Math For The Win

The FDIC's own numbers show that the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), the pile of money that's supposed to cover your bank account should your bank go under, is at $35 billion as of September 30, 2008.

Total number of deposits in US banks as of that date: Roughly $9 trillion.

There's not enough money in the fund to cover even one percent of the country's insured deposits should more banks fail...in fact there's barely enough to cover one-third of one percent of the country's deposits.

How much do you want to bet that more than one-third of one percent of US banks fail in 2009? During the Great Depression, bank failure percentage rates were in the double digits for several years.

But everything's fine, of course. The gubment says so.