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

The conversation quickly turned serious. “I have to tell you, the system’s going to collapse in the next few days. I doubt you’re going to be able to open the banks on Monday,” Schwarzman said, deeply spooked by what he was seeing. “People are shorting financial institutions, they’re withdrawing money from brokerage firms because they don’t want to be the last people in—like in Lehman—which is going to lead to the collapse of Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Everybody is just pursuing his self-interest,” Schwarzman told him. “You have to do something.” “We’re working on some things,” Paulson said. “What do you think we should do?” “You have to approach what you’re doing from the perspective of being a sheriff in a western town where things are out of control,” Schwarzman replied, “and you have to do the equivalent of just walking onto Main Street and shooting your gun up in the air a few times to establish that you’re in charge because right now no one is in charge!”