Quoted from bumblethru

The government should not be in the business of starting and sustaining and bailing out private businesses. And Shadow you are correct....it all started with the bailing out of the auto industry. If the government continues to 'have' to bail out private companies, it will just prove that we, as a supposedly economically sound nation is not so sound after all. Or perhaps that it is just all corrupt..perhaps?

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Ellen Goodman
Unfair bailing out just the big guys
Ellen Goodman is a nationally syndicated columnist.

    I don’t know too many economists who get confused with preachers. But there are times when they talk about virtue and temptation as if they were free-market holy rollers.
    Consider the phrase that has been popping up all over the Bear Stearns debacle: “moral hazard.” No, Moral Hazard is not the name of a country and western singer. It’s the phrase economists use to explain why people shouldn’t be protected from the consequences of their actions. In The Wall Street Journal’s definition, moral hazards are “the distortions introduced by the prospect of not having to pay for your sins.”
    The idea began as an argument against insurance. If you had fire insurance, you’d be careless around matches. Zap, more fires. In recent decades, it’s been used as a righteous reason for shredding safety social nets and toughening laws like those against declaring bankruptcy. Such safety nets, it’s argued, only encouraged more sinners, excuse me, welfare mothers and bankrupt families.
    The same language of morality has been used by economic fundamentalists who don’t want to help homeowners who got subprime mortgage loans and find themselves in deep foreclosure weeds. Mike Huckabee once said that it “is not the purpose of government to prop people up from every poor decision they make. ... It creates an enabling co-dependency.” And as recently as last weekend, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson insisted that government actions to prevent foreclosures would “do more harm than they would do good.”
    I grant you that moral hazard is not a myth. But most of the sermons railing against the harm of helping others are directed at the poorer pews.
    We don’t seem to worry about the moral hazard of, say, protecting a CEO from his failings. Need I remind you that Robert Nardelli got $210 million in severance after he hammered Home Depot? Or that he now resides at the top of Chrysler? What lesson did other chief executives learn from the Citigroup CEO who had $64 billion in market value evaporate on his watch and nevertheless exited with a $68 million package and a $1.7 million pension?
    This leads us right into the den of Bear Stearns. Last weekend, while its chief executive was off playing bridge, one of the most aggressive, cowboy firms in the mortgage securities business collapsed. The government brokered a deal with J.P. Morgan Chase to buy the firm and guarantee its loans with your tax dollars.
    Bailout is too strong a word for what happened. Teaspooned-out would be better. The Bear Stearns worker bees looking at their life savings and pensions disappear are not flitting off to the beach, although I was charmed to note that the company will have grief counselors at hand. But it is true that the government went to the rescue.
    Suddenly, the risk of sin took a back seat to the risk of a full-scale economic disaster. As Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, says ruefully, “People in the financial community were able to take sectors of the economy hostage and we have to pay a ransom. The best we can hope for is to keep the ransom as low as possible and help the least undeserving.”
    Is there a Sunday school lesson here? Economic fundamentalists preach that the market — that wonderfully anthropomorphized creature — needs absolute freedom to operate. As Jacob Hacker, author of “The Great Risk Shift,” says, “We’ve had this massive shift of economic risk from government to people. We got blinded by the idea that economic innovation benefi ts all of us. It’s not true.” The unregulated creativity to buy and bundle mortgages made many of these firms a real bundle. But when the scheme tanked, they too ran for help. If we’re going to rescue, we have to regulate.
    And before we wrap up the sermon, a last word. If a financial firm is “too big to fail” — a status I’ve always aspired to — why aren’t homeowners? They too are on the brink of destroying not only themselves but their communities. At the very least, Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd have introduced homeowner bills that would contain and share the damage.
    Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of Republicans, used to say, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’“ This notion infiltrated the national consciousness. Any sort of government help was framed as hapless, useless or, yes, a moral hazard.
    Reagan’s line always got a belly laugh. Well, folks, not in this Bear (Stearns) market.

