Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

That remark skirted the catch-22 involved with the Fed’s decision to make cheap loans available to firms like Lehman: Using it would be an admission of weakness, and no bank wanted to risk that. In fact, the Fed’s move was intended more to reassure investors than to shore up banks.