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Bear Trap

Monday, August 04, 2008 | 05:53 AM

Here's some breathless reporting about an anonymously authored book. Its an interesting discussion of a senior manager director "running the derivatives desk at Bear."

The whole "anonymous" author goes public in September strikes me as schtick -- a book publishing publicity stunt.

However, getting the manuscript is quite the coup for Liz. Any Bear insider story is worth pursuing, as we still only have partial knowledge of what really happened, and how things went so wrong.

I love Liz, but if you are going to mention that a firm had $17 Billion in cash, then you have to also mention this capital base was leveraged 35X that amount in liabilities. Its called double entry book keeping for a reason.

One last note -- Fox has been stoking the "rumor monger" aspect of the Bear/Lehman story. I am not a believer in this line of thought -- rumors cannot bring real companies, and the biggest player in the Residential Mortgage Back Securities sector made a big bad bet that went bust. I am no defender of CNBC, and invariably disagree with Dennis, Charlie and Larry. To me, the Vanity Fair reportage blaming CNBC was silly, and Fox picking up the same story line -- that rumors brought down Bear Stearns -- does not serve its viewers. Its old school yellow journalism at its finest.

Regardless, this will be worth watching to see what develops...