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Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of Republicans, used to say, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’“ This notion infiltrated the national consciousness. Any sort of government help was framed as hapless, useless or, yes, a moral hazard.

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homeowners, prevent foreclosures

Proposals gain traction in Congress as the housing crisis roils the economy.
By Michael A. Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 22, 2008
From Wall Street to Capitol Hill, calls are growing for the government to get into the mortgage business as the only way out of the housing crisis roiling the economy and the financial markets.

Proposals to shore up tottering home loans with taxpayer money are gaining traction in Congress and moving to the forefront of presidential politics.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has also called on the lenders themselves to reduce the amount of principal that troubled homeowners owe on their loans.

The Fed has recently taken a series of aggressive steps to assist financial companies staggered by the credit crunch -- including providing a $30-billion short-term loan to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to facilitate its purchase of struggling Bear Stearns Cos.

Democratic contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cited that action this week in calling for a new initiative to provide $30 billion to help homeowners.

"If we can extend a $30-billion lifeline to avoid a crisis for Wall Street banks, we should extend at least $30 billion in immediate assistance to at-risk communities and families facing foreclosure," Clinton's campaign said in a statement.

But while the Fed can help lenders and the investment industry, it has little authority to help individual borrowers or to force their lenders to modify repayment terms so that strapped borrowers can stay in their homes. That is putting pressure on Congress to step into the breach.

"It does seem increasingly likely that we're headed toward a compromise on taxpayer assistance to prevent a greater number of foreclosures," said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

Thus far the Bush administration has resisted anything that resembles a taxpayer- financed homeowner bailout. Instead, it has placed its faith into several programs that encourage lenders and distressed homeowners to work things out voluntarily.

And Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., former chief executive of investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co., has said he believes the housing bubble should be allowed to work itself out naturally.

Critics say that's tantamount to bailing out the big players while throwing the little guys to the wolves, and that a more evenhanded approach will make any government action more broadly palatable.

"Some say, let market discipline rule," said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "But some banks are too big to fail, and some homeowners don't deserve to lose their shirts."

Still, a homeowner "bailout" could be a political minefield. Any relief program will have to be carefully fashioned to focus only on deserving homeowners whose financial ills are no fault of their own. Otherwise, the program could face a backlash from voters who believe they played by the rules only to have their tax money paid out to the imprudent or the crooked.

"All the talk about bailing people out is really a slap in the face of those of us who have been financially responsible," said George Sylak, 43, a television producer from Venice who is renting his home. "Now the federal government and the candidates are saying, 'You didn't need to be responsible.' "

Others contend that what looks on the surface like a rescue of homeowners would really be a bailout of lenders who unscrupulously enticed borrowers into loans destined for trouble.

"If businesses don't want to modify their own loans, then letting the government do it just means the government taking on the risks that the lenders don't want," said Marc Itzkowitz, a Palo Alto software marketing executive.

Itzkowitz says he has remained a renter because he thought that buying a home in a superheated market seemed "imprudent."

"Not letting people meet the consequences of their actions just means that there won't be a lesson for them, and 10 years from now we'll be doing this again," he said.

Many on Wall Street are impatient with the argument that offering homeowners and lenders taxpayer-financed relief will only encourage them to take similar or greater risks in the future, a concept known as "moral hazard."

"If Washington gets off its high 'moral hazard' horse and moves to support housing prices, investors will return in a rush" to prudent government- and agency-backed securities, wrote Bill Gross, chief investment officer of the Newport Beach-based bond investment firm Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, in a recent note to clients.

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"If we can extend a $30-billion lifeline to avoid a crisis for Wall Street banks, we should extend at least $30 billion in immediate assistance to at-risk communities and families facing foreclosure," Clinton's campaign said in a statement.

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On a separate, but related note, with the increase in food prices that are being blamed on ethanol production, are farm subsidies that encourage farmers to let their fields lay dormant still in effect?  I recall that there was a program that existed some years ago to place agricultural acreage in a "land bank", directing farmers and compensating them to not plant crops in an attempt to drive commodities prices higher.  Are these benefits still being paid by the government?  If so, don't market conditions suggest that they should be discontinued?

