If you are over the age of 40, there is a good chance you remember where you were on September 15 2008, the day Lehman Brothers went bust. It was one of the first of many shocking moments during the last global financial crisis, a searing time of bank runs, crashes and bankruptcies when big economies tumbled into some of their deepest recessions since the Great Depression. Stunned Lehman staff, who left the 158-year-old investment bank’s offices carrying their belongings in cardboard boxes, came to symbolise the millions who lost their jobs, homes and life savings in a disaster that destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth.
如果你年過40歲，很可能還記得自己在2008年9月15日身處何地——那一天，雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)倒閉了。這是上一輪全球金融危機中最早、也最令人震驚的時刻之一。那段時期，銀行擠兌、股市崩盤和破產接連發生，大型經濟體陷入自大蕭條以來最嚴重的衰退。在雷曼兄弟這家擁有158年歷史的投行，員工們神情茫然地提著裝有個人物品的紙箱離開辦公室，成為數百萬在這場災難中失去工作、住房和畢生積蓄的人們的象征。這場危機摧毀了數萬億美元的財富。