American ExpressAmerican Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment cards. Headquartered in New York City, it is one of the most valuable companies in the world and one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company's logo, adopted in 1958, is a gladiator or centurion, whose image appears on the company's well-known traveler's cheques, charge cards, and credit cards.
Lehman BrothersLehman Brothers Inc. (ˈliːmən ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), with about 25,000 employees worldwide. It was doing business in investment banking, equity, fixed-income and derivatives sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking.
WalmartWalmart Inc. (pronˈwɔːlmɑːrt; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded by brothers Sam and James "Bud" Walton in nearby Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses.
2007–2008 financial crisisThe 2007–2008 financial crisis, or Global Financial Crisis (GFC), was a severe worldwide economic crisis that occurred in the early 21st century. It was the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression (1929). Predatory lending targeting low-income homebuyers, excessive risk-taking by global financial institutions, and the bursting of the United States housing bubble culminated in a "perfect storm". Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to American real estate, as well as a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value.