From: "Wahome, Kimamo" <WAHOMEK@uwec.edu> Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:29:27 -0600 Subject: U.S. Financial Meltdown Message-ID: <E3F0E607B3CF71418CE725F002B5F6047A4A61C55E@CHERRYPEPSI.uwec.edu>
So, evidently, the U.S. financial & economic systems came within a hairs br
eadth of utter & total collapse. I caught this following clip of a U.S. Co
ngressman about the imminent disaster. BTW, the guy is Paul Kanjorski, th
e Democratic Representative from Pennsylvania's 11th District and the Chair
of the Capital Markets Sub-committee.
As you w/note from the clip, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, on
or around 15th September, 2008, the US Federal Reserve noticed an alarming
electronic run on banks, to the tune of $550 Billion in a very short time a
t around 11:00 a.m. in the morning. In response, and to counter this run,
the Federal Reserve opened a window, in essence pumping money into the mone
y supply. But, shortly after adopting this measure, they abandoned it becau
se the electronic run was far outstripping the rate at which the Federal Re
serve could counter it by pumping money into the system. After closing the
window, the US Federal Reserve then adopted the raising of the FDIC (Feder
al Deposit Insurance Corporation) deposit insurance from $100K to $250K. A
s it turns out, this measure was effective in stemming the electronic run.
The most interesting part of the information from Congressman Kanjorski is:
Had the Federal Reserve failed in countering this electronic run, the Fed
eral Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, estimated the electronic run would hav
e resulted in a run of $5.5 TRILLION by 2:00 p.m. that day! And, with it,
it would have led to the collapse of the US/world financial & economic syst
ems.
See for yourselves: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_q
uery=Paul+Konjorski&aq=f
Kimamo