Word: wachovia
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...Monday, Sept. 29, when it was clear that Wachovia, the enormous U.S. bank, couldn't open its doors to customers due to a lack of funds, the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) voted for the first time since its creation during the Great Depression to take a "systemic risk exception" to the rules that usually limit what it can do. The exception allowed the FDIC to cover some of Wachovia's potential losses, enabling the bank's sale to Citigroup and its continued operation...
...like much, but let the language sink in for a second. The fiscally conservative organization charged with guaranteeing American bank deposits found that, for the first time ever, the economy of the United States of America was at risk. Not just one bank, but the whole financial system. If Wachovia failed to open, or did open but blocked depositors from continuing the run on cash that had begun the previous Friday, panic could have spread to other banks, big and small. The crisis could have become a financial catastrophe in a matter of hours...
...bank failures exacerbate the already bleak situation by decreasing the amount of lending in the system. That's one reason most now predict the country will sustain a protracted recession even if it manages to avoid the kind of systemic risk the FDIC feared a disorderly and public Wachovia failure might have brought...
...well known insurance giants, had experienced huge losses on their investments and were seeking billions in private investment to keep up their reserves. Their stocks have dropped by at least half in just a month. After all, wasn't this the way Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia started their slides into oblivion...
...badly the shadow banking system has managed to undermine the traditional banking system by incentivizing those bad loans. Fueled by the shadow system's demand for loan-based derivatives, enough regular banks issued lousy loans that now they too are failing, hence the fate of Washington Mutual and Wachovia. In the worst case of an unchecked, full-blown panic, even banks that operated cautiously within the post-1929 safeguards could be vulnerable. At that point, Paulson and Bernanke would have to resort to even more extreme measures...