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Bear Stearns executives should have been fired
First published: Monday, March 24, 2008

According to Forbes.com, Bear Stearns' current board chairman, James E. Cayne, and current CEO Alan D Schwartz were paid a total of $74 million last year.
At a time when hard-working Americans are losing their jobs and their homes, it is unconscionable that the federal government is using taxpayer resources to bail out a company that profited handsomely from engineering the subprime mortgage crisis and rewarded its top managers so well for their role in creating such an international financial disaster.
     
What's done is done. Neither the President nor Congress can "unring" the bell and reverse the Bear Stearns bailout. But our elected officials can make sure that those responsible are held to account for their reckless mismanagement.
To quote from none other than the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal -- which has never been accused of being radically liberal or anti-business -- the executives at Bear Stearns "should be fired, without bonuses and golden parachutes."
HUMPHREY TYLER Newtonville

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MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2008
The Bear Stearns-JPMorgan Deal --Rhymes with Steal -- of a Lifetime
By ANDREW BARY  | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

ALL HAIL JAMIE DIMON! THE JPMORGAN CHASE CHIEF solidified his company's position as a U.S. financial titan last week with a stunning deal to buy a wounded Bear Stearns for a mere $2.50 a share. The only fly in the ointment: Dimon might have to up the ante. But, even then, he'll probably end up with a steal.

The all-stock transaction, originally priced at $2, based on JPMorgan's share price Monday, crept up after an admiring Wall Street sent JPMorgan stock to one of its biggest weekly gains ever. It jumped by more than nine points, or 25%, to $46, giving the company a stock-market value of $156 billion.


Why? Because JPMorgan is set to get a firm with potential annual earnings power of $1 billion, and a book value of $84, or more than $10 billion for $320 million if the $2.50 price holds. To top it off, the big investment bank will solve its space problems in the tight Manhattan real-estate market by getting Bear's state-of-art Madison Avenue office tower, which might be worth $1.5 billion.

The deal, engineered by Dimon with the aid of federal regulators, resembles the government-orchestrated takeovers of failed savings & loans in the late 1980s, in which well-connected buyers eventually made billions.

This time, JPMorgan appears to be getting all the upside, while the Federal Reserve, and thus U.S. taxpayers, take much of the risk by providing $30 billion of non-recourse loans to fund Bear's illiquid mortgage and other assets. This means that, if the collateral pledged by JPMorgan doesn't cover the loan amount, Uncle Sam would have to make up the difference.

Bear Stearns investors and employees, who own about a third of the stock, were left reeling, angry and bitter. Bear shares, which traded last month at 85, plunged by 24.04 points on the week, to 5.96. Even that price, however, was more than double the value of JPMorgan's bid. The stock trades at a premium to the deal price because investors hope another buyer surfaces or JPMorgan will up its offer. In essence, the stock is now a call option on a better price. For the deal to take effect, Bear Stearns shareholders must approve it. And many, including billionaire Joe Lewis, who has a $1 billion-plus loss on his Bear holdings, vow to seek better terms.

A sweetened JPMorgan offer is more likely than an alternative bid. There aren't many financial companies now in a position to take on Bear's $395 billion balance sheet. And financial executives at potential bidders probably would fear upsetting a high-profile transaction blessed by federal regulators on whom they might someday have to rely for help themselves. As for private-equity firms, this deal is way beyond their means.

Moreover, JPMorgan Chase included deterrents to potential bidders, notably an option to purchase Bear's building for $1.1 billion. If another bidder succeeds, there might not be a place for Bear employees to work.

JPMorgan isn't commenting, but it might raise the price to clinch the deal and quell the critics. The merger document states that if the sale fails to gain initial shareholder approval, "each of the parties shall in good faith use its reasonable best efforts to negotiate a restructuring of the transaction...."

