Inside the editorial page - How did Bear Stearns survive that name?

What's on the minds of TNT editorial writers

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:51:27 pm

A mystery surrounds Bear Stearns, the venerable investment bank rescued Friday out of fear that its collapse could send all of Wall Street reeling.

Namely, its name.

How does a firm in this racket survive for 85 years with a name like "Bear"?

Why not Bull Stearns, Windfall Stearns or Rally Stearns?

If anyone decides this company needs rechristening, here are some names we would argue against: Crash Stearns, Panic Stearns, Nosedive Stearns, Sell-Off Stearns, Lemming Stearns and Halloween Stearns.

Lose Your Shirt Stearns wouldn't be a good one, either.

Side note: A sad aspect of the Bear Stearns collapse is that 30 percent of its stock is held by employees. A stock that was worth $70 a share a week ago was valued at $2 a share in the sale to JPMorgan Chase.

And, rather ironically, Bear Stearns famously refused to contribute to the $3.6 billion bailout of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. What goes around comes around.
--D. Seago

Categories: Taking notice • 1 comment

COMMENTS:

Comment by lilibet @ 23:48 - Monday, March 17th, 2008

I have to say that I wondered that myself.

Comments are not allowed from anonymous visitors. Please login or register to comment.

Inside the editorial page

Inside the editorial page

This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher Cheryl Dell and Executive Editor David Zeeck.

Contributing bloggers

Editorial page editor David Seago joined The News Tribune in 1967. He oversees the daily editorial and letters pages and the Sunday Insight section. E-mail him at david.seago@thenewstribune.com.

Chief editorial writer Patrick O’Callahan came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. He writes the editorial board’s annual civic agenda published at the beginning of each year. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com

Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. She is responsible for day-to-day production of the editorial and op-ed pages and editing letters to the editor. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.

Editorial writer Kim Bradford joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. She manages this blog. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.