Kevin Depew of "5 Things" writes: Welcome to the Depression. No, don't drop whatever it is you're doing. Don't get up. It's not going anywhere. It will wait. It's just going to sit over here in the corner and read a magazine while you do whatever it is you need to do.

A Depression doesn't run hot and fierce like some crazed meth burner. A Depression is methodical, purposeful, patient. It will build a shelter out of tree branches and newspaper, light a small, well-contained campfire and wait you out, brother. While you feed on the empty calories of denial and popcorn, it will quietly gather shards of broken dreams and fashion them into a terrible weapon of blunt force reality.

It's a hell of a thing to call this day and age the next Depression. It's dangerous tinfoil hat territory inhabited mostly by screeching lunatics and volatile nutjobs. But by the time they get squeezed out by reputable folks the whole gig will be up, the circus will have left town.

(rest of article) http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index.php?a=18055

Of course, IndyMac customers are finding out "FDIC insurance" ain't all it's cracked up to be (and it can't count so well, to boot). Finally, because I just make it all up, I thought I'd quote a figure of greater au-thor-i-tah and less tinfoil than myself to tell you that your odds of getting "your" money are only as good as your place in line.

"Meeting creditors' demands for payment requires holding liquidity--cash, essentially, or close equivalents. But neither individual institutions, nor the private sector as a whole, can maintain enough cash on hand to meet a demand for liquidation of all, or even a substantial fraction of, short-term liabilities. " - Fed Res Chr Ben Bernanke  http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20080513.htm (ugh, there I go citing real sources again)

For those that rode one of the smaller busses to school, the 'boss' of all the banks just said the banks don't have enough cash for everyone to get their money out.

He continues ... "Doing so would be both unprofitable and socially undesirable. It would be unprofitable because cash pays a lower return than other investments. And it would be socially undesirable, because an excessive preference for liquid assets reduces society's ability to fund longer-term investments that carry a high return but cannot be liquidated quickly."

I.e. go back to sleep. Move along. Nothing to see, here. Tell that to these people ... http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-indymac16-2008jul16,0,5489094.story