On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy – 2008”
“We’ve got strong financial institutions…Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.” – Henry Paulson – 3/16/08
“I have full confidence in banking regulators to take appropriate actions in response and noted that the banking system remains resilient and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event. Let me be clear that during the financial crisis, there were investors and owners of systemic large banks that were bailed out . . . and the reforms that have been put in place means we are not going to do that again.” – Janet Yellen – 3/12/23
With the recent implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the largest bank failures since 2008, I had an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. I wrote the article Is the U.S. Banking System Safe on August 3, 2008 for the Seeking Alpha website, one month before the collapse of the global financial system. It was this article, among others, that caught the attention of documentary filmmaker Steve Bannon and convinced him he needed my perspective on the financial crisis for his film Generation Zero. Of course he was pretty unknown in 2009 (not so much anymore) , and I continue to be unknown in 2023.
Continue reading “IS THE U.S. BANKING SYSTEM SAFE? – 15 YEARS LATER”
On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
At the time of its collapse, Lehman Brothers was the country’s fourth-largest investment bank, with some 25,000 employees worldwide—but it began as a humble dry goods store founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844 in Montgomery, Alabama.
After Henry’s brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him in 1850, the business became known as Lehman Brothers.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy – 2008”
On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
At the time of its collapse, Lehman Brothers was the country’s fourth-largest investment bank, with some 25,000 employees worldwide—but it began as a humble dry goods store founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844 in Montgomery, Alabama.
After Henry’s brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him in 1850, the business became known as Lehman Brothers.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy – 2008”
On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
At the time of its collapse, Lehman Brothers was the country’s fourth-largest investment bank, with some 25,000 employees worldwide—but it began as a humble dry goods store founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844 in Montgomery, Alabama.
After Henry’s brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him in 1850, the business became known as Lehman Brothers.
In 1994, American Express—which had acquired the firm a decade earlier—spun Lehman Brothers off in an initial public offering (IPO). Under the leadership of CEO Richard Fuld, the investment firm began to expand its offerings in the aftermath of the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had barred affiliations between commercial banks and investment banks and their activities.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy – 2008”
Guest Post by The Zman
While I was in Europe, the world celebrated the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the financial house at the center of the mortgage meltdown. Like everyone, the fact that it has been ten years since the world teetered on the edge of the abyss slipped my mind. It is important though, to think back on the last decade, since many economists and analysts still think it was a near-death experience for the world. Danish television was playing the movie The Big Short, which was based on the great Michael Lewis book.
Guest Post by Simon Black
“Holy Crap– turn on your TV! This is crazy!”
It was Sunday, September 14, 2008. Exactly 10 years ago to the day.
My friend Jeff called me and told me to turn on the television—where I saw dozens of people on the streets of Manhattan filing out of a skyscraper carrying boxes full of their office junk.
They were all employees of Lehman Brothers, one of the largest investment banks in the world.
Lehman was hours away from filing bankruptcy in what would go down as THE biggest bankruptcy in US history.
The next day the US stock market tanked. And for most of the next several weeks, all global financial markets were a roller coaster of surreal panic and chaos.
On this day in 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
LEHMAN BROTHERS HISTORY
At the time of its collapse, Lehman Brothers was the country’s fourth-largest investment bank, with some 25,000 employees worldwide—but it began as a humble dry goods store founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844 in Montgomery, Alabama.
After Henry’s brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him in 1850, the business became known as Lehman Brothers.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Lehman Brothers bankruptcy – 2008”
“So the modern world may be increasing in technological knowledge, but, paradoxically, it is making things a lot more unpredictable.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
“Success brings an asymmetry: you now have a lot more to lose than to gain. You are hence fragile.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
I had read Nassim Taleb’s other best-selling tomes about risk, randomness and black swans – Fooled by Randomness & The Black Swan. They were not easy reads, but they were must reads. He is clearly a brilliant thinker, but I like him more because he is a prickly skeptic who scorns and ridicules academics, politicians, and Wall Street scumbags with gusto. There were many passages which baffled me, but so many nuggets of wisdom throughout each book, you couldn’t put them down.
