from hubris to a tail between his legs



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In just over two months, 11 years have passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which captivated the audience around the world, with the sight of dismissed workers coming out with cartons containing their goods.

Even though this was happening, very few of them expected what would follow. It was an unprecedented event caused by the US Federal Reserve defying what was then unanimously accepted as orthodoxy, namely that the central bank would intervene and spare financial institutions "too big to fail."

After all, a few months earlier, in March 2008, he had intervened to prevent the collapse of the smaller Bear Stearns. This was the first rescue of a Broker since the Great Depression in the early 20th century and resulted in the takeover of the company by another US giant of banks, JP Morgan.

Others, including the insurance giant AIG, also received assistance, which partly explains the shock caused by the decision to leave Lehman Brothers, ranked a year earlier by Fortune magazine among the "stock exchange companies". most admired "bankruptcy.

The fate of Bear Stearns turned out to be a simple taste financial markets and the global economy, in part thanks to the Fed's decision to let Lehman Brothers collapse, which has wreaked havoc on the financial markets, blocked credit and fears that D & D Other large financial institutions collapse in the same way, causing them to lose ability to borrow.

The consequences of letting Lehman collapse as she struggled to recover her existing debt reverberate throughout the world, plunging economies into recession.

Ironically, the worsening of the financial crisis forced central bankers to rescue other banks, which directly contributed to swell public debt in Europe and trigger the sovereign debt crisis that would have almost led to at the collapse of the euro.

In a way, the sight of former workers leaving what was once the world's largest financial services company, even if only briefly, in the same way Lehman Brothers employees a decade earlier This only serves to remind that the consequences of this crisis are still very present, although the decline of the former German power has had its own reasons, including a more general decline in investment banking in Europe.

By announcing about 18,000 job cuts and abandoning its equity business, Deutsche Bank has acknowledged its defeat in its long-standing ambition to compete with US-based global banks. He will now return to his roots, mainly for German industrial companies.

Not that the markets were too impressed, the shares having fallen more than 5% after the announcement of the restructuring plan.

The Deutsche Bank story is just one of the many stories financial system that completely derailed during the years of prosperity, marked by pride, arrogance and inadequate regulation.

The bank was among those fined in the Libor scandal, in which it was determined that commercial lenders had manipulated an interest rate system ranging from business loans to mortgages. Deutsche Bank's share was more than $ 2 billion.

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