Pile it high and sell it very low

Believe me, I went looking for a worthy blog post for today--maybe something on the 'LSE failing to grab the OTC derivatives bull by the exchange-traded horns'--but of course, this little number caught my eye.

Bloomberg posted that Lehman Brothers is setting up a retail shop in order to sell all its surplus logo'ed merchandise as part of its effort to pay off creditors.

That's right, all those freebie Lehman Brothers' umbrellas, tote bags, coffee mugs, baby rattles (yes, baby rattles) will go on sale in a New York shop soon. (By the way, Lehmans is reported to owe as much as $250 billion - the silver plated baby rattles retail for around $14 - they'd better have a lot of them).

The thing that struck me the most about the sale was this revelation: "Lehman negotiated the return of thousands of these logoed knickknacks that were mistakenly transferred to Barclays Plc through the sale of the bankrupt securities firm's brokerage unit."

Lehmans fought to get the nick-nacks back. I guess when you've lost everything, all you can hang onto is your dignity.