When his Antifragile book was published in 2012, the name intimidated me. I figured it was too intellectual for my tastes. When I saw it on the shelf in my favorite used book store at the beach, I figured it was worth a read for $9. I’m plowing through it and I haven’t been disappointed.
His main themes are more pertinent today than they were in 2012. He published The Black Swan in 2007, just prior to one of the biggest black swans in world history – the 2008 Federal Reserve/Wall Street created financial collapse. His disdain for “experts” like Bernanke, Paulson, and Wall Street CEOs, and their inability to comprehend the consequences of their actions and in-actions as the financial system was blown sky high, was a bulls-eye.
Guest Post by The Zman
Back when the Germans were threatening to shut down Greece and sell it off for parts, it was fairly obvious that there was no way to “fix” the Greek problem. Even it were possible to radically overhaul their public sector, the debt payments are too high to maintain the level of social services expected from a modern social democracy. Default was unthinkable because close to 80 percent of Greece’s public debt is owned by public institutions, primarily the EU governments and the ECB.
The “solution” was to kick the can down the road until a miracle happened, but now the problem is back.
Via Investment Research Dynamics
DB stock is now in a full panic sell-off as I write this. It just hit another new all-time NYSE low on by the heaviest volume ever in the stock since its 2001 NYSE listing. It’s currently down almost 10%. No doubt the Central Banks will try to bounce it.
Deutsche Bank may well be the scapegoat this time around just like Lehman was the scapegoat in 2008. Central Banks in collusion can prevent just one bank from collapsing. It was the co-collapsing of AIG and Goldman Sachs that prompted then-Secretary of Treasury, ex-Goldman CEO Henry Paulson, to put in motion the bailout of the U.S. and European banking system.
Yesterday it was reported that the rate the Fed charges the banks to borrow collateral surged to its highest rate in 7 years – LINK. The rush to borrow collateral was no doubt prompted by OTC derivatives-related counter-party collateral calls. A collateral call is like a margin call in a stock account. This occurs when a derivatives trade goes south for an entity that is on the long side of the derivatives bet – a bet that Deutsche Bank won’t default, for instance – and the counterparty to that trade demands more collateral to be posted in order to insure that the bet can be paid off if the “long side” loses.
Continue reading “The Financial System Is On The Cusp Of Collapse”
Just over a week ago the world was coming unglued, as enough British citizens grew a pair and spit in the face of the EU establishment and global elite by voting to exit the EU. The fear mongering by central bankers and their puppet political hacks failed to deter people who have become sick and tired of being abused and pillaged by bureaucrats working on behalf of bankers and billionaires.
Stock markets around the world plummeted on Thursday and Friday. The world braced for another Black Monday. The phone lines were buzzing between central bankers around the world over the weekend as their banker constituents demanded relief. If one thing has been proven over the last seven years, its a coordinated effort between central bankers and Wall Street banks to rig the stock market higher can work over a short time period.
The titans of finance were able to once again confound short-sellers and the prophets of doom with a 5% surge from the Friday lows over the next week. It was surely a coincidence the Fed declared all Wall Street banks, safe, sound, and capable of buying back their stocks to the tune of billions early in the week.
These insolvent zombies were now free to borrow billions to buy back their overvalued stocks, destroying shareholder value, while boosting executive compensation. Poor Jamie Dimon is struggling to get by on his $27 million per year. The Wall Street banks obliged by immediately announcing multi-billion dollar buyback schemes to capitalize on the short-term trading mentality of the 30 year old MBA trading geniuses who bought the news without worrying about the actual value of the stocks they were buying.
