All the while, tax dollars continue to support runaway speculation on Wall Street ($200 billion here, $200 billion there, pay no attention to that inflation behind the curtain). You, the taxpayer, just bought Bear Stearns (not a bank, a firm engaged in betting the market) this weekend through a puppet entity, JPM. Well you didn’t buy the whole firm, you just guaranteed part of Bear Stearns for JPM. The part that was so ugly they could not find a buyer at any price. To the tune of $30 billion. JPM got a good deal though, right? The stock was worth $3.5 billion on Friday ($20 billion last January), and your puppet JPM paid $240 million today (the Bear Stearns office building in NYC is worth 5 times as much, hmmm). Why…you don’t suppose the folks on Wall Street are exaggerating the health and solvency of their positions?