Evergrande and Lehman Brothers aren’t really comparable. A real estate development company defaulting on its debt means losses for investors, most of which hav

Evergrande and Lehman Brothers aren’t really comparable. A real estate development company defaulting on its debt means losses for investors, most of which have diversified portfolios and can absorb the loss. $300bn in debt is a lot, so I don’t want to discount how serious that is, but they’re not a bank. Lehman Brothers, on the other hand, was deeply interconnected with the U.S. banking system and touched tens of thousands of businesses. The $600bn they owed were not to “investors” but to businesses, insurance companies and other counter parties that were not prepared to absorb the loss. The prospect of unwinding Lehman’s positions was beginning a catastrophic domino effect on the global financial system. They were quite literally “too big to fail.” Evergrande is just a big company.