Did you ever think a year or so ago you’d be reading headlines like this? The Federal Reserve had to help bail out investment bank Bear Stearns today.

At The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, they’re featuring this comment from counterpunch.org to explain the mess:

Wonderful. So now the Fed is planning to expand its mandate and bail out investment banks, hedge funds, brokerage houses and probably every other brandy-swilling Harvard grad who got caught-short in the subprime mousetrap. Ain’t the “free market” great?