Found via The Big Picture.
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers is widely misunderstood: We have inverted a morality tale about individual recklessness to become one about collective culpability through inaction.
This month marks the second anniversary of a colossal failure that has shaped financial officials’ response to the ongoing global crisis, legislators’ attitudes toward reform, and the public’s perception of fairness. The failure is the fundamental misunderstanding of the events surrounding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. We have inverted a morality tale about individual recklessness to become one about collective culpability through inaction.
Lehman failed as it should have failed. That we have ex post made it the fulcrum of the financial crisis misrepresents events in three material ways.
