One year on from the US’s biggest bankruptcy the BBC has released a radio dramatisation of the last three days of Lehman Brothers.
A dry subject, you might imagine, but I listened to The Day That Lehman Died last night, and found it strangely compelling. The overriding question that remained was, why Lehman, or more specifically, when Merrill Lynch and AIG were bailed, why NOT Lehman. The impression I got was that Lehman was seen as having overreached itself, having broken some unspoken, unwritten rule about taking on toxic debt (in the sub-prime market). When it came down to it, the decision by the Federal Reserve sounded personal.
The only criticism I would have of the drama was that the actors sounded like actors. Senior executives of banks probably don’t generally sound like BBC radio announcers.
Still, it’s worth a listen and gives a good understanding of the shenanigans that went on in these massive financial institutions, which took money off thousands of individuals and then tried to wring every last cent out of it in profit, ending up losing a good deal of it because they lent it to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back. One thing about this whole financial mess which still seriously irks me is that these ridiculously rich individuals insist on paying themselves and their colleagues multi-million dollar bonuses, even when they have quite obviously not succeeded in the running of their business. That would be like the head of a hospital receiving a commendation after poor practice in the hospital let most of the patients die.
Tags: anniversary of Lehman bankruptcy, The Day That Lehman Died