If there is one excerpt that can sum up the failure or soon to be failure of the financial industry. It would be this excerpt below from this NY Times piece.

The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

Get your front row seat to see them all come tumbling down. They do deserve this there’s not doubt about that. The only people I feel sorry for are the employees of these corporations who will be out on the street. As someone who was stuck for three years working at Wachovia (the economy was horrible and I could not get out and into the field I was studying in school) and had to witness this profit motive before people (sales, sales, sales and meet your numbers garbage) I’m quite happy to see all these executives fall because of their greed. Ken Thompson met his demise. Kerry Killinger met his demise. Lehman Brothers can’t find a buyer. Who’s next?

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It is because of the greed and recklessness of upper management throughout the financial industry that these workers are now facing an uncertain and scary future.

If Lehman is sold — as now appears likely — the buyer will fire many of them. And they know that tens of thousands of other Wall Streeters laid off in the tsunami sweeping the financial industry — including many recently let go from Bear Stearns — are already chasing after too few jobs.

Yet why are the executives like Killinger at Washington Mutual walking away with their golden parachutes? I wouldn’t be surprised if Lehman’s leadership gets away with this before the firm is sold as well. Yet just like Enron, Arthur Andersen, Bear Stearns and now Lehman Brothers it’s the workers in the end who loose everything. Greed is not a good business model.

This is like the whole Bear Stearns thing all over again.

U.S. authorities were in intensive talks with Lehman Brothers over a possible sale of the troubled investment bank to one or more parties, a source with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

What bank is left to buy them? Will Lehman sell for two dollars a share too? Greed brings another mighty financial institution to its demise.

It looks like another case of greed not being good is becoming a reality.

There is virtually no chance that Lehman would collapse abruptly like Bear Stearns, since the government created a special loan program for Wall Street banks after the Bear fiasco. Instead, the risk is that Lehman, one of the nation’s largest investment banks, will slowly bleed money and employees as confidence drains away.

Lehman’s announcement was on a day when another big financial institution, the giant thrift Washington Mutual, also came under assault. Washington Mutual’s stock plunged by nearly 30 percent, underscoring the worries about the broader financial industry.

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Wachovia and Wamu they all come tumbling down…

Lehman said it expected to report a $3.9 billion loss for the third quarter, an even bigger deficit than analysts had forecast, and cut its dividend. It also announced long-expected plans to sell most of its prized investment management division and, more radically, to split itself into a “good” bank and a “bad” one.

So what brought this all on? More of the same actually. Greed. It’s the underlying credit crises and lending money to people who can’t pay you back.

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