financial crisis

Here's what currently in-vogue economist (and NYU professor) Nouriel Roubini posted to his popular blog back in August, and again the day after Wall Street's latest Black Monday:

This is by far the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, not as severe as the Great Depression but second only to it. ... We are only barely midway in the meltdown of U.S. and global stock markets.

Professor Roubini is currently in vogue for good reason. The guy has basically been right about everything since the financial crisis began to unfold in earnest, penning a paper back in February that scripted (per its subtitle) "The Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster" -- steps that, alas, have indeed been taken.

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The Biggest Financial Story of the Past 50 Years

Wow.

That about sums up the events of this past weekend, which saw the following events transpire:

● After failing to finagle a government bailout, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) filed for bankruptcy protection.

● Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) spurned Lehman Brothers and instead agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER).

● Insurer AIG (NYSE: AIG) begged the Federal Reserve for as much as $40 billion of assistance.

This is bigger than either JPMorgan Chase's (NYSE: JPM) buyout of Bear Stearns or the government bailout of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). Our colleague Bill Mann, in fact, has deemed this weekend's credit-crunch-inspired string of bailouts, buyouts, and bankruptcies "the biggest financial story of the past half century."

Bigger than the dot-com bust? Yep. Bigger than Black Monday in 1987? Yep. Bigger than the oil shock of the 1970s? Mmmhmm.

NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and the International Monetary Fund have all called the overall credit crisis the worst since the Great Depression.