US Treasury official put on the spot

Yesterday a senior official from the United States Treasury addressed a big crowd in Hong Kong at a luncheon organised by the Asia Society. He talked about the thinking at the Treasury during the credit crisis but, inevitably, the interesting part was the Q&A.Foremost on peopleÆs minds was why the US government organised the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase in March, only to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt in September, the impact of which has badly damaged global capital ma…