Lehman

"Bundles of mortgage-based financial derivatives, the speculative instruments that brought down Lehman, are the stepchildren of junk bonds."

"Following the events after the Lehman crash, at first I had the classic feelings of trauma: shock at the realisation of what was going on and adrenalin rushes to sell, meet pressures here and run around putting out fires there. Then there was an enormous amount of anger: with the politicians, with the people who worked with me, with the bankers and most of all with myself. You could call it gutless arrogance and rage. There were external and internal accusations. How the hell did this happen? Why didn’t I see the signs and take avoiding action? Why did I hire so and so or fire a particular executive? I asked all these questions and more with increasing bitterness. Then I got to the final phase of sadness. It’s just really sad and you start to lack the will to do much about it. I’m a fighter and I went every day to fight during the crisis. But I could feel my energy sapping and a voice in my head asking: ‘What’s it all for?’"