Friday, September 19, 2008

Federal Government To Insure Money Market Funds

I'd like to see the way money market insurance will be priced, and I hope it's not like the federal government priced deposits in FSLIC-insured accounts before the S&L crisis, or like the federal government priced flood risk in the flood insurance program that encourages construction in known flood plains.

Bush, in announcing a halt in short-selling in certain financial stocks, stated:
"Anyone caught in illegal transactions will be caught and persecuted."

Freudian slip?

He also stated that since the federal government began insuring bank deposits seventy-five years ago, no customer has lost a cent in an insured account.  This may be literally true (at least within the $100,000 insured amount limit on insured accounts).  However, the time I recall people waiting for their insured funds to be paid to them under the FSLIC's program when the S&Ls collapsed in the 1980s was much longer than I think anyone's broker is going to give them if a customer with large sums invested in a federally-insured money market account should face a margin call on the basis that the failed fund has ceased to represent funds available in the account.

No comments: