Hello everyone, I have been listening to Max Keiser a lot and no-one I know has the expertise to understand some of the questions I have so I am hoping to find help online. 1. In recent show (196) Stacey said that the US bailed out Dexeia because they hold the assets to many municipal bonds on its books. Is this just another way of saying that the banks bought bought the bonds? So the government was afraid that if the bank collapsed they would cash in their bonds? I don't understand why the gov would not just honor the bonds instead of bailing them out and still owing for the future. Am I understanding this right? 2. When the collapse happened everyone 401k's became worthless necessitating the bailout right? How did the collapse of some huge banks make that happen? Could the gov just have filled up everyone's 401k's instead of bailing out the banks? 3. Max says that JP Morgans and other banks use their massive derivative holdings to manipulate prices on the market, how does that work? This seems like a really cool forum, I look forward to yalls responses. -Seth