He writes:

The bit which jumps out at me is that after throwing Bear a lifeline on the evening of Thursday March 13, the Fed abruptly let go of the rope one day later, and essentially said "you'd better be rescued by JP Morgan, or you're going to die".

During the morning of Friday, March 14, 2008, the board of directors of Bear Stearns met to receive an update from senior management regarding its efforts to identify funding sources and to authorize entry into the proposed secured lending facility from JPMorgan Chase. Later that morning, Bear Stearns issued a press release announcing that it had obtained this secured lending facility and that it was discussing permanent financing and other alternatives with JPMorgan Chase...
On Friday evening, Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase were informed by the New York Fed that the New York Fed-backed secured lending facility that had been entered into earlier that day would not be available on Monday morning.

On Friday morning, then, Bear Stearns announced "a secured lending facility for an initial term of up to 28 days"; by Friday evening, they were told that lending facility had already expired and would not even last through Monday. Quite a volte-face by the Fed!

John Dizard at the FT waxes wrathful:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Matthew 23:27

Think of the main US banks and dealers, along with their regulators, as the Iraqi government - though without the same unity, purpose or long-term planning...
The systemic risks can be managed, though not without pain and loss. However, that will require recognition of problems, reform of badly designed and built structures, and extensive, significant, recapitalisations. None of that will happen as long as the hypocrisy (see Matthew, above) of the banks' and dealers' management is enabled by the regulators and central bankers.