Will the U.S. financial system collapse today, or maybe over the next few days? I don’t think so � but I’m nowhere near certain. You see, Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank, is apparently about to go under. And nobody knows what will happen next. To understand the problem, you need to know that the old world of banking, in which institutions housed in big marble buildings accepted deposits a
![Opinion | Financial Russian Roulette (Published 2008)](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/aef14ea0c408faa3998f4f2635bd7a1d8509f708/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2018%2F04%2F02%2Fopinion%2Fpaul-krugman%2Fpaul-krugman-facebookJumbo.png%3Fyear%3D2008%26h%3D550%26w%3D1050%26s%3Dca9881a3224af54ad6ff5be59ee9549fd7bdd61e94273a3da344f3df48db5610%26k%3DZQJBKqZ0VN)