Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made his boldest move to date overturning a 94-year Fed history of only funding commercial banks. Over the weekend the Fed announced it would become the lender of last resort for the biggest dealers in U.S. government bonds. That's huge! As part of the deal to get rid of the "Bear Stearns problem," the Fed also agreed to help J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) buy Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) by offering $30 billion to help finance the purchase. Vincent Reinhart, former director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Fed, told Bloomberg, "It is a serious extension of putting the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in harm's way. That's got to tell you the economy is in a pretty precarious state."
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