Trying to Maintain Confidence in My Government

I’ve always been pretty cavalier about where I keep my money since I’ve never had more money than the FDIC limits. Consequently, I speculate for the best yields regardless of the financial soundness of the bank. To hedge my bets, though, I keep multiple accounts at several banks in the event one of them fails, I still have a bucket of money I can access while I wait for the FDIC to make me whole.


But on 3/2/09, FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair wrote to bank CEOs that the FDIC needs to increase fees to shore up the fund since it could otherwise become insolvent. I think I peed in my pants when I read that.

Thankfully, it appears that the FDIC was granted triple its prior borrowing capacity from the Feds to keep it solvent. FDIC’s permanent credit line is now at $100 billion and the FDIC projects that bank failures will cost the agency about $65 billion through 2013. FDIC agreed to halve the emergency fees it was planning to charge banks in return.

Not the most confidence-inspiring news to say the least. I wondered whether should I give up the hunt for best yields and start putting money in safer banks with minimal yields, or perhaps my credit union?

But I’m finding it’s really difficult for me to move money from a low rated bank account yielding 2.5% (DollarSavingsDirect) to my credit union that only pays 0.5%.

At this point, I’m going to stay put, mainly because I’m greedy and partly because I want to maintain confidence in my government.

I just pray that this economy will stabilize itself to the point that I don't feel like I'm putting my emergency fund at risk. I love to gamble but not with my savings. Sheesh.