Bear Sterns Collapse

Part of the reason why the Great Depression was so Great was because people that trusted banks etc with their money, lost their money to the institutions who were supposed to be able to return a persons investment. Fast forward to today, and we hear about the case of the Bear Sterns hedge fund:

The value of the Bear Stearns Asset-Backed Securities Fund has fallen amid a flurry of mortgage markdowns, the Wall Street Journal reported, sparking fears the bank will have to close the fund as it has done to two others.

Bear Stearns (Charts, Fortune 500) has delayed paying back investors' money in the hope that the values of the fund would rise again, a source told the Journal.

The asset-backed fund's value was up 5 percent from Jan.1 to the end of June, the source told the newspaper. The troubled fund reported holds a range of mortgages with only a sliver being of the subprime category, the Journal reported.

Things are going to get much worse. They'll get better because of the Long War