Professor Elam

As the saying goes, follow the money. Out with the Aluminum siding salesman and the railroad engineer as Treasury Secretaries. In with Hank Paulson, former Goldman Sachs bigwig.  Memo, Presidents come and go, Goldman is always in the White House, Rubin was from Goldman. 

Now remember, the Glass Stegall Act forbidding banks to engage in Wall Street chicanery, er make that lending and securities trading, was repealed in 1999, by your political heroes in Congress led by none other than Texas Senator Phil Gramm.  Now that a Wall St Investment Firm, Bear Stearns BSC is in trouble, Hank leans on Ben (Bernake) to bail them out. And Ben does. We are told this avoided massive meltdown of markets. But isn’t that what the President et al ALWAYS says about their actions, making us safe, for the children……

This article traces the action thus far. But the FED could have offered some help in an auction sale of what Bear had.  Then we might know what Bear actually did. As it is, Lehman et al soldier on confident that they are now too big to fail. Will TMA raise their needed capital this week, if not will the FED bail them out?