In March of this year, CNNMoney.com announced that Lehman Brothers Inc. Chairman and CEO Richard Fuld received total compensation of more than $22 million as “the company weathered the subprime mortgage collapse better than its rivals.” Fuld also earned an additional $40-plus million from exercising stock options, plus several smaller bonuses of a few million, on top of his regular salary of $750,000.

The article goes on to state how fortunate Fuld is in a financial climate which has seen a number of other top executives either resign or have to pass up lucrative bonuses due to the unstable real estate market. CNNMoney also praised Fuld for his leadership which allowed Lehman Brothers to weather the losses suffered by so many others, noting that its shares skyrocketed, closing out 2007 at $87.53.

And yet Monday, Wall Street was left reeling as Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing assets of more than $600 billion along with debts of more than $600 billion. The stock market began falling at the sound of the opening bell, and continued throughout the day. Lehman Brothers has the dubious distinction of being the largest bankruptcy in our nation’s history.

Four months ago, they were fine, but Monday, everything fell apart? How can it be possible that a company so fiscally responsible for more than 150 years, whose financial backing was instrumental in founding the cotton exchange, the building of the nation’s railroads, movie industry, and computer technology companies, and who were the first to finance up and comers such as Sears Roebuck, Macy’s and Gimbel’s, could fall so far, so fast.

Somewhere along the way, Lehman Brothers apparently fell victim to its own prosperity, forgetting all of the lessons learned when it weathered the Civil War, both World Wars and the stock market crash of 1929. Rather than continuing the sound financial policies the company was founded on, Lehman Brothers grew too large, paid its top executives far too much, financed risky ventures, and worst of all for a well-respected, worldwide financial services company, didn’t foresee and forestall its own financial future.

Congress has been talking for several years, ever since the Enron days, about taking on CEO compensation, especially when the lucrative bonuses come so close to a company’s major financial crash. Maybe now that this giant has fallen, Congress will finally do what it’s been promising and get tough on those who personally benefit while others lose their life savings and livelihoods.