Fed Bailout of Bear Stearns First of its Kind Since Great Depression
From Democracy Now! --
The nation’s fifth largest investment bank Bear Stearns nearly collapsed last week. It was saved only after the Federal Reserve took extraordinary measures to help JPMorgan purchase the eighty-five-year-old firm. The Fed has become the lender of last resort for other investment banks in a move that marks one of the broadest expansions of the Fed’s lending authority since the 1930s. We speak with Nomi Prins, an author and former investment banker at Bear Stearns, and Max Fraad Wolff, an economist and writer.
Guests:
- Nomi Prins, former investment banker turned journalist. She used to run the European analytics group at Bear Stearns. She is the author of two books “Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America” and “Jacked: How "Conservatives” are Picking your Pocket." She is now a Senior Fellow at Demos.
- Max Fraad Wolff, economist and writer. He is an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs, New School University. He is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Asia Times and the Indypendent.