September 15, 2008: The Crash Begins

"Oh no, now I'm going to have to get a real job --

and there won't be any real jobs!"

September 15, 2008: The stock market crashes following a triple whammy in the financing industry: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch is acquired by Bank of America, and American International Group (AIG) asks for short-term financing from the Federal Reserve.

AIG was a major finance and insurance company. Merrill Lynch was then the 3rd-largest investment bank in America, behind Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Lehman Brothers was 4th, and owned the brokerage firms E.F. Hutton, Smith Barney and Shearson Hammill.

Some of you may remember the commercials from the 1970s and '80s: "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen." And the commercials with John Houseman: "Smith Barney. They make money the old-fashioned way: They earn it."

Lehman Brothers also owned American Express, the credit card and travelers' cheque company, the only one of these Lehman-owned companies to end up surviving the recession that was already underway by mid-2007. AIG also survived, and Bank of America managed to keep the Merrill name and division alive.

The preceding Friday, September 12, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,421.99. When it closed on Monday, September 15, it was 10,917.51, down over 504 points. And it kept getting worse: By Friday, October 10, it was 8,451.19. It bottomed out on Monday, March 9, 2009, at 6,457.05. The market had lost 56 percent of its worth. Not since April 14, 1997 had it been so low: The Autumn of 2008 wiped out 11 years' worth of growth.

As it usually does -- since 1952, the only exceptions have been 1968, 2000 and 2016, and all of those may have been stolen -- the economy tells the story of the Presidential election. At this point, Senators John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, and Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee, were neck-and-neck in the polls. After this, McCain never had a chance: Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote, and won 28 States, including 9 that had voted Republican in 2004.

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990, once said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." The Crash of 2008 proved that Thatcher lied: That's what happens with under-regulated capitalism, not socialism. Or even "socialism." Capitalism is the problem when it is under-regulated; when it is properly regulated, it can be a solution.

The Crash of 2008 also proved that, when liberalism wins, everybody wins, including conservatives; but when conservatives win, everybody loses, including eventually, conservatives. It was only because the conservatives got scared that the Bush Administration acted. It was because the economy still needed saving on January 20, 2009 that the Obama Administration acted.

The Federal Reserve Board, led by Chairman Ben Bernanke, helped keep the downturn from becoming a full-fledged depression. For this, Time magazine named Bernanke its Person of the Year for 2009, as it had named Obama for 2008, and would again in 2012.

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Major League Baseball games played on this "Black Monday":

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-2 at the soon-to-close old Yankee Stadium. Xavier Nady hit a home run, Bobby Abreu went 3-for-4, and Phil Coke was the winning pitcher, in relief of Alfredo Aceves.

* The New York Mets lost to the Washington Nationals, 7-2 at Nationals Park in Washington.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 13-5 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Tropicana is owned by Pepsi, and survived the recession.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-2 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. PNC Bank survived the recession.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-1 at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Progressive Insurance survived the recession.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Seattle Mariners, 3-0 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 6-1 at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Minute Maid is owned by Coca-Cola, which survived the recession. The ballpark opened in 2000 as Enron Field, but Enron not only didn't survive the previous recession, it helped cause that recession. (UPDATE: In 2025, it was renamed Daikin Park.)

* The Texas Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-8 at Rangers Ballpark in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. That stadium has gone through a few names, but did not then have a corporate name. It is now named Choctaw Stadium.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Colorado Rockies, 11-5 at Coors Field in Denver. Coors survived the recession.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-1 at Chase Field in Phoenix. JP Morgan Chase was hit hard by the crash, but survived the recession. A grandson of the original John Pierpont Morgan founded what became the aforementioned Morgan Stanley.

Since this was a Monday in September, there was also a Monday Night Football game that night. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 41-37 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.