WASHINGTON (CNN) – Key senators are asking questions about the recent pennies-on-the-dollar sale of investment firm Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan Chase was able to buy the troubled Wall Street firm after the Federal Reserve backed it with billions in taxpayer dollars.
onomic times are tight on Main Street as well as Wall Street, and we have a responsibility to all taxpayers to review the details of this deal," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, said in a statement announcing a request for information.
Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
From CNN Politics
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why? they won't do anything since the Federal Reserve corruptly bailed them and Carlyle out. and then the Fed goes on to pump $200 billion to the banks. thanks for continuing to devalue the dollar. jerks.
Will the morons in Congress even understand it once it's explained to them? I doubt it. They're really looking for a photo op or a fresh opportunity to extort campaign money from lobbyists.
This is all going a bit too fast and smoothly. Something stinks. A lot of corruption and theft is getting swept under the rug.
So, we do have a social safety net in this country after all - too bad it only catches billionaires! Remember the mantra of the right wing:
Socialize the Risk, Privatize the Profit.
Well, they won a big one here. Our taxpayer dollars were used to hand over a failed bunch of greedy creeps to another bunch of greedy creeps for a price that is equivalent to theft. Do you think we unwilling investors will see any upside from this sneaky "investment?" H-E-double-hockey-sticks, no! The risk is socialized and the profit is privatized. See how that works.
Just more of the old Bush, old McCain, old Clinton style of doing politics as usual. Does this really surprise anyone?
The bailouts proposed shows just how far this country has gone from our past since from the founding fathers up until the creation of "social security" this nation believed in personal accountability and reliability. Now we have a country that believes in handouts and bailouts for all kinds of personal acts of stupidty. Maybe if we still taught people to be accountable for their own actions instead of always blaming someone else we wouldn't be in this mess that the government created.
Better ask who's next too, Senators. If the Fed stands ready to bail out all those dumb bankers who are "too big to fail", it may end up being the only bank dumb enough to hold all that worthless paper. As Bill Maher said on Larry King, "who would have thought it was a bad idea to give mortgages to people with no money?"
This is a very strange "bailout". How can the US government agree to the bailout at $2 per share and then again at $10 per share. The taxpayer risk went up 500%! Did government exposure increase or not...that is a vitally important question.
I suspect your economy is in far worse shape than the average US citizen knows. This kind of bailout is the very last form of intervention that a free market system would ever countenance!
People are mad because Chase made BANK while everyone else struggles in the mier.
The Fed doesn't call CitiCorp or Bank of America when they have a problem.
They call in the big guns, baby!
JPMorganChase
DrFill
So the fire sale of Bear Stearns is a problem but all the bad business decisions, lies and deception that necessitated it were ok? How about the senators spend some time beefing up the SEC so investors have protection from sham companies who misrepresent themselves.