Bear Stearns: Net Losses?

LAXLUSTER? Bear The top headline of today's Wall Street Journal reads "U.S. Slump Takes Global Toll," and the story delineates the ways in which countries that have made investments on the theory that U.S. consumers won't ever stop buying new iPhones even in the teeth of a recession are now facing serious problems. But that doesn't tell the whole tale of how the economic downturn is affecting the world: the Journal somewhat buries the more devastating news of the recent economic collapse further down the page, where it poses the biggest question facing Wall Street these days: will the Bear Stearns lacrosse team be able to survive?

Feel the poignance: