The doors were shut. The air was thick with tension. The room? A high-stakes gathering of the most powerful bankers in America was called into an emergency meeting by then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The message was clear: The global financial system was on the brink of collapse. Banks were failing left and right. Lehman Brothers had just gone under. Credit markets had frozen. No one knew who would be next. The word "liquidity" was suddenly on everyone’s lips—b...

The doors were shut. The air was thick with tension. The room? A high-stakes gathering of the most powerful bankers in America was called into an emergency meeting by then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The message was clear: The global financial system was on the brink of collapse. Banks were failing left and right. Lehman Brothers had just gone under. Credit markets had frozen. No one knew who would be next. The word "liquidity" was suddenly on everyone’s lips—b...