The major impediment to a sweetened bid may not be JPMorgan. Some suspect that Treasury secretary Hank Paulson is determined to have Bear shareholders suffer, in order to defuse criticism that the government is bailing out Wall Street fat cats. In discussing the deal, Paulson said: "And when we talk about moral hazard, I would say look at the Bear Stearns shareholder." The talk is that when negotiations began last Saturday, JPMorgan was willing to pay $15 or $20 a share.

For JPMorgan, the current consideration is a rounding error. It could easily pay $1 billion or $2 billion more. The bank got a windfall from the Visa (V) initial public offering last week. It netted about $1.3 billion in cash and retains a Visa stake worth $4 billion. After all costs are accounted for, JPMorgan should be left with over $4 billion.


JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, above, has a lot to smile about, while Bear's CEO, Alan Schwartz, had a lot of explaining to do to his shell-shocked troops.
Ultimately, the Feds may determine whether Dimon & Co. will be allowed to sweeten the bid. Shareholder opposition could harden because Bear Stearns likely was profitable in its first quarter, ended Feb. 29. The firm was supposed to report earnings last Monday, and it's unclear when they now will be announced. At $6, Bear Stearns looks like a reasonable speculative bet on a higher bid. It's possible that shareholders could reject the deal and hope that Bear, helped by a new Fed lending facility, could survive on its own.

Sanford Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz estimates that Bear's "good businesses" were worth about $60 a share. In a research note, he writes that one reason for the low purchase price was JPMorgan's estimate of $6 billion of transaction-related costs, including severance, retention bonuses for key Bear employees and potential litigation costs. That $6 billion seems high, although it's impossible to predict how much the actual costs will be.

Given the speed of the crisis at Bear Stearns, it probably wasn't feasible for the government to have demanded a potential bonus, like JPMorgan warrants, for providing $30 billion of credit support. When Washington bailed out Chrysler and Conrail in the 1980s, it got equity that proved valuable when they recovered. For future deals -- which hardly can be ruled out in the current crisis -- Uncle Sam would be smart to get a piece of the action for the folks really shouldering the risk -- you and me.

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Bear Stearns rescue offer raised
JPMorgan tries to calm shareholders
BY JOE BEL BRUNO The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s higher offer for Bear Stearns on Monday gave the investment bank control of nearly 40 percent of its ailing rival, blunting the threat that angry shareholders could scuttle the deal.
    The $2.4 billion lifeline to rescue the investment house stands a strong chance of success — assuaging investors unhappy with a $2 per share offer by upping it to $10 apiece. JPMorgan has faced an outcry among Bear Stearns shareholders about the lowball offer, and faced the possibility that rival deals would begin to surface.
    Most analysts said a higher bid was unlikely, but some bondholders have reportedly been buying the stock in order to ensure their right to vote for a deal and prevent a bankruptcy that would wipe them out. Bear Stearns’ shares — which hit $160 last year and still traded near $80 earlier in the month — nearly doubled to $11.25 on Monday.
    However, for a company whose market value went from $8.3 billion to about $1 billion in a little more than a week, the revised deal was still not the outcome investors hoped for. It also didn’t help out the 14,000 employees — one-third owners in Bear Stearns — who have seen the value of their stock holdings plummet and still face the potential of massive layoffs.
    “I’m not sure upping the offer from $2 to $10 will make people happy who thought the value was $90. . . . There’s tremendous value and wealth being lost,” said David Hinkel, a senior consultant at advisory firm Towers Perrin who focuses on acquisitions.
    Hinkel said there has been outrage since the Federal Reserve tapped JPMorgan to rescue the 85-year-old investment bank in a deal some feel was hastily arranged. The buyout was put together over a weekend, and within a few days JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon was trying to rally Bear Stearns executives to his side.
    In exchange for the higher-priced offer, Bear Stearns agreed to sell 95 million newly issued shares to JPMorgan. That gave JPMorgan a 39.5 percent stake, providing an almost certain majority in any shareholder vote.
    JPMorgan, the nation’s thirdlargest commercial bank, also renegotiated the Federal Reserve’s role in the offer. The central bank originally agreed to guarantee $30 billion of Bear Stearns assets, including risky mortgage-backed securities. JPMorgan said it will now take on the first $1 billion of losses, while the Fed backs the rest.
    Dimon, who needs only another 10.5 percent of shareholders to approve the takeover, appears to have outflanked any other deals. The agreement, filed with regulators last week, prohibits Bear Stearns employees or directors from soliciting any alternative transactions.
    “We believe the amended terms are fair to all sides and reflect the value and risks of the Bear Stearns franchise,” Dimon said in a statement.
    Investors agreed with his tactics, sending JPMorgan shares up 58 cents to $45.55.
    Bear Stearns shareholders, meanwhile, are expected to vote on the deal within the next few months.
    The Fed, along with the Treasury Department, has drawn criticism for bailing out a Wall Street investment bank that many feel had been reckless amid the credit crisis. The central bank said Monday its action was taken to “bolster market liquidity and promote orderly market functioning.”
    JPMorgan’s higher offer — the initial price was $236 million — comes at a jittery time for Washington and Wall Street alike. A total collapse of Bear Stearns would have rippled through the economy, locking up credit even tighter.

