Turkana your empathy for the Bear Stern people is commendable. Unfortunately for myself I really don't have too much sympathy for employees of a company which put together mega mergers that resulted in massive layoffs. On the bright side for the Bear Stern people, at least no one is being rewarded $2.6B in bonuses for getting their asses thrown to the curb.
Posted by Howd at March 18, 2008 09:12 PMYet another example of why not to keep a major portion of your assets in your employer's stock.
If your company goes belly-up, you could lose your job and see a large chunk of your assets evaporate at the same time.
Just like Enron... It's insanely irresponsible to encourage your employees to overweight your company's stock. I worked at a big conservative company for a while and although you could get their stock through the 401(k) match, at least they had the integrity to tell the employees that their careers were already a big enough investment in the company, and that they should diversify their 401(k) portfolio. On the other hand, if you're a fund manager, you're expected to put at least some of your money on the line. In that case, however, those 9-figure bonuses over the last few years probably cushion the blow a bit. Once again, it's the schlubs in the cubicles who get fucked over.
Indeed those pitiable human faces are suffering. But hey, we can use their misery to our political advantage, because that's our specialty.
Posted by onar at March 19, 2008 05:38 AMThe much bigger and more important story is the actual bail out itself and the other 400 billion dollars that the Fed has stolen from the taxpayers to give to the people who received 39 billion dollars in bonuses last year to make sure they can maintain their lifestyles. But it's more than just the taxpayers who suffer--it's the one meal a day folks whose food price is inflated due to dollar dominance and the ability of the Fed to manipulate its value. Most of those people at Bear Sterns will do just fine. I'm not shedding tears over them. They were in finance, for crying out loud. Basic rule of finance: diversify your portfolio.
Nor do I feel sorry for those McMansion folks (the majority of the subprime folks) who are being foreclosed on. Move into a smaller house and conserve energy.
I do my best to delegate my tears (and financial donations) to those who really need it around the planet. There are around 2 billion of those folks.
Posted by Fenner at March 19, 2008 07:00 AMIt appears that Bear Stearns was the investment bank most involved with the creation of the mortgage backed derivative securities which are choking the economy. Investigations finally are getting underway about whether anyone thought that these mortgages were sound and could possibly be maintained and paid.
And Congress SHOULD be starting its own investigations of how exactly these "securities" were created and where the incentives came from for mortgage brokers to "generate" so many bad mortgages. Let's just say that huge numbers of mortagages were needed in order to bundle them together into these crappy "securities"---and some derivative experts have blamed the housing bubble in part on the need to obtain ever more mortgages to "sell".
And who exactly was responsible for the activities of Bear if not its employees?
Posted by euzoius at March 19, 2008 07:37 AMonaN: "Indeed those pitiable human faces are suffering. But hey, we can use their misery to our political advantage, because that's our specialty."
you mean like Bush uses the troops as a political prop
Posted by Gay Veteran at March 19, 2008 07:38 AMFrom the Washington Post:
"'I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for working over the weekend,' Bush said as he met with his economic advisors at the White House. 'You've shown the country and the world that the United States is on top of the situation.'
Why does that sound eerily similar to what he told Michael Brown?
Posted by Daryl at March 19, 2008 10:26 AMWhat regulations would you propose?