Stranger than fiction

Imagine that we were sharing a cup of coffee a bit more than a year ago and I told you that in a year that Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG would be out of business or a fraction of their current size. I’m sure you would have been more than a tad skeptical. In fact, I’m sure you would have considered it outrageous given the strength of those companies at the time. To be quite honest, I would have found it hard to believe too, even if someone had given me today’s newspaper (via time machine) one year ago. But in this case fact is stranger than fiction.