Here’s an excerpt from Barry Ritholtz’s brief article at The Big Picture, commenting on
A Sunday Without a Bailout? How Novel!
"Asian markets are now open, and nary a Lehman bailout in site.
Before you start congratulating the powers that be over their restraint, understand why there is no such rescue plan in place. My comments earlier this week in Slate:
To be eligible for a bailout, firms must also demonstrate a particular genius for screwing up. Before it went bust, Bear Stearns had a monstrous $33 of debt for every dollar of capital, and hedge funds it owned destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of clients’ cash. It got a bailout. Lehman Brothers, which has taken painful measures to reduce its risk, is perversely less likely to get direct government help. "The worst Lehman can do is destroy the firm," said Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Wall Street research firm FusionIQ and author of the forthcoming Bailout Nation. "Bear Stearns, on the other hand, set up the firm so that if they screwed up, they could threaten the entire financial system." That may explain why Treasury Secretary Paulson has thus far resisted providing federal succor to Lehman."
More here.
