Portfolio manager Axel Merk explains Fed's new auction facility to High Yield Report:

"Axel Merk, manager of the Merk Hard Currency Fund, said that the Fed's effort to secure the sale of Bear Stearns is similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity used to clean up after the savings and loan scandals of the late 1980s and early 1990s.  This time, however, instead of setting up an independent entity to hold troubled assets, the entity used to help foster market stability is the Fed itself."