Here's a few interesting comments in the media on Lehman Brothers.

'I think letting Lehmans go really raises the question, did the US have a grip on this thing ?'

Sir John Gieve, former deputy Governor of The Bank of England (Reuters)

'It was a period of tremendous experimentation. When you're faced with a crisis of this magnitude, if you take the view that every measure that you take has to be exactly right, you don't do anything'.

Frederic Mishkin, ex-Fed board member and now an economist at Columbia Business School (The Wall Street Journal)

'The decision to let Lehman go led to the equivalent of a coronary in the markets. Blind panic followed. If you could go back in time I'd be very surprised if the Fed would make the same decision again'.

Danny Gabay, former Bank of England official, now at Fathom Consulting (The Daily Telegraph)

'I couldn't believe that people could be that irrational. It was an ad hoc decision to make a point, which in a sense boomeranged'.

Unnamed senior Lehman executive (CNBC)

'It was stressful, it was emotional, we knew we were playing for big sticks. So, on the one hand we knew that if Lehman went into bankruptcy, there would be huge implications in the market, and on the other hand we wanted to look at whether or not there was a transaction that made sense for Barclays as well as the markets'.

Bob Diamond, President, Barclays Bank (CNBC)

'With Lehman you had a ship that had been sailing along very well, and one particular thing torpedoed it. The rest of the business in the US was still buzzing - what Barclays got was a business in which 80% was very vibrant'.

Mike Trippitt, analyst, Oriel Securities (Reuters)

'Organised chaos'. '

Nomura insiders' view of the bank's Lehman integration (The Financial Times)

'They didn't understand Lehman's business when they bought it, and they still don't'.

Unnamed 'dealmaker' describing the Nomura Lehman acquisition (The Financial Times)

'In the US, and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger. The problems are worse than they were in 2007, and before the crash.

Joseph Stiglitz, economist (Bloomberg)

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