This guy Joe Lewis owns ten percent of Bear Stearns and he lost 800 million dollars Friday
Jpm just bought the company at 2 dollars - it was over 100 about a month ago

Former billionaire Joe Lewis could not be reached for comment

There is alot of scared rich people right now.

I kinda wish business in North America was more like business in Japan. Where if a CEO runs a company into the ground they...you know.

Mr Lewis is the world's 369th richest person, with a fortune weighing in at $2.5bn.

Not quite, but that's a lotta money to lose. Whatever...he's old, it's not like he has that much time to enjoy it anyways.

not the boxer, i presume


lol

So Bear's book value is $80/share. But JPM is only offering $2/share plus the fed is helping out. Guess Bear had some liabilities that weren't yet on the books you think?

Also, Bear owns its building so one analyst figures that subtracting out the land/bldg value means that the operations/business of Bear is worth negative $400m.

Feel sorry for the employees as Bear's employees due to the culture owned a lot of the company, 1/3 by some estimates - poof.

They have positions that they can't get out of - think what happens if you own 100,000 shares of stock and you get a margin call and are forced to sell it but the average volume of the stock per day is like 1000 shares of stock

you walk into the pit with a huge for sale sign on your head and you get raped - it's what happens when you try to be bigger than the market and you lose

or some assets that aren't worth didly squat. Greed apparetly is not good.

if if ever lost 800 million, expect me to hang myself

Funny but true comment I heard:

The Yankees paid more for AROD than JPMC paid for Bear Stearns.

Boy, am I glad that I'm not an investment banker right now

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Last Updated: 1:13pm GMT 17/03/2008


Ben Bernanke, Dollars down a drain and the Federal Reserve
Desperate measures: Bernanke and the Federal Reserve need to keep on top of the crisis and continue to intervene if needed

Asian, Mid East and European investors stood aside at last week's auction of 10-year US Treasury notes. "It was a disaster," said Ray Attrill from 4castweb. "We may be close to the point where the uglier consequences of benign neglect towards the currency are revealed."

The share of foreign buyers ("indirect bidders") plummeted to 5.8pc, from an average 25pc over the last eight weeks. On the Richter Scale of unfolding dramas, this matches the death of Bear Stearns.

Rightly or wrongly, a view has taken hold that Washington is cynically debasing the coinage, hoping to export its day of reckoning through beggar-thy-neighbour policies.

It is not my view. I believe the forces of debt deflation now engulfing America - and soon half the world - are so powerful that nobody will be worrying about inflation a year hence.

Yes, the Fed caused this mess by setting the price of credit too low for too long, feeding the cancer of debt dependency. But we are in the eye of the storm now. This is not a time for priggery.

The Fed's emergency actions are imperative. Last week's collapse of confidence in the creditworthiness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was life-threatening. These agencies underpin 60pc of the $11,000bn market for US home loans.

"The situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad," said Martin Feldstein, head of the National Bureau of Economic Research. "There's no doubt that this year and next year are going to be very difficult."

Even monetary policy à l'outrance may not be enough to halt the spiral. Former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers says the Fed's shower of liquidity cannot cure a bankruptcy crisis caused by a tidal wave of property defaults.

"It is like fighting a virus with antibiotics," he said.

We can no longer exclude a partial nationalisation of the American banking system, modelled on the Nordic rescue in the early 1990s.

But even if you think the Fed has no choice other than to take dramatic action, the critics are also right in warning that this comes at a serious cost and it may backfire.

The imminent risk is that global flight from US Treasury and agency debt drives up long-term rates, the key funding instrument for mortgages and corporations. The effect could outweigh Fed easing.

Overall credit conditions could tighten into a slump (like 1930). It's the stuff of bad dreams.

Is this the moment when America finally discovers the meaning of the Faustian pact it signed so blithely with Asian creditors?

As the Wall Street Journal wrote this weekend, the entire country is facing a "margin call". The US has come to depend on $800bn inflows of cheap foreign capital each year to cover shopping bills. They may have to pay a much stiffer rent.

As of June 2007, foreigners owned $6,007bn of long-term US debt. (Equal to 66pc of the entire US federal debt). The biggest holdings by country are, in billions: Japan (901), China (870), UK (475), Luxembourg (424), Cayman Islands (422), Belgium (369), Ireland (176), Germany (155), Switzerland (140), Bermuda (133), Netherlands (123), Korea (118), Russia (109), Taiwan (107), Canada (106), Brazil (103). Who is jumping ship?

The Chinese have quickened the pace of yuan appreciation to choke off 8.7pc inflation, slowing US bond purchases. Petrodollar funds, working through UK off-shore accounts, are clearly dumping dollars amid rumours that Gulf states - overheating wildly - are about to break their dollar pegs. But mostly likely, the twin crash in the dollar and US agency debt reflects a broad exodus by global wealth managers, afraid that America is spinning out of control. Sauve qui peut.

The bond debacle last week tallies with the crash in the dollar index to an all-time low of 71.58, down 14.6pc in a year. The greenback is nearing parity with the Swiss franc - shocking for those who remember when it was 4.375 francs in 1970. Against the euro it has hit $1.57, from $0.82 in 2000. Against the yen it has smashed through Y100. Spare a thought for Toyota. It loses $350m in revenues for every one yen move. That is an $8.75bn hit since June. Tokyo's Nikkei index is crumbling. Less understood, it is also causing a self-reinforcing spiral of credit shrinkage throughout the global system.

Japanese investors and foreign funds are having to close their yen "carry trade" positions. A chunk of the $1,400bn trade built up over six years has been viciously unwound in weeks. The harder the dollar falls, the further this must go.

It is unsettling to watch the world's reserve currency disintegrate. Commodities from gold to oil and wheat are taking on the role of safe-haven "currencies". The monetary order is becoming unhinged.

I doubt the dollar can fall much further. What is it to fall against? The spreading credit contagion will cause large parts of the globe to downgrade in hot pursuit - starting with Europe.

Few noticed last week that the Italian treasury auction was also a flop. The bids collapsed. For the first time since the launch of EMU, Italy failed to sell a full batch of state bonds.

The euro blasted higher anyway, driven by hot money flows. The funds are beguiled by Germany's "Exportwunder", for now. It cannot last. The demented level of $1.57 will not be tolerated by French, Italian and Spanish politicians. The Latin property bubbles are deflating fast.

The race to the bottom must soon begin. Half the world will be slashing rates this year to stave off credit contraction. The dollar will have a lot of company. Small comfort.

'MAD MONEY' CRAMER ON MARCH 11: 'No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble... Don't move your money from Bear.'

That guy is a joke.

Paper rich people are scared real rich people could care less.

This isn't necessarily the case. A down market causes everything to go down, because people are stupid. Even people that were smart enough to graduate from college and get rich enough to invest a lot of money are stupid. See 1929.

If you think that Bill Gates won't lose billions of dollars if the market drops below 10,000 then you're delusional.

Also, what rich people aren't paper rich? Do you think that Bill Gates has 50 billion worth of actual gold in his house? A lot of his wealth is on paper.

Sorry, I should have been more specific, some people that say they are rich may not be talking about money.
I'm a real rich person.

If you count friends as money.


*hugs*

I'm rich cause I taste like delicious candy.

He was talking about if you had money on deposit at BS, not if you own the stock.

orly? imo

as long as it's in your investment BR, i think you would be fine.

But still losing 1 billion really sucks ... even though he has another billion to spare!

He just will have to drop down in limits, to 1,000,000 2,000,0000 from 10,000,000 20,000,000.