In the span of just a few months, the shape of Wall Street and the global financial system changed almost beyond recognition. Each of the former Big Five investment banks failed, was sold, or was converted into a bank holding company. Two mortgage-lending giants and the world’s largest insurer were placed under government control. And in early October, with a stroke of the president’s pen, the Treasury—and, by extension, American taxpayers—became part owners in what were once the nation’s proudest financial institutions, a rescue that would have seemed unthinkable only months earlier.
