Been reading a great, relevant book Richard Bookstaber's "A Demon of Our Own Design" http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Our-Own-Design-Innovation/dp/0471227277 An abstract I pulled from the "LTCM Rides the Leverage Cycle to Hell" chapter: "For a period of three days in early October 1998, Merrill Lynch had a net capital deficiency ranging between $1 billion and $3 billion...Lehman Brothers, whose stock plunged two-thirds over the course of the crisis, skirted bankruptcy. Salomon prepared to pull its trading lines with Lehman, and relented only out of fear that doing so would initiate a cascade from other firms that would turn a potential for default into a certainty... Why is it that leverage crises occur frequently in financial markets, but not in the broader business world? The reason is that the very ability to liquidate - clearly a desirable attribute of an investment portfolio - is, ironically the root of the liquidity crisis cycle"