The New York Federal Reserve has finally disclosed the assets it holds as a result of its bailout of Bear Stearns' creditors. And, as expected, it's not a very pretty portfolio.

Most of Maiden Lane 1, the vehicle used to absorb the assets, is made of jumbo mortgages, collateralized debt obligations and commercial real estate assets, all of which are impairing the Fed's balance sheet -- and its reputation, as Bloomberg noted Thursday.

That's not to say the whole thing is worthless. In fact, the Fed stands to turn a profit on one particular group of assets: credit default swaps on bond insurers like Ambac Assurance.

However, while we all agree that the Fed making money for taxpayers is a good thing, one has to wonder if it's right for it to be doing so by capitalizing on the failure of US corporations.

The stock market roared, the regulators stirred, the unemployment rate soared and the banks continued to show great reluctance to lend money.

What else happened in 2009? Oh, right, there was a tremendous binge of book publishing related to the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2008 - and Henry Paulson's version of events isn't even out yet (coming soon - Feb. 1 - to a bookstore/online warehouse near you).

The back and forth over the apparent lifting of any limit on government capital available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shows no sign of ending, as the blogosphere seems to be trying to fill in the blanks left by the Treasury's cryptic Christmas Eve announcement.

It still looks to us as if the announcement amounts to an acknowledgement that the housing market is still in serious trouble, as the governmental blank check for the two agencies came only days before Fannie reported that the rate of "serious" mortgage delinquencies on single-family homes rose yet again in October.

Prosecutors gamely accepted Tuesday's jury decision to acquit two former Bear Stearns hedge fund executives, and champions of the defendants said it was a sign that the government was banking too much on public rancor toward Wall Street and not enough on evidence.