You want $550 billion for WHAT?!?

You know, a few years ago I used to joke how I checked the newspaper every morning, hoping to see a big headline saying "CAPITALISM COLLAPSES ". And now...

On C-Span, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) explained how the Federal Reserve told members of Congress about an electronic run on the banks "to the tune of $550 billion dollars" within "an hour or two" last fall.

According to Kanjorski, on September 18, 2008 the Fed tried to "stem the tide" by pumping money into the financial system but it didn't work and decided instead to announce an immediate increase in deposit insurance to $250,000 per account to stop the panic.

Said Kanjorski: "If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2 p.m. that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it."

(source, emphasis added)

So the people who are interested in making sure that what comes after capitalism is an improvement rather than an 80's movie starring Mel Gibson had better pull finger. By which I mean don't sit around swapping gossip in the internets and talk to real people.