Lehman files for bankruptcy, Merrill sells

Marking a culmination of over one year of financial crisis resulting from hundreds of billions of bad mortgages and real estate investments, investment bank Lehman Brothers announced Sunday that it will file for bankruptcy, while Bank of America announced that it will pay around $50 billion to acquire Merrill Lynch. Whether or not layoffs will occur among either of the two companies’ employees — 60,000 at Merrill and 25,000 at Lehman Bros. — remains unclear. The bankruptcy filing will be aided by an emergency fund of $70 billion to $100 billion created by 10 major financial institutions in order to protect themselves from the shockwaves of Lehman’s downfall.