Bears, banks and bail-outs …

Interesting to see that Bear Stearns are suffering the same issue as NCR, seeing this report on 28th March:

"A
senior Bear Stearns executive with 20 years' experience has been
accused of defecting to rival Morgan Stanley with so many print-outs of
confidential client information that the troubled bank's Boston office
ran out of paper."

Should have used a USB Memory Stick ... far easier.

Equally,
I was researching a project over the weekend on Basel II - yes, I am
that boring - and found this fascinating discussion in the Hindu Business Line from November 2006.

James
Nicholas Haigh, Managing Director and Deputy Chief Credit Officer of
Private Wealth Management at Deutsche Bank, and Hans Rudolf Schutter,
Executive Director for Asia and Middle East at Risk Business
International Ltd, responded to the idea that the Indian government
funded the Indian banking industry with the following statement:

"The
government backing a bank was not a good approach as it meant that
taxpayers' money was being used to pay for mistakes of bank
managements."

I have heard this statement a thousand times in the past. 

I
wonder what they would say now, after the Fed bailed out Bear Stearns,
the Treasury bailed out Northern Rock, and the ECB bailed out Spain's
mortgage book, and, and, and ...