Bear Stearns Bearish, Baring Bare Backside of Unbearable Heaviness of Bearing Bad Loans

Hans Brinker with his finger in the dike

Here's what the Federal Reserve had to decide over the weekend: Let the U.S. markets go into a free fall, like the demoed twin towers of the World Trade Center (and WTC7), or lend ginormous sums of money—that it does not possess because of the $225 Million U.S. per day expense of the war against Iraq—to keep Bear Stearns afloat on the ice floe that's melting due to global warming. (Did I include every deadly sin of the current administration in one question? Nah—I left out illegal spying on private citizens and the overall destruction of the U.S. Constitution. Oh, yeah, and failure to rescue the people of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.) So the Fed opts to loan $30 Billion of credit dollars—not available dollars—to JP Morgan so it can acquire Bear Stearns, so it can avoid sinking into the already gurgling slushy waters of the U.S.-led world economy impending disaster.

This reminds me of the brave little Dutch tyke who stuck his finger in the dike to prevent a deluge that would destroy his town. In that Hans Brinker story (written by an American woman, no less), the act of unselfish bravery does save everyone. But what will happen to the U.S. economy, and by our incontrovertible global interconnectedness, the world? I don't know, but am I scared? You betcha. My hubby and I are lucky enough to be homeowners. But what happens if that house becomes a money sink, or if my hubby, God forbid, loses his job (and we do know people who have lost their jobs recently)? So, weird, risky, stupid, no matter what you call the Fed’s move—along with the maybe even bigger promise to lend money to the 20 largest investment banks (it’s those pesky mortgage-backed securities that are behind these financial woes)—bad lending practices are coming back to bite us in the butt with big bear teeth.