hasta la vista, bear stearns

Bear Stearns took over 85 years to attain its position on Wall Street. It all fell apart in four days.

Actually, that's not quite true. Bear Stearns' habit of buying crap securities backed by crap mortgages had been going on for years. It just took these past few days of the market deciding that BS really was no longer a good lending risk for their position to wind up.

So, one down - and perhaps a nice bargain for JP Morgan, since the $2 a share they are paying for Bear Stearns does not require them to take on all of Bear's most dubious assets - you and I will do that for them.

Too bad. Now, let's see if any other Wall Street investment banks are similarly ill-placed...