And I mean, thank GOD, because all those innocent victims with more than $250,000 in a single bank account -- they NEEDED the help, and FAST!

...Ow, my cynicism stretched and it hurt.

Does everyone remember the 'bailout' package that passed included an increase to $250,000 to quell depositor fears and prevent a bank run?

What you didn't hear was that it expires December 31st, 2009!!!!!!

So if people do consolidate accounts because of higher limits, in just over a year, there will be either:

A panic as people rush to withdraw and move money before the limits decrease.
A huge risk if people don't move money and more banks fail

Basically, this portion of the bailout defered potential bank panic till another administration is in charge.

[www.fdic.gov]

@SkokieGuy: I think that expiration date was created in the assumption that the crisis would be over by then. At this point, I think that was faulty.

@SkokieGuy: Which is why it doesn't matter who wins this election we're gonna have a crappy economy and blame it on whoever wins.

It sounds like a nice idea to back all deposits everywhere.. but is that even realistically possible?

Sigh. I suppose if corporate deposits are going to flee overseas, it makes sense. But I don't have to like it.

Well, more debt to pay by your grandchildren...

If you're stupid enough, holding more that 100K in one account, then you deserve losing it, if your bank collapses.

I don't see why middle class is supposed to pay for stupid rich people, with its taxes.

Kimaroo, The FDIC says: "FDIC deposit insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government".

And we know how much that is worth these days.

Comrads...it is a glorious day in the Fatherland!

> Europe has already guaranteed all deposits, No, Europe has not. Some countries in the EU have ( Germany and Ireland). All the others have agreed to at least guarantee o 50K EUR (also allowed to have a 100K EUR limit if the country can afford it.)

@SkokieGuy: It's worth about as much as US cash.

don't you mean china?

If the panic-stricken morons are panic-stricken morons then this isn't going to stop them from yanking all of their money out of the bank. Five bucks says many of the people withdrawing their money didn't have more than the $100,000 limit anyway.

I think the government needs to stop trying to do stuff, at least in the short term. They can't do anything that would make the stock market rebound immediately, which is what they're trying to do. They need to wait and see if their bailout actually works. Frankly, all the new stuff is just panic. They can't berate us for being afraid and panicking when they're doing the same thing.

I think $250k is fine, max at $500k. More than that, it would cost a lot of money and doesn't add much as far as confidence in the market as most (rich or poor) don't have that much money in a single account.

@Victo:

The middle class doesn't really pay much in the way of income taxes. The bottom 75% of earners pay <14% of total income taxes, while the top 1% of earners pay 40% of income taxes. In fact, about 1/3 of US households pay no income tax at all.

So if everyone wanted to use their physical money, the whole system would collapse. Shouldn't that mean the system needs a fixin'?

@Kimaroo: It *should* be. Why should my money just vanish? Granted I don't have over $100K...but still..

@JustThatGuy3:
Some citations

breakdown by state and sector
[www.taxpolicycenter.org]

re-enforcing your statement but also giving some context
[findarticles.com]

Income breakdown (Also re-enforcing the idea that the educated pay more)
[en.wikipedia.org]

I see many commenting about how if someone has more the $100,000 (or $250,000) in an account - then who cares about them.

But that is one of the issues. The people (and companies) who do have more then that are now running to the banks and taking out their extra money - leaving the banks with less cash to work with - and in turn, causing banks to get into trouble and possible collapse.

So yes - this is a good thing for everyone.

@Rectilinear Propagation: Why don't they put Bernanke on national TV? Address to the nation? Everyone knows nothing Dubya says at this point is going to make a damn difference, and Paulson is too tainted by the Goldman association, but can't Bernanke serve as a stabilizing, knowledgeable presence? All we need is five minutes: "Folks, your money is safe in banks, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve are here to make sure of that, please do not keep it in a shoebox, kthxbai."

@kingmanic:

Yeah, I should have noted, to be complete:

1. that the picture isn't quite as distorted when you include Social Security taxes, which effectively charge a higher rate on lower-income earners

2. the top income brackets make a large portion of the income as well.

Still, bottom line, if tax $ are going into insuring deposits, then, if there's any transfer going on at all, it's from people with high income/low net worth to people with low income/high net worth.

@nataku83:

Which, ironically, is increasing in value, at least vs. the Euro. Weakening vs. the Yen, though.

@nidolke:

No, it just means that we don't live in the 15th century.

This is effectively how it is already, between the fact that people who have a lot of cash assets tend to keep them in several different places in the first place. And even if they were over, the dollar limit was the minimum guaranteed, not the maximum. Most people who were over the $100k for IndyMac got at least some portion of the excess back from the FDIC.

As far as "Well, if someone has more than $100/250/whatever thousand dollars, screw them..." - that's all well and good for people who have time to juggle their finances or hire people to do it for them, but in most cases these are corporations that we're talking about who may be moving lots of cash - it's too much of a burden to make sure cash accounts are under some limit for fear of a bank collapse.

