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Lehman All Fulds Fault

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by Felix Salmon
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Sep 14 2008 7:54pm EDT

Lehman: All Fuld's Fault

John Gapper has the first best Lehman post-mortem:

Fuld never changed, not really. He was still the same dark, obstinate Lehman loyalist that he had always been - a man who never wanted his firm to be sold. And, in the end, Mr Fuld's pride and obstinacy stood in the way of Lehman's desperate efforts in the past half year to right itself...
He had devoted so much of his life and his personality into moulding the bank he could not accept its decline. If he had sold out earlier, Lehman might have survived but he was too proud. It was hubris, followed by nemesis.

Gapper's right: the fate of 24,000 Lehman employees lies on Fuld's broad shoulders. This credit crunch is a category-4 hurricane, and Fuld is the idiot who decided to hold his ground rather than evacuating and living to fight another day. Now his 158-year-old house has been destroyed. It's sad, yes -- but it's also tragic.

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