The B Word  —  O.K., here it comes: The unthinkable is about to become the inevitable.  —  Last week, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, and John Lipsky, a top official at the International Monetary Fund, both suggested that public funds might be needed to rescue the U.S. financial system.

JP Morgan Pays $2 a Share for Bear Stearns  —  In a shocking deal reached on Sunday to save Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a mere $2 a share to buy all of Bear — less than one-tenth the firm's market price on Friday.  —  As part of the watershed deal, JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve …

Sold!  —  So JP Morgan has agreed to buy Bear Stearns at $2 a share.  As others have already pointed out, this is, from the point of view of the shareholders, just barely better than bankruptcy.  Talk of a bailout of the bank is silly—this wasn't a bailout; it was an orderly winding-up of business.

Bear Stearns Closes in on Deal To Sell Itself to J.P. Morgan  —  Bear Stearns Cos. was closing in on a deal Sunday afternoon to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries deepened that the financial crisis of confidence could spread if Bear failed to find a buyer by Monday morning.

JPMorgan Acts to Buy Ailing Bear Stearns at Huge Discount  —  Bear Stearns, facing collapse because of the mortgage crisis, agreed Sunday evening to be bought by JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of less than $250 million, the two companies announced.

Sunday Financial Meltdown Blogging  —  Every now and again, and then increasingly as things start looking worse, I get a comment like “how can you write about [thing that's not earth-shatteringly important] when the economy is [something terrible happening in the economy].”

Generation Obama?  Perhaps Not.  —  Sunday evening, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner held a “Generation Obama” fund-raiser at Boston's Rumor Nightclub.  In case you're not up on the Boston club scene, I should tell you that Rumor “brings together the sexiest and hippest people from around the globe” …