Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy Three Months Ago Today The ‘Economic Crisis’ Unofficially Started
September 15, 2008, and the collapse of Lehman Brothers seemingly won’t go down in history on any sort of parallel with September 11, 2001. But it was on September 15, precisely three months ago today, that Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in United States history. This was the unofficial beginning of the “economic crisis” that now engulfs each day of our lives, and which won’t go away anytime soon, if it ever goes away at all.
Lehman Brothers thus became the poster child for all that went wrong on Wall Street, and with the American public. This includes everything from irresponsible subprime and predatory lending to highly executive pay and bonuses for corporate executives. Lehman Brothers, which died after 158 years, held more than $600 billion in assets. This was the equivalent of nearly $2,000 for each and every American man, woman and child. Lessons still are being learned and history still is being written.
A pair of factors may seem irregular in regards to what happened with Lehman Brothers. First of all, Lehman Brothers was not deemed to be a dire requirement for saving in the same manner as Bear Stearns, or AIG, or Citigroup, even though the Dow Jones dropped more than 500 points on September 15 after the Lehman Brothers collapse. Second, anyone who had scoured the Internet or an feeble public library shelf would have found plenty of writings that predicted much of economic crisis that broke out on September 15, even though the mainstream news media did not seem in tune.
The timing of the plunge of Lehman Brothers also may have helped to determine the 44th President of the United States. John McCain’s suspension of his campaign, in order to head back to Washington to deal with the economic crisis, did not play especially well. Meanwhile, Barack Obama gained am image of being detached and collected. No less a source than David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, said during a Harvard University forum (shown on C-Span) that Obama probably clinched the election between September 15 and September 26.
Meanwhile, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld acknowledged to a committee in Congress that he had favorite about $300 million in pay and bonuses during the past eight years. Richard Fuld said he believed that he deserved the compensation. Other top executives reportedly cashed out before the bankruptcy filing. The anatomy of Wall Street scandal (and bailouts) was established, even though Lehman Brothers didn’t accept a bailout.
SOURCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman_Brothers
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Filed under Stock Bankruptcy by on Aug 14th, 2011. 
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