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If any bank deserves to fail, it’s Bear Stearns
Froma Harrop

    If we’re going to bail out Wall Street, shouldn’t we also rescue homeowners? “Yes!” the Democrats answer. And faster than Roger Federer returns a tennis ball, conservative voices hit back with reasons — some rather odd — for helping the former and not the latter.
    Here’s a sensible compromise: Let’s selectively help homeowners in trouble. These would be mortgage applicants who didn’t lie about their income and have a prayer of paying the money back. Likewise, let’s insist that the Federal Reserve carefully choose which investment bankers merit taxpayer support.
    Sadly, the Fed plans to start with a company that’s among the least deserving. That would be Bear Stearns.
    Seattle hedge-fund manager Bill Fleckenstein has been making the case against a Bear rescue. “Why not set an example of Bear Stearns — the guys who have this record of dog-eat-dog, we’re brass knuckles, we’re tough?” he told The New York Times.
    In the ’90s, Bear worked with several low-life brokerage firms that aggressively sold their crummiest stocks over the telephone. It financed subprime lenders who trafficked in complex, high-interest loans for low-income people. Last summer, it tried to unload some of its sick mortgagebacked securities through a new company called Everquest Financial.
    Several conservatives now argue that poor little Bear Stearns has suffered enough and, in any case, is not going on the taxpayer dole.
    “In no way can the Federal Reserve’s loan to JPMorgan to help buy Bear Stearns be considered a bailout,” say our friends at the Heritage Foundation Website.
    “Bear Stearns shares were worth $160 a year ago and went for $2 in the JPMorgan acquisition,” they say. How could the employees who had invested their savings in the company stock feel “bailed out”?
    Here’s how. As part of the deal, the Fed is guaranteeing $30 billion in Bear Stearns securities. In other words, taxpayers are on the hook. One may empathize with people who invested in a nasty company engaged in reckless speculation, but must the taxpayers get involved?
    Over at the American Enterprise Institute, Kevin Hassett argues that politicians are conveniently blaming “greedy home buyers” and “the lunacy” of lenders for creating the housing bubble. Regulation he says, is the culprit.
    Over at NewsBusters, a goofy blog run by the right-wing Media Research Center Noel Sheppard takes issue with ... Fleckenstein! The hedge-fund manager was a guest of ABC’s George Stephanopoulos who failed “to fully apprise viewers of Fleckenstein’s vested interest in — and well documented prognostications of — our nation’s financial collapse.”
    It’s true that Fleckenstein had been shortselling stocks based on his well-publicized belief that the stock market was grossly overvalued. But that makes him smart, not devious.
    In the end, taxpayers may have to bail out many bad players, but couldn’t we let one slip into the fiery pit of bankruptcy? For that honor, I nominate Bear Stearns.
Froma Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist.