Commencing at 11AM on September 11, 2008...

"House Representative Paul E. Kanjorski stated in a January 27, 2009 interview with CSPAN that there was an "electronic run on the banks" commencing at 11AM on September 11, 2008.

According to Rep. Kanjorski, the Federal Reserve noted a tremendous withdrawal of $550 billion dollars from money market accounts in the U.S. within a two hour time-span.

The Federal Reserve responded by releasing $105 billion dollars into the financial system to stem the tide and announced that FDIC would guarantee up to $250,000 in money market deposits.

Representative Kanjorski claims that if these steps had not been taken, the U.S. would have lost all its wealth within twenty-four hours <18>. This time line of events was told to policymakers by Secretary of the Treasury Paulson on September 15, 2008."

Excerpted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_crisis_of_September_2008



Has this been debunked?

If not it appears to be a co-ordinated attack on the US economy on a massive scale, a literal "financial 9/11".

As Andy Card once said "you don't roll out a new product in August".

kanjorski got the dates wrong, but he got the amount of the capital infused by the fed correct, thus allowing the story to be debunked. please see http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/021109Cherbonnier.shtml">this excellent piece at the baltimore chronicle.

also, from CNN's transripts for thursday september 18:


and there's also http://www.nypost.com/seven/09212008/business/almost_armageddon_130110.htm">this story in the new york post, which places the date of the capital infusion on thursday september 18, 2008, not the preceding thursday, september 11, 2008.

The coincidence did seem too uncanny: a disaster on both Bush's first and last Sept 11 in office.

But I still think these financial shenanigans were set up to be the centerpiece of Bush's second term, particularly as the terror alerts ceased and he hit the ground running with his Social Security reform roadshow.

bush campaigned on his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership_society">"ownership society" slogan and through deregulation, increasing the money supply, and lowering interest rates the most criminal administration in history created the "perfect storm" for our economic 9/11 to happen.

the really interesting thing is spitzer's political assassination after he exposed the goods in http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html">this washington post essay. bear in mind that it wasn't the corruption he was exposing that got him in trouble -- predatory lending practices were widely reported on back then -- the problem for him occurred when he exposed bushco's intervention on behalf of the banks.

Representative Kanjorski claims that if these steps had not been taken, the U.S. would have lost all its wealth within twenty-four hours

Did he say it with a straight face?

and, it serves a purpose. Think about it.

:hi:

Keeping it simple, Grateful. Thanks.

You deign to know what others are thinking. Typical.

that has nothing at all to do with what I said.

Your words as I read them right there at the time was example enough. I made no other claim than that. Stop mischaracterizing what I said. Your words and mine are right there.

Assuming you haven't changed them by editing, that is.

paranoid much?

My goodness.

And are you upset that I would put nothing, nothing, nothing at all past you, Grateful?

Keeping you at arms' length isn't paranoia, Grateful. It's basic self-preservation.

Well, arms' length plus the length of a toothbrush.

:popcorn:

ETA: BTW, I fixed a spelling problem with this one!

Don't you have some more years-old threads to be kicking?

Generalization when it isn't warranted can be considered a form of paranoia.

So, what you seem to be saying is that "truthers" are prone to editing their posts. So, because of this fact, one must distrust all "truthers" -- because, after all, they might "edit their posts".

Paranoia, at it most benign form is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others.

I tend to think that "exaggerated" describes it.

But, I do disagree.

There are also many occasions where discussions are veered away from the topic at hand and toward personal attacks instead. Think about the purpose those serve, intentional or otherwise.

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/brain-and-behavior/2009/01/16/feel-paranoid-you-might-be-says-daniel-freeman.html

On the disinfo topic, this quote sets a great example that the 9/11 Truth Industry has sadly never followed:

I'm not sure what you mean by "debunked" or what part of the story was supposed to be debunked. The Congressman got the dates wrong, but if this is the same interview I'm thinking of he got most of it right, even if he wasn't that specific about what actually happened.

That week, the entire global financial system almost ended. It was that bad. Economists on both the right and the left agree that we came very close to, essentially, needing gold coins to buy groceries.

I don't think Kanjorski is saying that any one particular person, entity or conspiracy did this.

What happened was that there was a run on the money market system. Here in New York, perhaps it was more palpable than elsewhere, but people were standing around looking at the Times Square electronic headlines and running to their banks to empty their accounts. Unlike other "runs" in history, however, it was shaping up to be not a run on a bank, but a run on the entire financial system.

The reason was that Lehman defaulted on its commercial paper. Commercial paper is the lifeblood of corporate short term financing. They are kind of like post dated checks. If a company needs cash, it will issue commercial paper for, say $100,000 dated 30 days from today. It will sell it on the commercial paper or money market at discount (say $99,900). 30 days from today, the holder will present the paper and get paid $100,000, the difference being the interest.

The main buyers of commercial paper are money market mutual funds. Most investors of money market mutual funds treat them like cash equivalents. Commercial paper was considered the most ultra safe investment (because not much can usually happen in 30 days) and money market funds are supposed to be one of the safest forms of interest bearing accounts. They're like money in the bank. The total amount of the money market/commercial paper market was around $4 trillion.

In September, one money market fund lost a lot of money on Lehman commercial paper and "broke the buck." That meant that the value of $1 deposit was less than $1, but instead was like 97 cents. So investors flooded the market with requests for redemptions, not just from that company but from all money market accounts, and within a few hours $550 billion flooded out of the money markets, and then the panic spread to checking and savings accounts. Several major banks and money market funds were hours away from going out of business.

If you consider that the bankruptcy of one bank, Lehman, set off that catastrophic week in September, the Treasury and Fed were staring at the possibility of all the major money market funds, money center banks and remaining investment banks failing on the same day, or within days of each other. Inter bank lending effectively ceased, and without interbank lending, there can't be settlement, which means banks could not cash, accept for deposit, or honor checks drawn on other banks.

We were hours away from you not having been able to cash a check, use an ATM, etc. Whatever you had in the bank or invested would pretty much have been unavailable to you if not simply disappeared. Nearly everyone would have had to be laid off overnight, because no company or employer would have had access to money, checks, etc. When he said all our wealth would have disappeared, obviously our factories and farms wouldn't have disappeared, but with no one working in them, with no functioning financial system, almost all our assets would have been rendered valueless.

That's why Paulson gave his sweaty, bug eyed, terrified Uncle Fester like performance on the financial news channels, and demanded the bailout.

That's the precipice, the abyss, that we came within hours of falling into, and staring into it scared the shit out of everyone who understood the financial system last fall.

Very well reasoned and written.

Paulson's "sweaty, but eyed" performance very well!