Media Missed Several Marks On Bear Stearns' Throes

The fact here -- a sad one for Bear shareholders -- is that the price of the sale was put at a song and a few trinkets. To be more specific: 2 bucks a share.

Obviously, this renders the reports about the deal coming at 20 bucks unserviceable. But it also means you should don protective gear so you are not corroded by those Long Term Capital story lines.

You can't accuse the government of bailing out Bear Stearns in any traditional sense here. This is much more nuanced and, in the end, interesting. Can you accuse the government, by contrast, of picking sides? Of siding with a stronger, more conservative player against a weak and reckless one? Certainly.

They are punishing Bear while trying to salvage a bit of it not to mention stability in the financial markets. And they are rewarding a better player. That's the interesting aspect to the non-bailout nature of the 2 bucks and what renders recycled story lines worth even less than Bear Stearns itself.

So in this oxygen deficient environment of Wall Street today, grab The Business Press Maven's lifeline. Don't believe old story lines on this one. And never, never, never believe what you read about business events involving the government until the facts are truly out.

Know What You Own: Bear Stearns operates in the financial services industry, and some of the other stocks in its field include Citigroup (C - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Goldman Sachs (GS - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Morgan Stanley (MS - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Merrill Lynch (MER - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Lehman Brothers (LEH - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). These stocks were recently trading at ($18.21, -7.94%), ($143.80, -8.31%), ($34.18, -13.55%), ($39.04, -10.27%) and ($25.20, -35.71%)respectively. For more on the value of knowing what you own, visit TheStreet.com's Investing A-to-Z section.