A Run for Our Money

THAT PRECIOUS commodity, public trust, is taking another major beating, this time over the state of the banking industry. America was already neck deep in the savings-and-loan crisis when the first glimmers of a second financial trauma appeared. In May, the Bush Administration revealed that the reserve fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—the insurance fund that guarantees deposits in the nation’s banks—was at its lowest point ever.

Instead of grabbing this new crisis by the neck and facing it squarely, FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman assured the public it wasn’t as bad as it looked, even though the banking industry had suffered a string of failures the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression.

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Robert Stowe England

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THAT PRECIOUS commodity, public trust, is taking another major beating, this time over the state of the banking industry. America was already neck deep in the savings-and-loan crisis when the first glimmers of a second financial trauma appeared. In May, the Bush Administration revealed that the reserve fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—the insurance fund that guarantees deposits in the nation’s banks—was at its lowest point ever.

Instead of grabbing this new crisis by the neck and facing it squarely, FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman assured the public it wasn’t as bad as it looked, even though the banking industry had suffered a string of failures the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression.