Of course, I didn't have this information, no one did, except those on the inside, and I suppose that's why it didn't leak until now, because then collapse really would have happened. But wow, I'm shocked.
But here's this, today: (politico)
Rep. Paul Kanjorski's description, late last month, of how close to the brink the global economy came on September 18. That was the day, recall, when Congressional leaders emerged stunned from a meeting with Henry Paulson, and gave him broad authority to spend $700 billion.
Part of what he said:
On Thursday at 11:00 a.m. the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.
If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2:00 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.
