The US Treasury is working overtime in the printing dept. They may as well circulate toilet paper...it has more value.

"Hmm... reminds me of the tale of how to catch wild pigs."    Yep remember than one. Our monetary dilemmas have been well orchestrated over time, almost like a symphony.

I keep trying to edit my comment, but every time the page refreshes I lose everything! Time*treat must be in cahoots with Todd. ;-)   

Agree & disagree. I agree that when a small business is taken over by a large corporation, it's disturbing.   I've often called it the Walmart syndrome. Almost every small book store has closed because of Barnes & Noble & a friend who ran a pet store finally had to give up because of the national chains like Petsmart and Pet Supermarket. That's the way America's been heading for a long time. Here's the disagree part. What difference does it make if you have money in a bank on that list you call "secret?" As long as he/she is insured, all deposits are covered. Anyway, the FDIC does have a list of banks they consider to be problematic. I believe there were 90 at the beginning of 2008. AFAIK there are about 8,000 banks in the United States. So even if there's another 1000 takeovers this year, that still leaves about 7,000 banks- not the "single bank" you mentioned. The FDIC only takes over when a bank's debt ratio is too high. 10 banks is nothing compared to the 534 that closed in 1988-89. That was the S&L scandal and now we have the mortgage crisis. I'm guessing we'll see another 50, maybe even 100 small banks close in the next 12 months and most people won't even notice. It's not really the small banks that are being targeted as much as the ones that increased their profits with subprime loans. A lot of neighborhood banks are in good financial shape. The FDIC doesn't just take over a bank for no reason. I'll begin to panic when banks like ING and Discover fail. Still, FDIC does not have the funds to cover all bank deposits, so if hundreds of banks start to fail or even one huge bank like Citi, there's a big reason to worry and move overseas

The little banks are the *small leaks* in the big bank ship. Many of them sold their bad deals *upward*. The big boys are able to hide their losses better, and for longer. If one of the mega-banks implode, people will learn the meaning of 'cascading cross defaults'. As we truck in a lot of our food and energy, and we conduct business & payments at great distance from each other, that system of payments needs to stay up and running. Currently, the banks are less trusting of each other.

If you've lived (or followed events) overseas, you know how Monday's 'problema pequinita' can turn into Friday's 'agitacion civil'.

This remind me of what happened to the S&Ls and how it was all planned to bring them down. We've been warned that it was going to happen. My surprise is that this is happening so soon.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE3D7123CF935A15750C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

I don't know if this link will work. It's an article written in March 1992.   Just one quote from it:

"The F.D.I.C. expects about 200 bank failures this year, up from 124 in 1991, and it has already closed 21 banks."

Now I'm really concerned. Clinton was elected in '92. :-(

Whew!!! I'm glad I got my 3.5 million out of that bank in time!!! :)