JPMorgan takeover of Bear Stearns detailed – a bailout for THIS?

As of Saturday evening, Morgan was still willing to pay about $15 a share for Bear. But Morgan’s investment bankers weren’t sure how to value Bear’s holdings, Morgan officials started batting about the idea of a Federal Reserve guarantee.

The deal was finally closed a little after 7 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, less than an hour before Asian markets were due for Monday opening.

Meanwhile, a bunch of other financial players on the Street were deliberately talking Bear down for their own selfish reasons:

People forget that Wall Street is a fragile machine. Cash, or “liquidity,” as it is known in the trade, is the oxygen that keeps investment banks alive. No matter how healthy you are, you can’t breathe if someone puts a pillow over your head. That’s what Bear Stearns’s clients and rivals did, and they did it without remorse.

As Andrew Ross Sorkin points out, what is Bear going to do? Say no? It’s doubtful Morgan will raise its offer or that the Fed will support anybody else making an offer.

So, instead, we have the Federal Reserve not only involved with a Wall Street bailout, but also with Wall Street financial politics and inter-firm politics and schadenfreude.

Wonderful. I know that this isn’t in Ben Bernanke’s job description.