March 16, 2008(LPAC)--Lazard played a key role in the Fed's bailout of Bear Stearns, according to a report in today's London Telegraph, which reported that as Bear was collapsing, CEO Alan Schwartz placed a call to "his key adviser, Gary Parr, the deputy chairman of Lazard and one of a handful of men on Wall Street able to raise serious cash at short notice," the paper said. Parr then called Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. "Then Parr devised a plan: if the New York Fed would provide the funding, J.P. Morgan could be a conduit through which a government-backed cash injection could be delivered."

The significance of the inclusion of Lazard in this story, said Lyndon LaRouche, is that the Telegraph is "pointing to the incompetence of Lazard in dealing with the present world crisis. The policy is incompetent, and they point to Lazard as the source of this quality. What they are saying, when you take away the double-talk, comes down to exactly that: they are saying that it was the Lazard model, or Lazard advice, which has defined the present failure and incompetence of Wall Street and London in dealing with the crisis. That they don't like. They don't like to be accused of being incompetent in their skills. Take away their authority, and what are they, what do you have? A piece of shit."