Blaming LTCM's crisis on leverage is similar to attributing a plane crash to the fact that the aircraft was no longer safely in contact with the ground: it identifies the source of overall vulnerability but not the specific cause. That cause was the financial crisis of August and September 1998, and in particular the way in which the adverse price movements of those months exceeded LTCM's, or anyone else's, expectations.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 1021