“Fear gripped the USA five years ago. As Americans awoke on Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, they learned that Lehman Bros. had collapsed in bankruptcy, inflicting billions of new losses on a financial system already rocked by a cratering housing market and a tightening credit crunch.

“Upending Wall Street’s weekend hopes that the nation’s fourth-largest investment bank would be saved, the punch landed amid a barrage. Merrill Lynch, one of the world’s largest brokerages, had been forced into a shotgun marriage with Bank of America. Insurance giant AIG was teetering. The U.S. auto industry was imploding. And investors were starting an electronic run on their retirement accounts.

“Aftershocks of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression still reverberate in today’s fragile recovery. The national psyche remains uneasy, worrying: Could it happen again?”

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