Paulson was asked this question Friday and and noted that there were no buyers for Lehman. This is true, but there were no buyers for Bear Stearns without the government putting skin in the game. Given the carnage that followed, we’d wager they’d do things differently with the benefit of hindsight.

A German official is on the wires trying to put a price tag on the failure. They put the damage at $300 bln outside the US.