WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve's unprecedented actions to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns were taken to preserve the "integrity and viability of the American financial system" and did not represent any kind of bailout, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.

Bernanke told a congressional panel that the Fed and other government agencies were informed on March 13 that without help Bear Stearns Cos. would have to file for bankruptcy the next day, forcing the central bank to make the difficult choice of deciding whether to allow the nation's fifth largest investment bank to collapse or provide assistance.

"Given the current exceptional pressures on the global economy and financial system, the damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain," Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee.

As part of marathon negotiations over the weekend of March 15-16, the Fed originally agreed to take $30 billion in securities off the books of Bear Stearns to facilitate the acquisition of the firm by JP Morgan Chase & Co. for an original price of around $2 a share.

After an uproar over the terms of the sale, the share price was boosted to around $10 and JP Morgan agreed to assume the risks for the first $1 billion in losses that might occur, lowering the Fed's potential

The rebound in financial stocks is a golden opportunity to sell, as earnings will not return to the values before the beginning of the credit crunch, editor of the 'Gloom, Doom and Boom' report and long-standing bear Marc Faber told CNBC Europe Wednesday.

If troubled banks are not rescued, as was the case with Bear Stearns, their problems risk spreading through the whole financial system, Faber said, adding that "all financial institutions are toxic."

"The bubble in financial stocks has burst and that signals that the fundamentals aren't going to come back the way they were previously," Faber, who is managing director of Marc Faber Limited, told "Squawk Box Europe."

"Overall I think we can have a rebound in financials; I would rather use the rebound as a selling opportunity," he added. "In my opinion, financial sector earnings will not come back to where it was prior to the credit crisis we had."

His comments echoed remarks by European officials on Wednesday that the end of the financial markets turmoil was still far from sight.

The peak of the global financial market crisis has not yet been hit, European Union economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia told German daily Frankfurter, while European Central Bank Governing Council member Axel Weber said it was too early to give the all-clear on the financial

The happiest people combine work, leisure and extra income.

Baby-boomers asked to define R&R are more likely to say "rock 'n' roll" than "rest and relaxation." That's a good thing, given that the old-fashioned definition of retirement as 25 years of leisure is built on two misconceptions, says gerontologist and author Ken Dychtwald.

The first, says Dychtwald, is the notion that "if you remove work from the lives of productive, intelligent and active individuals, they will still be happy." On the contrary, says Dychtwald, "for many, retirement becomes a time of boredom and isolation."

The second misconception is one of entitlement: the expectation that the working population will be able to subsidize 78 million baby-boomers, the first wave of whom turn 62 this year.

The truth is, both paid and volunteer work will be available to enterprising baby-boomers. And work not only helps pay the bills, it also feeds the soul. In fact, 75% of boomers say they want to keep working (but not full-time), and more than half want to start a new career, says Dychtwald, author of Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old (Tarcher/Putnam, $14.95).

As the first boomers turn 62, they are redefining what it means to grow old. Although the most senior among them can start collecting Social Security benefits now, many of them won't. Instead, they'll stay on

WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged the U.S. could reel into recession from the powerful punches of housing, credit and financial crises. Yet, he was coy about the Fed's next move.

With home foreclosures swelling to record highs and job losses mounting, Bernanke on Wednesday offered Congress an unflinching -- and more pessimistic -- assessment of potential damage to the national economy.

"A recession is possible," said Bernanke, who is under immense political and public pressure to turn things around. "Our estimates are that we're slightly growing at the moment, but we think that there's a chance that for the first half as a whole there might be a slight contraction."

Under one rule of thumb, six straight months of a shrinking economy would constitute a recession, but Bernanke wasn't getting into that. "A recession is a technical term," he said. "I'm not yet ready to say whether or not the U.S. economy will face such a situation."

Whether or not the economy already has fallen into its first recession since 2001 -- and many economists believe it has -- the housing debacle and other economic woes are a major concern for homeowners, job losers and investors. That means they're a concern to Congress and the presidential contenders, too.

The Fed and the White House have been thrust into crisis-management mode.