David-Owens-Post-200-words-or-more-philosophy-homework-help

I have chosen banking and the Lehman Brothers financial crisis as my topic.  Lehman Brothers had been around for over 150 years as a goods store first, then growing into a major global financial services firm before the 2008 financial crisis.  They were a global powerhouse and deemed by many too big too fail, until they actually did fail and changed everything in the global financial industry.  The Lehman Brothers started by giving out subprime loans to people with bad debt. These loans started with low introductory rates that then later ballooned into larger, unaffordable rates, which is where the ethical problem lies.  This all took place in the early 2000s when the American housing boom was already going.  Lehman was able to prey on people with bad credit with the low introductory interest rates that the thriving housing economy had afforded them. In 2008 when Lehman was about to go bankrupt, they went to the federal government hopeful for a bailout.  However, Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson declined on the basis that “the banks would take responsibility for their recklessness.” (Fieser, J.)