The language out of Wall Street today is enough to scare you silly. Crisis. Fire sale. Brink of collapse. Titanic mess.

Late last night the news spread that JPMorgan Chase and the Fed have engineered a takeover of floundering Wall Street bad boy Bear Stearns.

A year ago, when the bonuses and bull were flying high, Bear Stearns was worth $20 billion dollars. Yesterday, JPMorgan bought it for $200 million and change. Two bucks a share.

Where this all unwinds, nobody knows. But it’s not over yet.

This hour, On Point: the crisis on Wall Street and where it goes.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dennis Berman, global deals editor for The Wall Street Journal.

Peter Coy, economics editor for BusinessWeek magazine.

Douglas Elmendorf, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, economist at the Federal Reserve from 2001-2006 and deputy assistant for economic policy at the Treasury Department from 1999 -2001.

Gillian Tett, capital markets editor for the Financial Times.

Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital, which manages a hedge fund based in Seattle, and author of the new book “Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve.”

In the world’s hyper-ventilating global stock markets, the bleeding has slowed, for the moment.

After two days of outright panic on markets in Bombay and Hong Kong and across Europe, the US Federal Reserve Bank jammed through a huge rate cut. President Bush and Henry Paulson and Congressional leaders hustled to a big photo op, talked big stimulus, and caught a break.

But this isn’t over. The Dow Jones just had its worst 14 trading days ever. The Asian economies people hoped would take up the slack haven’t yet.

This hour, On Point: global market mayhem and how and where the meltdown ends.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jeffrey Frankel, professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard’s Kennedy School, director of the Program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, former member Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton.

Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute.

Philip Coggan, capital markets editor at The Economist, former investments editor at the Financial Times.

Amit Seru, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Lucky you, if you rode the red-hot Chinese stock market over the last few years. Between 2003 and last fall, the Shanghai index was up 300 percent. Domestic A shares were up 500 percent in two years. We’re talking epochal money here.

Now, with money pros wondering if it’s about to go bust, super-investor Jim Rogers says “don’t stop.” One way or another, he says, figure out your way into China’s future. And do it now. Learn Chinese, take tai chi, take a trip, make an investment.

This hour, On Point: red-hot China, and new thoughts on a Chinese century.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jim Rogers, global investor and author of “A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market.”

Jonathan Woetzel, Director in McKinsey & Company’s Greater China office and author of “Operation China: From Strategy to Execution.”