It took Netscape founder Marc Andreessen to point out that U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Bear Stearns chairman Jimmy Caynes's pot-smoking, bridge-playing lifestyle.
Caynes netted $60.1 million in cash this week by dumping his entire stake in the foundering firm at $10.84 a share.
The Bear Stearns bailout deal includes a $29 billion loan guarantee from the federal government to help cover Bear's crummy subprime mortgage-based investments. Andreessen, who is turning out to be a hardheaded and opinionated market commentator as well as a highly successful tech entrepreneur
(Netscape, Opsware, Ning), explains the implications:
Cayne's lifestyle, the WSJ wrote last year, reportedly includes pot smoking, playing bridge, and generally fiddling around while his company burns to the ground. (During the weekend in which the Bear Stearns bailout was being hammered out, Cayne was at a bridge tournament.)
Aren't you glad to know how your taxes are being spent?
Andreessen's blog, if you haven't already subscribed to it, definitely deserves a place near the top of your RSS feed reader. He's a sharp and incisive critic, and a generous sharer of his business knowledge, which is considerable.
Photo: Not a picture of Jimmy Cayne. His parachute is much, much more expensive. By Miles on Flickr
