* July 16: Fed Chairman Bernanke told Congress that troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "in no danger of failing." Seven weeks later the Treasury grabbed control of the companies, all but wiping out shareholders.
* July 17: From an ABC interview with Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd:
Judy Woodruff: How likely do you think it is that Fannie Mae would take advantage of what's in the [government bailout] package, this line of credit, or that the Treasury would actually buy stock in the company?
Mudd: I think it's very unlikely. And I think everybody that has described it -- whether Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, our regulator, director Lockhart -- [says it's] a backstop in case things turn out different than everybody predicts.
* Aug. 25: "They should assess whether it's manageable in terms of financial risks and their corporate structure," Jun Kwang Woo, head of South Korea's Financial Services Commission, warned Korea Development Bank about its interest in taking a stake in Lehman Bros. Three weeks later Lehman was in bankruptcy.
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For once, no really did mean no. And the rest is history. On Sept. 15, the day Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy protection, a resolute Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson told reporters that he "never once considered it appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line" to save the brokerage.
Less than three weeks later, with markets worldwide in a meltdown triggered in large part by panic over Lehman's failure, the Bush administration went to Congress to ask for $700 billion of tax- payer money to save the financial system.
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Unless you count that big one in New York: On Nov. 13, Paulson told NPR that he believed the banking system had been "stabilized," and he implied that there was no major institution likely to present a problem that would shock regulators.
"I got to tell you, I think our major institutions have been stabilized. I believe that very strongly," he said.
Two weeks later the government was forced to hurriedly stitch together a bailout plan to protect Citigroup from losses on $306 billion of toxic assets.
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tom.petruno@latimes.com
