What would JP Morgan do?

It is said to be the worst financial crisis since 1929, and no one today can say whether anything will work, or whether another Great Depression is about to descend.

But I am thinking of a financial crisis 101 years ago, the "Panic of 1907," as it was called.

In late October of that year, the greatest banker of his day, and perhaps any day, JP Morgan, 70 years old but at the height of his power, returned early from a meeting of Episcopalians in Virginia to gather titans of Wall Street together in the red room of his famous library. He was suffering from a bad cold, but got through the following days and nights on heavy doses of Havana cigars.

J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller put their wealth on the line during the Panic of 1907. Today, the taxpayers are being called on to put their dollars up to bail out the wealthy.