k84 has it exactly right. Just because BSC HAD to be bailed out does not mean that it lets those who created the crisis in the first place off the hook. BSC equity investors and traders were not complaining when the stock was soaring and they were taking home their bonuses. Now that the business is in trouble and a potential anchor around the neck of the financial system, they're complaining that they deserve yet more returns when the central bank steps in to ease their re-entry into the real world. Who's shocked that they would prefer to roll the dice in Chapter 11 at this point and get anything more than the original $2 offered? They can hardly do worse than $2/share, they figure, and any risk to the financial system they've created and will realize in the process of work-out (or, more likely, liquidation) is "somebody else's problem." Once again, they get all of the upside with none of the downside.

Here's the deal -- BSC may be trading above $10 right now, but it is impossible to know what it would be trading at absent $29B in Fed guarantees signed on your and my check-books. Presumably, JPM would be offering ZERO absent those guarantees (and was likely the case -- JPM was clear that it did not want to purchase this business before Bernanke intervened), and no one else would be stepping in. Instead, we'd watch as the firm imploded and took a good chunk of the financial system's liquidity and trust with it.

So, enough politics. I propose a simple rule. If you're big enough to put the system at risk, and therefore get the option of federal protection (and your and my protection) when you screw up, then you're big enough to be regulated like the commercial guys. Anything else is subsidizing risk-taking at the expense of the public fisc.