NEVER FORGET LEHMAN BROTHERS

Never forget the Lehman Brothers failure 20 years ago.
Never forget the millions of victims..
Never forget that the USA government directly contributed to creation of this mess , lack of oversight, lack of regulations, greed, etc.. Worse than a Third-World country.
Never forget that no one in the USA government or within LB, etc... NO ONE has faced any kind of punishment... Just like a Forth-World country.
20 years later, the USA government has taken away most if not all safeguards against the recurrence of similar disaster. Let s be prepared …..
The only silver lining from the crisis 20 years ago is that the world, especially Asia, have understand that the the so-called superior western economic philosophy and management was a sham. Today no one in Asia subscribes to this theory. And this is a good thing.
When and where will the next Lehman Brothers catastrophe strike ?

Dont disagree but I think you will find it was 2008 not 1998

It wasn't just the U.S. govt, the U.K. govt need to shoulder at least 50% of the blame and the failings weren't just at govt level the SEC and FSA were just as useless at enforcing stricter compliance and regulation. Lehman Brothers took the hit but please be assured they weren't the only company short selling and punting in high risk derivatives, It was common practice for most dealing houses, including the one i worked for (Refco) who eventually went belly up because they hid losses from the Fed amounting to about a billion dollars, my bosses however did jail time and one died while incarcerated. Greed is a great driver, LME companies still trade books valued at trillions of dollars each day with only about 7% of the traded metals making it to physical delivery, the vast majority of it is day traded (jobbed) or held as positions on trader's "books" i.e. gambling. Gambling oops sorry I mean trading, will always be an integral part of "investments" made by banks etc because although the risks are huge so are the potential profits.

Has anyone learned anything?

"Yanis Varoufakis: Risk has not been diminished, just taken out of sight"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... cial-crash

[quote=AlexO post_id=523118 time=1536989529 user_id=38624]
Dont disagree but I think you will find it was 2008 not 1998
[/quote]
THANKS my typo.. Have a nice day

In a word Tamada, no! Banks have supposedly "lowered" their exposure, some have built Chinese walls between trading arms and their high street banking, clearing houses have rewritten risk analysis and they take higher deposits, governments have made lots of really good noises but some banks and funds still hold positions bigger than the GDP of any major country. The money made in transaction fees alone make it impossible for anyone to stifle this business then TIC the forex and jobs that are created off the back of it worldwide, i doubt there is another industry that employs more people than finance and banking and that's after computerisation it used to be even bigger! It'll carry on forever.

Scary reading....

http://news.sky.com/story/next-financia ... n-11497433

Not just USA and UK. I had 10,000 GBP in the Icelandic banking system when it crashed. I did get it back, eventually. I had a similar amount in ISA investment funds and they lost up to 50%. I had been made redundant the year before and my main bank tried to get me to invest my redundancy money, but fortunately i wasn't that stupid - i put it into fixed rate bonds, as i thought the stock market was bubbling. Never trust a banker when he offers investment advice!

Financially i rode the recession reasonably well, although when my bonds matured the reinvestment rates were crap. It was just the jobs had gone so had to retire early. The stock market in the UK did bounce back after a few tears but has been in the doldrums since about 2012, has not really gone up since (ignoring the Brexit jump when the shares rose about 10% because the pound fell so much).

The question is, where to put your money now? Not such an issue now as the wife has 'invested' most of it in som tam, roofs and other incomeless improvements!

Ah the old chestnut... there's a plum on here somewhere who always gives investment advice, he's rarely right and his "advice" is best ignored. My advice is put your money in an ISA or something just as safe, the only time you should punt is if you are using money you can do without, I've spent a lifetime gambling other people's money on the markets and it's best left alone, well alone.

Seems it is the go-to subject for business editors these days.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... ten-years/