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Lehman Brothers and the Impact to the Great Recession

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Lehman Brothers and the Impact to the Great Recession The question before me is if Lehman Brothers had been bailed out and not allowed to fail and declare bankruptcy, would it have prevented the Great Recession. My answer based upon my reading and research would lead me to the conclusion of no it would not have prevented the Great Recession. However, their failure did have an impact on the Great Recession. Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy in September of 2008. It was the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States (MacEwan and Miller, p.110). They were the fourth largest investment bank in the nation and had been in existence since 1850. Their collapse was the result of being heavily invested in the subprime mortgage market that was a major factor in the US housing bubble. Prior to Lehman Brothers failure, there had already been a bailout by the US government of another large financial institution, Bear Stearns. The bailout involved the Federal Reserve insuring J.P. Morgan Chase against loses of up to $29 billion on the “ill liquid” assets it was obtaining in the purchase of Bear Stearns. This was the beginning of the bailout of the financial sector by the federal government and would reach unprecedented levels by the end of 2008. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, justified these actions to Congress with an argument that had Bear Stearns been allowed to fail, the result would have been chaos and would not have been limited to the financial sector but would have resulted in extensive damage to the economy because of its effect on asset values and credit availability. Bernanke’s actions sent a message that federal authorities would step in and protect creditors of large financial institutions on the verge of failure and ultimately that they were “too big to fail” (MacEwan and Miller, p. 108 – 109). Subsequent to

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