A quick word of explanation. During the run on Northern Rock we were thinking of the depositors and how awful the uncertainty must be. There were very few bloggers onto the situation and even the financial journalists didn't seem to grasp how anachronistic a bank run was in the 21st century, at least that first weekend.
So we went out and got what we considered to be reliable sources we could link to and a thousand people got pointed to sites that weren't talking rubbish.
My first thought upon hearing the BSC news on Thursday was for the employees, who had to be in shock. Secondarily, we saw coming to pass some of the economic and market events we talked about a month, month-and-a-half ago, stuff that affects our chosen area of interest (and just about everything else) So we did the same thing, figured out who was a reliable conduit and did some power-linking.
We will be getting back to the clean/green/alt/machine mode.
In both the NRK and BSC cases, we believe top management should be shot.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The bagpipes from New York's famed St. Patrick's Day parade a block away provided a funereal soundtrack as workers at Bear Stearns Cos. headquarters mourned their company and the loss of billions in personal savings.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s deal to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share wiped out the life savings of many of Bear's 14,000 employees, who owned one-third of the firm's shares. Most employees at Bear, known for its loyalty and a strong merit-driven culture, expected to lose their jobs.
"It's devastating," said Stephen Raphael, 62 years old, a semiretired Bear broker who joined the firm in 1974. "I have a lot of good friends here, from mail clerks to senior people. I've spent more time at Bear Stearns than I have with my own family.">>>MORE
From the Times of London:
Northern Rock cuts mortgages and axes 2,000 jobs
