I thought using any available, legal, means to raise capital WAS funding "ourselves"...
and therein lies the real problem as far as Dimon/Bair were concerned: they couldn't believe that WMB was raising the kind of cash they needed to stay alive... ...so they stole it.
I heard on NPR (national public radio) yesterday, as far as I remember, couple of senators went to China to convince them not to give up on US securities and buy more of those. Something like that.