Say's Law and financial bankruptcy

The issue is, simply, did bankrupt brokers get a bad deal because they had to sell assets in a rapidly declining market?

If hold the mortgage on a house then the owner goes bankrupt, I take ownership of the house. What I lost was the transaction cost of the bankruptcy. The house remains empty for a period until I can rent or sell it.  I suffered from holding an illiquid asset for some period, but then it was reconverted into a liquid asset once again.

Was total liquidity lost in the economy after the crash? No, but transaction costs going down hill increased relative to going up hill. If the economy did the dead cat, then unnecessary transactions took place, that is a loss. Aside from those efficiency costs, we ended up with a slower economy, velocity was reduced so money changes hands less often. Hence, there are fewer piles of liquidity, and each pile is bigger.  Velocity has slowed, and more processing and value added is done within fewer firms or households rather than hired out.

Presumably the economy did this to reduce total costs because the previous state of affairs contained severe inventory shortages. In fact, my claim is that if this contraction was planned well, then it would be neutral to relative prices, except that pricing would have courser quantization.

Was there some destruction of inventory? Not much, but I saw a few half finished houses being torn down. The economy chose to increase its reserve ratio from 9% to 15%. It paused momentarily at 11% because of delusions among the bankers which caused unnecessary volatility. But the economy then then proceeded on its journey to 15% with alacrity.

What about winners and losers?  The economy has winners and losers all the time. In a rapid contraction they show up in bigger crowds.