To be sure, WorldCom's downfall is part of a broader collapse of the telecommunications industry, which proved inept at predicting demand for its services.
He added: "These actions truly were extraordinary -- well outside the scope of our normal operations, but our judgment was that not taking those actions would have risked a broader collapse of the financial system and a significantly deeper and more protracted recession".
Mr. Dudley also urged Congress and regulators to address the problem of financial institutions growing so large -- and taking on so much risk -- that they force the government to step in with a bailout or else risk a broader collapse of markets.
Does that mean that any one of the remaining five big banks -- Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan -- is about to implode a la Lehman Brothers, sparking a broader collapse and a re-do of the government bailouts?
Although government regulators insist the era of bank bailouts is over, many who study the financial industry say the nation's biggest banks are still too big to fail, meaning they must be rescued by the government when they face potentially fatal trouble in order to prevent a broader collapse of the financial system.
A Truth Commission could address the broad collapse of accountability that opened the way for an imperial presidency and the use of cruel and inhuman treatment, while avoiding a facile search for scapegoats that would allow too many to disregard their own small measure of responsibility.
"We are in danger of a broad systemic collapse, and action needs to be taken urgently to head it off," he said.
The S.E.C., which oversees the nation's equity markets, requires a suspension in trading only in the event of a broad market collapse, defined as a drop of at least 10 percent in the Dow Jones industrial average, which is based on the share prices of 30 large American companies.
They crash-landed without precipitating a broad market collapse.
Unsustainable agricultural policies meant that the drought led to the broad collapse of farming in northeastern Syria.
