It's not over either as today American International Group, until last week the biggest insurance company in the world, will announce a dire sale of assets, designed to shore up its balance sheet against losses from, yes, you've guessed it, insuring sub-prime mortgages.
The company will also ask the US Federal Reserve for a $40bn bridging loan to avoid potentially lethal downgrades from ratings agencies Moodys and Standard & Poors.
This was the weekend that the celebrated Wall Street model of investment banking broke down, a real-life version of 'Bonfire of the Vanities', Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel about Wall Street greed in the 1980s.
The richest people in America have been brought down by some of the poorest, the people who signed up for expensive mortgages they couldn't afford to repay.
Wall Street banks (and many others including leading players in the UK) bought packages of these high interest securitisations and cheerfully sold them around the world in a multi-billion dollar game of "pass the parcel". This weekend the music finally stopped.
Lehman Brothers finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this morning as rescue talks with Bank of America and the UK's Barclays broke down.
These faltered on requests that the Federal Reserve underwrite Lehman's trading until a deal was completed, a deal that was unacceptable to US treasury secretary Hank Paulson who said, after the bail-out of big US mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that there would be no more public money for failed banks (AIG's loan request may just sidestep this).
Bank of America, vying with Citigroup to be the US's biggest bank, then turned its attention to Merrill.
Merrill itself was under heavy selling pressure last week and CEO John Thain has done the sensible thing and sold the bank while there's still some value in it (unlike Lehman Brothers and before that Bear Sterns, who tried to bluff things out).
As for Barclays and the president of its Barclays Capital arm Bob Diamond, this is not its finest hour.
It's the second time in two years that Barclays has become involved in a big deal and walked away (the first was ABN Amro, bought by Royal Bank of Scotland).
Diamond will console himself that there's now plenty of business out there to pick up. But Paulson made it clear that there was no government guarantee for Lehman and Barclays seems to have tried to call him out.
Not such a wise move for a company wishing to grow in the US.
Are there any winners in all this?
Precious few -- there are now just two big independent Wall Street investment banks, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase (which bought the rump of Bear Sterns).
Both of these report third quarter figures this week and they had better be acceptable (ie no unexpected mortgage write downs) or their shares will come under pressure.
Former Goldmanite Henry J Paulson is perhaps the only winner as, once again, he's acted decisively and, it would appear, sensibly. But we await the judgement of the markets on that point.
Oh and some of the big hedge funds of course, who helped to drive down the shares of the investment banks and doubtless made billions in the process.
That's where the power now lies on Wall Street.
So what comes next?
The US Federal Reserve has also announced that it will accept a broader range of securities (including equities) as collateral for loans to try to inject more liquidity into the markets. And a gaggle of banks led by Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are raising $70bn, in effect to lend to each other.
The Dow Jones index of top US shares is expected to fall 300 points when it opens later today following sharp falls in the Far East (although Tokyo and Hong Kong were closed for a holiday).
London was down nearly 3% in early trading although a few brave buyers emerged when the FTSE index breached 5300.
In recent months the market has more or less absorbed falls of 3%, although the trend has been down. A fall of 4% or more would be "squeaky bum" time as this would test what dealers hope is the rock bottom bear market level of 5000.
In Frankfurt, Bank of America shares fell 14% while those of Merrill Lynch rose 40% first off, making it pretty obvious who the Germans think got the best of the deal.
The next big one is AIG. It's one thing for investment banks to go to the wall, quite another for a massive insurance company (even though it's been acting rather more like a banker than a boring old insurance operator).
Yet another challenge for the embattled US authorities.
Football's forever blowing bubbles
There are one or two Premiership clubs without shirt sponsors these days, including West Ham whose XL travel company benefactor went bust last week.
Another prominent Premiership shirt sponsor is under-fire insurance company AIG which sponsors champions Manchester United (or did on Saturday).
Might the football bubble, like the financial bubble, be about to burst?
People talk about football as though it can defy the laws of financial gravity, but of course it can't.
Someone who's realized this is Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley who has announced he wants to sell Newcastle United, the club he bought with some of the proceeds of the £2bn flotation of Sports Direct.
Ashley has fallen out with former manager Kevin Keegan and the Newcastle supporters, which are pretty good reasons for wanting out.
But will anyone pay the £300m or so Ashley wants for the club?
He bought it just a year ago for £143m but, according to reports from the North East, was blissfully unaware how much money it owed.
The Abu Dhabi investors who are buying Manchester City for a reported £200m will be discovering just how much their new plaything owes about now.
Inflated values, mysterious investors, rocketing salaries and bonuses -- now what does that remind you of?
WPP-TNS battle runs on
The European Commission will decide by September 23 if WPP Group's hostile bid for TNS should go forward, giving WPP until the end of the month to secure its prize.
Unless the EC intervenes of course, which it might.
Later this morning WPP will announce the latest level of acceptances from TNS shareholders for its £1bn plus bid and falling stock markets will help its case.
Both WPP and TNS shares have performed strongly recently, suggesting that TNS investors are holding out for a higher price.
But a sharp fall in TNS would be game, set and match for WPP.
Politics of the media is a regular series of opinion pieces for Brand Republic about the way media shapes politics and vice-versa. Stephen Foster is a partner at The Editorial Partnership and can be contacted at:steve-edco@blueyonder.co.uk.