Yay, Bear Stearns got a federal bailout, and we taxpayers got stuck with the check! Even better, someone was smart enough to see the investment firm rolling to an epic collapse, and oh did they profit, said The Independent.

The derivatives trade involved put options that gave purchasers the right to sell 5.7 million Bear Stearns shares for $30 each on 20 March, and 165,000 shares for $25 each also on 20 March, according to Bloomberg data. The options cost the anonymous investor $1.7m.

That was less than half the $62.97 price at which Bear Stearns shares were trading on 11 March, suggesting the investor was confident the stock was going to crash. Many traders said yesterday such a big, short-term bet would be highly unusual, even for a hedge fund. Others, though, pointed to the 158 per cent return to suggest it was a bet with a reasonable risk-reward ratio.

So who banked that sweet reward?  Are you naive enough to think that seven years after 9/11, where someone made a big bet on airline stock plunging and profited handsomely after the planes hit, that we’d be able to track down who scored big when Bear Stearns got its comfy rescue blanket?

Ha ha.