Robert Pozen on Lehman Brothers
In his new book he writes:
In my view, the adverse repercussions of Lehman' failure could have been substantially reduced if the federal regulators had made clear that they would protect all holders of Lehman's commercial paper with a maturity of less than 60 days and guaranteed the completion of all trades with Lehman for that period.
As I interpret that recommendation, it is to guarantee the obligations which are vulnerable to run-like behavior, but not to guarantee debt obligations more generally.
Here is my previous post on Pozen's fine book.
Addendum: James Kwak comments.