First They Came for the Mortgage Giants Firms…

Nobody panic!

Fannie and Freddie are going to have some company in the poorhouse: investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the oldest major firm on Wall Street, is desperately racing for a buyer to absorb the company's real-estate investment losses.

Like Bear Sterns' takeover by Chase Morgan earlier this year, Lehman's chief executive Richard Fuld Jr. is looking to big daddy U.S.A. to help bail him, and his company out of this fine mess. But the government just did that earlier this week with lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it will be harder to negotiate a third (after Stearns/Chase) takeover in one year while agreeing to absorb the billions in cost that the failing investments leave behind.

Still, for all the panic and wide-spread speculation of a D-word in America's near future, Fuld will probably walk away fine from situation, if it bears any resemblance to the Fannie/Freddie results, where the top honchos came out with million dollar severance packages, while the underlings lost not only their jobs, but their now worthless stock options as well. Capitalism!