Email | Print    Type Size  -  +  The end of Wall Street  As
Lehman's demise and Merrill's acquisition make clear, a business
model built on ramping up risk and leverage simply doesn't work.
By Shawn Tully, editor at large Last Updated: September 21,
2008: 3:11 PM EDT  NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Rumor has it that
Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld recently wanted to turn off the
firm's signature Jumbotron, the giant panels that flash the
Lehman name day and night at its headquarters in New York's
theater district.  Running the lights, the story goes, was
costing Lehman (LEH, Fortune 500) $500,000 a year. But New York
City rejected Fuld's plea, since buildings in the Times Square
area are required to keep their facades aglow to create the
arcade effect that dazzles the tourists.  The lights are still
on at Lehman HQ, but they're going out both for the 158-year old
firm and for the Wall Street business model that it represents.
Now that Lehman has declared bankruptcy, and Bank of America is
buying Merrill Lynch for $50