If you’re ever won­der­ing why you should be work­ing on your resid­ual income stream, this would be a great answer.

When I see things like this in the news, I often think to myself, “I am so glad that I work for myself, that I am an entre­pre­neur, and that I don’t have to answer to anybody.”

I’m not rec­om­mend­ing you take any­thing from this arti­cle except for this: do the oppo­site of what these guys did and thank your lucky stars that you are on you way to finan­cial free­dom and empowerment.

I think you will find in this arti­cle that a lot of these bank­rupt­cies stem from greed and dis­hon­esty. Again, this is a good case study of things to not do.

(source)

“The 10 largest U.S. bankruptcies

From Lehman to Tex­aco, the mighty have fallen, tak­ing down bil­lions and bil­lions with them.

Lehman Broth­ers Holdings

Rank: 1
Date of bank­ruptcy fil­ing: 09/15/08
Assets: $691 billion

One of the biggest calami­ties of the cur­rent reces­sion is the fall of the once highly regarded (and one­time fourth-largest) Wall Street invest­ment firm, which was forced to file for bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion last Sep­tem­ber, the largest cor­po­rate fil­ing in the his­tory of U.S. bank­ruptcy court. As a result, the company’s North Amer­i­can invest­ment bank­ing and trad­ing busi­nesses and New York City head­quar­ters were sold to British bank Bar­clays. Some of Lehman’s U.S. busi­nesses, includ­ing wealth man­age­ment firm Neuberger-Berman, con­tinue to oper­ate as stand-alone enti­ties under new own­er­ship. And because of the company’s global reach, its bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings are com­plex, ongo­ing, and have resulted in the clos­ing of 80 of the bank’s smaller subsidiaries.

Wash­ing­ton Mutual

Rank: 2
Date of bank­ruptcy fil­ing: 09/26/08
Assets: $327.9 billion

Amid fears of insol­vency, cus­tomers of Wash­ing­ton Mutual with­drew more than $16 bil­lion of deposits over a 10-day period last fall, caus­ing a gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tor to seize the hold­ing company’s bank­ing assets and sell them to JPMor­gan Chase for $1.9 bil­lion. The fol­low­ing day WaMu filed for bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion. What was once the nation’s largest sav­ings and loan and sixth-largest bank is now a shadow of its for­mer self. The hold­ing com­pany cur­rently is suing the FDIC for improper seizure and is seek­ing $13 bil­lion in damages.

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