept, just days before the great distraction of 9/11... That kept the debt monster going for some more years...

But now the consumer that asks the banks for more debt, is maxed out, can't take on more debt. The horse is dead and whipping it or shoving more food/debt into it's mouth don't help.

I read in another thread that some people were wondering where the "next" BA will be, it will be NY, but just alot more violent. I don't think former rich Americans will treat rich expats nice...

-s-

 

[RWS]

An interesting view of the future, SP. Possibly one that will come to pass -- though I'd anticipate that even newly impoverished Americans would treat the rich expat' well.