In case you haven’t noticed February 2016 is September 2008 all over again. Deutsche Bank is dead bank walking. It’s collapse will unleash a whirlwind of pain upon the global economy that is already teetering. The market is down 14% from its May all-time high. It is going to fall at least another 25%. It will probably fall another 35%. Remember September 2008? There were huge rallies as the S&P 500 ultimately collapsed to 666 in March 2009. The S&P 500 is still 1,829 today. Ask yourself a question. Is the global economic and financial situation much better than it was in March 2009? Every central banker on the planet has shot their load. Interest rates are already zero or lower. $70 trillion of global debt has been added since 2008. Currency wars and real wars are breaking out all over the globe. Do you really think the stock market is where you want to be now?
Janet Yellen will increase interest rates for the first time in nine years on Wednesday. She isn’t raising them because the economy is strengthening. The economy just happens to be weakening rapidly, as global recession takes hold. The stock market is 3% lower than it was in December 2014, and has basically done nothing since the end of QE3. Wall Street is throwing a hissy fit to try and stop Janet from boosting rates by an inconsequential .25%. Janet would prefer not to raise rates, but the credibility and reputation of her bubble blowing machine is at stake. The Fed has enriched their Wall Street benefactors over the last six years, while destroying the real economy and the middle class.
The quarter point increase will be reversed in short order as soon as we experience market collapse part two. It will be followed with negative interest rates and QE4, as these academics have only one play in their playbook – print money. They created the last financial crisis and have set the stage for the next – even bigger collapse. John Hussman explains how their zero interest rate policy has driven speculators into junk bonds as the only place to get any yield.
The housing market peaked in 2005 and proceeded to crash over the next five years, with existing home sales falling 50%, new home sales falling 75%, and national home prices falling 30%. A funny thing happened after the peak. Wall Street banks accelerated the issuance of subprime mortgages to hyper-speed. The executives of these banks knew housing had peaked, but insatiable greed consumed them as they purposely doled out billions in no-doc liar loans as a necessary ingredient in their CDOs of mass destruction.
The millions in upfront fees, along with their lack of conscience in bribing Moody’s and S&P to get AAA ratings on toxic waste, while selling the derivatives to clients and shorting them at the same time, in order to enrich executives with multi-million dollar compensation packages, overrode any thoughts of risk management, consequences, or the impact on homeowners, investors, or taxpayers. The housing boom began as a natural reaction to the Federal Reserve suppressing interest rates to, at the time, ridiculously low levels from 2001 through 2004 (child’s play compared to the last six years).
Last week the government reported personal income and spending for April. After months of blaming non-existent consumer spending on cold weather, shockingly occurring during the Winter, the captured mainstream media pundits, Ivy League educated Wall Street economist lackeys, and Keynesian loving money printers at the Fed have run out of propaganda to explain why Americans are not spending money they don’t have. The corporate mainstream media is now visibly angry with the American people for not doing what the Ivy League propagated Keynesian academic models say they should be doing.
The ultimate mouthpiece for the banking cabal, Jon Hilsenrath, who does the bidding of the Federal Reserve at the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, wrote an arrogant, condescending, putrid diatribe, directed at the middle class victims of Wall Street banker criminality and Federal Reserve acquiescence to the vested corporate interests that run this country. Here are the more disgusting portions of his denunciation of the formerly middle class working people of America.
We know you experienced a terrible shock when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 and your employer responded by firing you.
We also know you shouldn’t have taken out that large second mortgage during the housing boom to fix up your kitchen with granite counter-tops.
You should feel lucky you’re not a Greek consumer.
Fed officials want to start raising the cost of your borrowing because they worry they’ve been giving you a free ride for too long with zero interest rates.
We listen to Fed officials all of the time here at The Wall Street Journal, and they just can’t figure you out.
Please let us know the problem.
The Wall Street Journal was swamped with thousands of angry responses from irate real people living in the real world, not the elite, QE enriched, oligarchs living in Manhattan penthouses, mansions on the Hamptons, or luxury condos in Washington, D.C. Hilsenrath presumes to know how the average American has been impacted by the criminal actions of sycophantic Ivy League educated central bankers and their avaricious Wall Street owners.