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It's pretty amazing that in the end, bad mortgages -- issuing them, packaging them and then getting stuck with any or even buying them (as I think Lehman did when Erin Callan ran the firm) -- meant the end for these firms. Mortgages.

They had such faith.

When Lehman was corralling people in the media to tell them the shorts were pushing them down, I wanted to believe them.

But this Lehman Brothers was more of a Novastar and a New Century Financial, an issuer without a deposit base, like Bear.

Washington Mutual's more outrageous. It suspended its underwriting standards to take nationwide share. It was simply out of control.

In each case, the blame goes squarely on the leaders, Jimmy Cayne, Dick Fuld and Kerry Killinger. They wrecked their firms. They disgraced themselves.

Now, because of the velocity of these collapses, we have to go down huge. We had to manage the black holes slowly to make things work.

We didn't.

There was no plan.

And now, all financials will have to suffer the consequences, which when coupled with the oil futures signaling no demand will mean lots more money lost before the black holes are filled.

I know all of this, in the end, will be huge for Goldman Sachs (GS) -- that's Lehman's ultimate competitor -- and Wells Fargo (WFC), the big winner against Washington Mutual.

But first we have to get there.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs.