In A Lehman Do-Over, Fake Bank Still Proves Too Big to Fail

By Simon Johnson.  Links to the articles mentioned below are available here: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/the-problem-with-the-f-d-i-c-s-powers/

By Simon Johnson If Goldman Sachs were to hit a hypothetical financial rock, would they be allowed to fail – to go bankrupt as did Lehman – or would they and their creditors be bailed out?

By Simon Johnson Speaking Thursday morning on the Today show, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner insisted on two points: 1. If the bank rescue of 2008-09 had been handled in any other way – for example, being tougher on bankers – the costs to the real economy would have been substantially higher. 

Kimball Corson submits: Moving out of this recession and hopefully more toward more normal times, there are five major reforms we need to undertake. They are the following:We have to address the problem of the Fed. While it did pull us back from the brink, longer term, it has been a disaster. The purchasing power of the dollar has fallen by 92% since adoption of the Federal Reserve Act.

The situation in Cyprus kind of reminds me of the situation with Lehman Brothers. Cyprus just messed up Cyprus is undermining trust in European banks and can be likened to Lehman Brothers Inc., whose collapse ignited the 2008 global economic crisis, Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin said.