rescuing one institution after another after another. that friday, when we brought the market together of the new york fed, i don t think any of them, or any of us, realized how bad it was going to get. i would say we were terrified at that point, but probably not terrified enough. lehman brothers, a cornerstone on wall street. failure to find a buyer over the weekend, means it is bankrupt. meanwhile, merrill lynch fearing it could be next, agreed to a shotgun marriage with bank of america. now, we re left with morgan stanley and goldman sachs. out of five three months ago, there are two left. how long have you worked for lehman, sir? when they declared bankruptcy, i cannot explain the shock and awe of the industry. you re talking about investment banks. these are the smartest money on wall street. how have they been getting it wrong for so long? they say, on wall street, that nothing happens until the lines of fear and greed cross.
madoff caused, i don t think we can ever fully grasp. homes had to be sold. college educations truncated. people had to come out of retirement. go to work at whatever job they could get. and, for those people, the madoff fraud is never going to be over. what may very well be the final steps of freedom for perhaps the most despised man in america. bernie madoff entered federal court in manhattan today pleaded guilty to greatest investor fraud in u.s. history. i think the connection, between bernie madoff and financial crisis was one fundamentally about truchlts st. a loss of trust inlt cy the sys. a loss of trust in people you thought were worthy. we all trusted the free enterprise system. we trusted these deregulated markets to foster our prosperity. all of america felt that they had been betrayed by wall
bear stearns recorded its first corporate loss in its history. investment banks are on the same as banks. you are not going to go in and open an account. investment bank clients are sophisticated investors should and do know the risks of the institutions that do business with them. bear stearns was one of wall street s bigger firms but with a riskier reputation. bear stearns was the guy flipping you the bird in the corner. it had a greater percentage of the toxic sludge, mortgage-backed securities than anybody else. the firm has been buffett by constant rumors of a liquidity problem. bear maintains its capital positions are strong. questioning the liquidity is
wall street is bracing for another possible victim of the housing and credit crisis. lehman brothers, one of the largest and oldest brokerage firms in the country, has been experiencing what many fear is a slow death, because of the demise of bear stearns in april. there had been rumblings, if bear went down, lehman would be in trouble. and dick fuld, their ceo, had been warned, you may be next. hank paulson said, you might want to find a partner. get somebody with a bigger balance sheet. and fuld had dismissed those as absurd and unnecessary. wall street is on-edge after a weekend of talks and rescuing the struggling lehman brothers investment bank. banks and federal officials,
situation. after bear stearns collapsed, most people thought we dodged that bullet. there was debate and criticism of the government stepping in. the sense was, it was a ripping, not a bombshell. no question about it. wall street got drunk. i should ask them to turn off the tv cameras. it got drunk and now there s a hangover. the question is how long will it sober up? raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of my favorite things