Crisis Panel’s Report Parsed Far and Wide

By SEWELL CHAN
NYT

WASHINGTON — Behind closed doors, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, called it “the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression.”

He said that 12 of the country’s 13 most important financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, had been on the verge of collapse “within a week or two.” (The apparent exception: JPMorgan Chase.)

Imagining the impact of a Citigroup bankruptcy, he recalled, was “sort of like saying, ‘Well, four out of your five heart ventricles are fine, and the fifth one is lousy.’ ” (The human heart actually has two.)

Mr. Bernanke’s remarks, from a November 2009 interview with government investigators, were among the fresh details in the blow-by-blow chronicle of regulatory negligence and Wall Street recklessness released Thursday by a federal commission.

(More here.)