Reuters has an insider source that claims Barclays is planning on axing 3,000 employees when it acquires the North American operations of Lehman Brothers. The lays will come from both sides apparently — Brits and Yanks. I’m sure the British employees will be pleased about that…

More info: Reuters

Yesterday’s Lehman hearings on the hill was a several-hour long farce as a group of political blowhards grandstanded over Wall Street blowhards. It did produce this painful 5 minutes of video, though:

After months of speculation and struggle, Lehman Brothers has finally gone under. The company’s frenzied weekend scramble to find a buyer was unsuccessful so Lehman Brothers has been forced to file bankruptcy with $613 billion worth of debts.

Lehman smothers 

Further coverage:

• Bloomberg Worldwide: Lehman Files Biggest Bankruptcy Case as Suitors Balk
• CNN: “The Meltdown”
• The Guardian: Q&A on Lehman Brothers
• The Wall Street Journal: Lehman Files for Bankruptcy
• The India Times: Lehman brothers Bankruptcy to Change the Face of Banking

Idiot Inc. poster-child Lehman Brothers has set aside $6.4 billion to pay its 25,000+ employees this year. (Reuters) The bros have a market cap of a mere $2.47 billion after the stock has lost 75% of its value this week alone. These guys are almost ready for bankrupt the wall-of-shame.

Shares of Lehman Brother’s were down 40% today due to worries that the company will not be able to raise the cash to make it through the “credit crisis.” The stock closed at $7.79 — its lowest level since 1998.

According to reports by The New York Times and CNN, troubled investment bank Lehman Brothers is planning on laying off 1,000 to 1,500. No word yet on what divisions will be impacted.

Investment bank Lehman Brothers just announced that they lost $2.8 billion during the second quarter of this year. Don’t worry though, they’ve apparently had no trouble in raising another $6 billion to “cover costs.” When commenting on the results, Lehman CEO Richard Fuld said that he was “very disappointed.”