Remember the Bear Stearns bailout? It has just gotten sweeter for the owners of shares in that firm:
The Federal Reserve has been put in an awkward position by JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) decision to raise its bid for Bear Stearns (BSC) to $10 a share from $2. The sweetened bid, announced on Mar. 24, is high enough that Bear's shareholders are getting some real value for the company—while the Federal Reserve still risks suffering big losses.
The renegotiated deal is bound to cause complaints that the nation's central bank has been sucked into supporting a partial bailout.
Bound to cause complaints? What do we (we not being the owners of Bear Stearns but the suckers) have to complain about?
Isn't this how the free financial markets seem to work? First we get fleeced in the markets themselves for many a year. Then when the market collapses we get the honor of paying the people who fleeced us so that they do not suffer.