"You knew before the merger was approved..."

The beginning of the great bear market of 2012

Watch Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Jack in the Box bean counter sitting behind Rep. Kucinich go at it hammer and tongs through non-verbal signals and eye-screwing over e-mails that prove the Fed approved a merger between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch that was already hemorrhaging money - $14 billion in the last quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bernanke continues to spout code for inflating the American currency by insisting the Federal Reserve "will continue to closely monitor economic developments and is prepared to take further action as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability."

According to one market analyst, "Price stability is the Federal Reserve's euphemism for its policy of constantly printing money so there's always some inflation in the economy...Why can't he just say, 'I'll keep printing money until the stock market goes up'?"

More to come, since "The Financial Times" reported the market entered official bear territory when the S&P 500 index fell to less than 1,100 in the first few minutes of trading on Tuesday morning.