Lehman Brothers was the largest bankruptcy in history, by a healthy margin. Without adjusting for inflation, Lehman Brothers had 4x more assets than were lost because of bank failures during almost the entire Great Depression. The stock market collapsed when this firm alone went under.
And it wasn't even that large compared to a lot of these banks, many of which had over a trillion in assets. Do you honestly believe that the economy wouldn't have suffered more if even 2 or 3 of those trillion+ banks would have gone into bankruptcy?
Great Depression Losses:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/money_08.html
As the economic depression deepened in the early 30s, and as farmers had less and less money to spend in town, banks began to fail at alarming rates. During the 20s, there was an average of 70 banks failing each year nationally. After the crash during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 banks failed – 10 times as many. In all, 9,000 banks failed during the decade of the 30s. By 1933, depositors saw $140 billion disappear through bank failures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_in_the_United_States
Largest bankruptcy
The largest bankruptcy in U.S. history occurred on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection with more than USD$639 billion in assets.[44]
The 20 largest corporate bankruptcies are as follows:[45]
| Company | Bankruptcy Date | Total Assets Pre-Bankruptcy |
|---|---|---|
| Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. | 9/15/2008 | $691,063,000,000 |
| Washington Mutual | 9/26/2008 | $327,913,000,000 |
| Worldcom, Inc. | 7/21/2002 | $103,914,000,000 |
| General Motors | 6/1/2009 | $82,290,000,000 |
| Enron Corp. | 12/02/2001 | $65,503,000,000 |
| Conseco, Inc. | 12/17/2002 | $61,392,000,000 |
| Chrysler | 4/30/2009 | $39,300,000,000 |
| Thornburg Mortgage | 5/01/2009 | $36,521,000,000 |
| Pacific Gas and Electric Co. | 4/06/2001 | $36,152,000,000 |
| Texaco | 4/12/1987 | $34,940,000,000 |
| Financial Corp of America | 9/09/1988 | $33,864,000,000 |
| Refco | 10/17/2005 | $33,333,000,000 |
| IndyMac Bancorp | 7/31/2008 | $32,734,000,000 |
| Global Crossing | 1/28/2002 | $30,185,000,000 |
| Bank of New England | 1/07/1991 | $29,773,000,000 |
| General Growth Properties | 4/16/2009 | $29,557,000,000 |
| Lyondell Chemical | 1/06/2009 | $27,392,000,000 |
| Calpine | 12/20/2005 | $27,216,000,000 |
| New Century Financial | 4/02/2007 | $26,147,000,000 |
| UAL Corporation | 12/09/2002 | $25,197,000,000 |
| Delta Air Lines | 9/14/2005 | $21,801,000,000 |
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
