FDIC . . . Forget Da' Insurance Co-pay

On the eve of the 2008 market collapse, September 14th, I wrote more posts that Sunday than on any other day. Specifically, I was looking at the elections and the financial institutions that were primed to collapse on Monday. I also wrote about something that was perplexing me. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures our bank deposits, was going broke.

I really wasn't surprised about the financial institutions going under. I had been talking about their problems on my radio program for a year, and was writing about it in real time for my book. But I hadn't been following the FDIC, so if it needed funds I was caught off guard ... Well, I am no longer perplexed by the FDIC's lack of funds.

Via the Boston Globe we're learning that, thanks to Congress, many banks have not been paying their FDIC dues for the past 10 years (which, no doubt, helped their bottom line). Here's the Boston Globe:

The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

How nice. You know, I think I'll just stop paying my insurance premiums, and ask my insurance company to pick up my tab when I get sick ...

You can read all the sordid details here.

- Mark