Point is this: Don't make assumptions about the intelligence of others just because you don't have $250k in a bank account.

@Victo: THANK you.
In America, you have responsibility for handling yourself.
If you have more than o̶n̶e̶ two-hundred-fifty thousand dollars e̶a̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ losing money in a savings account, you have the responsibility to spread it across two banks.
On the off-chance that one of them goes under.
Jeezus: personal responsibility, people.

"panic-stricken morons taking out all their cash from banks"

Only a moron would rely on the USD maintaining its value.

Knock Knock....
Who's There?
Hyper Inflation, Moron.

Thank you Fed, Treasury, Congress, Pres.

@sleze69: I'm starting to think the same thing here lately

@sspeedracer: Maybe in a few years, but not any time soon. If anything, the USD has been gaining value.

@SkokieGuy: As I understand it, if they were to permanently increase FDIC coverage, FDIC premiums would go up. As I understand it, they intend to make it permanent in the next Congress, and they did it this way so that banks would have time to prepare for higher premiums.

@ARP: It does show government confidence in the banking industry, which could help prevent and/or stop bank runs.

@MrDo: I'm actually here right now; rumors are flying around that the interest rate here will drop to 0% sooner or later...

The panic stricken morons are simply acting like they don't trust anyone right now. Money is a form of inventory (an inventory of wealth), and we all know that inventory is a substitute for certainty. If we could get Bernanke on TV (as one poster suggested),I'm not sure it would do anything unless he was forthright about the root of the problem and told the un-sugarcoated truth about how to fix it. When president pinnochio goes on the tube 4 times in a week and says that everythings ducky and the markets drop by 20-30 %,you would think that some one would tell him to shut the hell up.

The un-sugarcoated truth is that a great boom was built on quicksand and the bill is now due.I hate it,but there it is.

Why is someone a moron for wanting to ensure that they aren't going to get wiped out because of irresponsible banks. Its not like these people are taking a bag full of cash home. They're transferring the funds to a different bank.

Yeah, panic stricken morons ...

I have full faith in our government & our false financial system, don't you ?

@Trai_Dep: Yes. Unless you're Icelandic, in which case you could have your money in 3 banks or more and still be screwed (Kaupthing, Landsbanki/Icesave/Heritable, and Glitnir, not to mention the rest of the country).

@jamar0303: crap, need to learn to read better. Well, for Americans I guess that doesn't apply. I meant to say that it's good to have something like this because spreading your money alone doesn't fully protect you if an Iceland-like situation happens (if America becomes the next Iceland it's all over).

@sspeedracer: deflation, actually. BIG difference.

another bill just to help the rich, the only people this will help are the super ultra rich that keep more then 250,000 in a single bank account

Increasing the guaranteed cash amount seems like a very bad idea. It provides a strong incentive to completely bail on any declining investments, causing the investment to decline further, causing more people to ditch them, causing them to decline further, etc., ad infinitum.

@Rectilinear Propagation: It is true that anyone pulling money out of a bank and physically putting it in a shoebox or 'mattress' is a moron. IF the FDIC has guaranteed the account, that means that if they have to, they will PRINT more money and give it to you. That causes problems for inflation, but hey, that will affect your money whether you have it in the bank or under your mattress. a lot of economists are now saying the US needs to backstop ALL deposits, and only then will the LIBOR and other rates ease up.

Sure, why not? We've dug this deep a deficit hole already, might as well go for broke.

Why don't we give free insurance on all stock investments too, while we're at it.

@dangermike: Not ad infinitum. There's a finite amount of money.

Another Band-Aid on a bazooka wound.

Wouldn't such a move have a really high risk of turn the US Dollar into the Peso?

@SkokieGuy:
Didn't Bush say though that its a slow and temporary fix? Meaning its not going to fix things in 2 days but a few months, and and its not guarenteed to fix anything, just kind of help things out a bit?

@Trai_Dep: its easy to say "ok, look at all those poor rich people. screw em cause they're rich!" but realistically they do make a big portion of bank's money. plus, while it may not be smart to keep all that money in a bank, cash is meant to be liquid.

@nidolke: And what is physical money anyway? Fancy pieces of paper? What if people wanted their gold? We haven't had a gold standard in generations. What is gold anyway? Just a shiny metal. There's so many layers of abstraction that I've lost track. I'm going to take a cue from this guy and put my money in bicycles: the ultimate post-apocalyptic commodity.

@Erwos: Start up them printing presses. Need to make 800,000,000,000 dollars, need to pay back China. Petroleum will no longer be traded with USD. Say bye bye green back.

@bunt: But I'm not saying people with large amts of cash should be punished. Far from it. Just that if you're (presumably) smart enough to be in that situation, you're (presumably) smart enough to spread your nest egg across several banks. Simple diversification. It's better for the depositor and for the system as a whole.
If you don't care enough about your money to do this simple thing, then it's not the role of the gov't to clean up for that person's ignorance. That's all.