The failure of Lehman may have allowed the government to do more to prop up the economy than it otherwise could.

Unfortunately, I think it's very difficult to separate policy from politics. In a perfect world, in some instances you probably would want to. In other instances you'd probably say that the political element is important because it should, in a perfect world, match what the stakeholders need or want, or what the public is after.

Shareholders are sort of like cats they get herded around, and they follow the leader. With the exception of a few activist shareholders, there are a very rare number of big, important, influential shareholders that like to step up and say there's a problem here, especially when they're making money.

I think you tell the story that has to be told. You tell the story that's the truth. You tell the story that readers will be interested in and should know about.

The blowback against a bailout of Lehman would have been fierce. It is often forgotten, but the prevailing wisdom the day after Lehman fell was that its collapse was a good thing.

Debt, weve learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage.

In truth, a leader should either apologize, mean it and do something about it - or not apologize at all.