Wall Street's fantasy economy
Interesting choice of words by the Fed's Ben Bernanke, getting grilled before the Senate Banking Committee the morning. He is defending the Fed's decision last month to extend up to $30 billion in credit to grease the sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase. Letting Bear Stearns default, he says, was not an option.
"Moreover, the adverse impact of a default would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability," Bernanke said.
Wall Street IS the real economy. That's the problem.
