What Pushed Bear Stearns Over The Edge?

Posted by Bess Levin, Nov 09, 2007, 1:05pm

By now it’s been confirmed that Bear Stearns is enforcing martial law on its employees’ ability to access the subversive information found at Wall Street tabloid DealBreaker.com. At one point earlier in the year, a unit at Merrill Lynch had imposed the same fascist policy, but later reconsidered the wisdom of having its traders work with less information (about Jeffrey Epstein’s predilection for transsexuals) rather than more (which could be directly related to the firm’s recent money troubles). We’re told, by people who think they know, that despite what I promise will be our best efforts to publicly shame Bear into unblocking DB, the firm will never lift the ban. Fine, whatever, we’re still going to try (lot of time on our hands at the DB HQs). First, though, let’s get to the root of the issue:

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Posted in: Bear Stearns

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Posted by The Forehead Slapper, Nov 09, 2007 1:15PM

You mean if they had done the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they did on CDOs and debt trading they'd be ahead by several billion??

Posted by , Nov 09, 2007 1:17PM

I think it was the sudden flurry of baby bears looking up "blood wings" on urbandictionary.

Posted by chris, Nov 09, 2007 1:26PM

Clearly need to take the George approach on all investment decisions on a go forward basis. "If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."

Posted by chris, Nov 09, 2007 1:31PM

Someone should march into JC's ofice and say: "I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past twenty years you have caused myself, and the city of New York, a good deal of distress, as we have watched you take our beloved firm and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego!"

Posted by anon anon anon, Nov 09, 2007 1:40PM

Bear Sterns feared that the truth might show up on DB. Did they have directives from China (now in Cayne's pocket) on how to deal with subversive commentators?

Posted by damn it, Nov 09, 2007 1:54PM

i must have missed the crotch shots!

Posted by please?, Nov 09, 2007 2:03PM

bess, erin burnett just mentioned the williams/amherst game this weekend. catfight?

Posted by , Nov 09, 2007 2:26PM

i'm hearing that bess and erin are going to rip each other's shirts off at the Williams Club during saturday's game.

Posted by anon, Nov 09, 2007 2:30PM

i can confirm that this Williams Club activity is a certainty.

Posted by , Nov 09, 2007 2:35PM

looking at the ads and thinking, brooks brothers? isn't that what lawyers wear?

Posted by Yo! Tom Wolfe!, Nov 09, 2007 2:53PM

The read-through on this Bear Stearns Dealbreaker crackdown is that Jimmay now is doing more than toking up. Pot doesn't make users paranoid. Jimmay clearly has upped his game to acid or 'shrooms.
"That chart is mocking me! Dude - that chart is mocking me!"

Posted by J$, Nov 09, 2007 2:57PM

As someone in the know, pot definitely makes you paranoid

Posted by Blogonaut, Nov 09, 2007 4:17PM

Or it could be that a few days ago DealBreaker posted an item (about shooting lyons in captivity for $35K) [11-7-2007, “Talkin' Bonuses: "Everyone wants to shoot a lion," but not everyone can afford to shoot a lion, now can they?”] that suggested as an alternative that one might consider buying Bear Sterns and SHOOTING its employees for sport:

“Goldman Sachs employees, on average, will be able to afford to kill less than eighteen. Unless of course they decide to pool their money and buy Bear Stearns, in which case that number falls to zero. OR SKYROCKETS TO 15,516, depending on how flexible you are about WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL YOU WANT TO HUNT IN A SMALL ENCLOSURE WITH NO CHANCE OF ESCAPE.”

I NOTE PARENTHETICALLY that DealBreaker has 89 archived posts indexed under Bear Sterns but only TWO (one, two) indexing Above the Law. THEREFORE, 1. DealBreaker is ‘picking on’ Bear Sterns’ and 2. Is not reciprocating Above the Law’s promotion of its ‘sister site’.

That said, the ‘remedy’ of blocking DealBreaker is kinda what we would expect from China or Burma but not a publicly traded US Company, i.e. Bear Sterns apparently deserves to be ‘picked on’, i.e. sucks AND/OR LICKS THE SWEAT OFF OF DEAD MEN’S BALLS (to plagiarize an insult).

(CONCURRENTLY POSTED IN ABOVE THE LAW AND DEALBREAKER.)

Posted by , Nov 09, 2007 5:01PM

ick

Posted by , Nov 09, 2007 5:39PM

The Chinese Overlords, of course.

Posted by Bman, Nov 09, 2007 6:38PM

why does everyone spell their name wrong? it's STEARNS

Posted by Herodotus, Nov 09, 2007 8:16PM

Typical. Bloody typical. The fucking company is going down the tubes and all that the fucking management can think to do is block employees from accessing an admittedly salacious but also informative website? That actually gets quoted in the Economist and the WSJ? Hey, maybe that's the problem. DB's being taken more seriously by the business press than good old Jimmy (co)Cayne with his bloody cigars.

RIP Bear... Is that a shadow over there under the scaffolding on the Roosevelt hotel, or is it the lurking ghost of Drexel-Burnham-Lambert???

Posted by Herodotus, Nov 09, 2007 8:23PM

Oh, and, with regard to the poll-- since there IS no 14th floor men's room at 383 (and no 14th floor, really, that anyone can actually access: it's a mechanical floor for the A line elevator equipment, HVAC and such) my vote is for #2: apparently lese majeste is still a crime when directed at the House of Cayne...

Posted by Euro Hedgie, Nov 12, 2007 7:04AM

I'm amazed that polar bears are apparently classified as marine mammals, whilst other Bears are terrestrial mammals.

The only Bear that is really really very close to extinction methinks is Bear Stearns...

I blame the damn tourists feeding it on rubbish and letting it run wild myself...

The park ranger has a lot to answer for.

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