Here is another comment by Jersey Jim Cramer on the mess and Warren knee-deep amidships, in passing while painting Doom & Gloom.

(See the quoted passage at post end.)

(If the link to FT above doesn’t work, try this.

Thus, the buyout thesis seems hampered by the fact that Bear, a trading behemoth, has fired its great trader.

QUOTE: As a former partner of Goldman Sachs said: “[Firing Spector] seems a strange decision as most predators would only consider an offer for Bear Stearns if Spector was a guaranteed part of the transaction.” UNQUOTE

The piece speculates that should Bear be bought (by a money center bank in need of a big brokerage), Warren might return to run the company.  No source or rationale provided.

(If the link above doesn’t work, try this.)

But yes, I imagine he’s already getting calls to come rescue trading desks worldwide.

Maybe however he will do a Bill Clinton turn — and become an ambassador and agent of good works.

But what do I know?!?

Maybe he’ll produce my film!

If anyone knows where the bodies are buried he does. As this unwind progresses I’d think an architect of its creation would be among those in the highest demand – yes/no?

Hedge or even vulture fund maybe?

I have no direct skin in the game, just curious.

QUOTE
Bear Bigwig’s Departure Is Bad News

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
8/6/2007 9:13 AM EDT

Warren Spector, formerly of Bear Stearns (BSC), was too bullish. Period, end of story.

When the hedge fund problems hit Bear, he was telling everyone not to worry and that the “Dumb” fund (to reuse the nomenclature from my series on Bear’s two failed hedge funds) would be worth a lot of money once the new money took off the pressure of margin calls.

That outlook, more than anything else, explained his departure. He committed more than a billion in hard-earned Bear capital to the “Dumb” fund, and the money is lost — something I know I didn’t see happening.

This change at the top of Bear is not good news. It shows that Bear has lost control of the situation to some degree and has put an investment banker up top of the food chain, a curious choice at best.

Also, it causes tons of head-scratching, not just because the CFO said this is the worst market in 20 years, hardly the “business as usual” statement we expected.

It was Spector’s ouster, which I had gotten wind of on Thursday, that shook me. This is a man at the heart of the mortgage trading business, a hard-core realist who knows his way around collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and CDO squared and mortgage insurance and the interaction of the mortgage chain from mortgage customer to the hedge funds and European banks and insurance companies that bought this stuff.

If he was too bullish, what the heck was everyone else?
END QUOTE

Thanks for commenting.

My only reply would be that Merrill and Goldman are themselves wooly mammoths. But yes — your point being I take it that they haven’t been consumed as eg Smith Barney was by Citi.