My current theory on who gets a federal bailout is that the government has declared weird names an endangered species:
Bear Stearns: bailout
Fannie Mae: bailout
Freddie Mac: bailout
whereas relatively standard business names have to deal with it on their own:
Lehman Brothers
AIG
Merrill Lynch (emergency merging with Bank of America)
There are interesting tests coming up: WaMu is a pretty weird name.
Note the AIG bailout leaves my theory in tatters.
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