A big part of the recent financial crisis was the fact that after Lehman went bust the money market, which is extremely critical for overnight or very short ter

A big part of the recent financial crisis was the fact that after Lehman went bust the money market, which is extremely critical for overnight or very short term financing between banks and multinational companies, essentially froze up completely. There was a real risk that solvent, multinationals (think Pfizer, or Nestle) would actually go bust because of liquidity issues, which could not be covered for a very short term. The main reason was that banks didn't trust each other at all and interbank lending, without collateral, essentially went into a coma.