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AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cue up the old REM song, y’all. It’s the End of the World As We Know It! (But I Feel Fine…)

Okay, unless y’all ain’t been payin’ attention today, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch has been bought by the mammoth Bank of America. Lehman Brothers, for those of you like me who didn’t know who the heck they are and aren’t as financially savvy as the media thinks we should be, is a global financial services firm focusing on investment banking and services. It also had a finger in the pie of the subprime mortgage market, something that has been swallowing up and destroying long standing giant investment firms for the past year.

Truthfully, the Merrill Lynch buyout by BoA surprised even me. But I’m just a Average Jane when it comes to finances and investments so what the hell do I know?

But I do know crap when I see it. And the following article from Aaron Task at Yahoo! Finance basically pissed me off…

Top Economist: Americans Should Worry About Bank Deposits if Congress Doesn’t Act

Hey hey, great! Let’s scare the crap out of everybody! You’re money’s not safe in the bank! FDIC doesn’t have enough dough to cover all those assets!

First of all, Mr. Tasks article makes nothing clear so I’m going on some assumptions here. I’m ASSUMING that the $1 Trillion in assets mentioned is basically the total of every freakin’ bank and financial institution in this country. The FDIC fund has about $50 billion on standby to cover for failed institutions. Is Mr. Roubini, the economist starring in this piece of nonsense, basically implying that EVERY bank in this country is going to fail because FDIC doesn’t have $1 Trillion on standby?

If he is, he better rethink what he’s saying. Because, later in the article he recommends that folks who have bank accounts that exceed $100,000 should spread their money among different firms. I don’t refute that advice, as it’s something that is highly recommended anyway if you’ve got more than 100K in money in the bank. (Also you should talk to your customer service rep about account titling and joint account holders as there are ways to set up accounts to cover you for more than $100,000 limit). But if the implication here is that every bank is going to fail and the FDIC doesn’t have enough money to cover it, then why take the time to move funds around anyway? I’m gonna lose out either way, according to Mr. Roubini.

“The intent here isn’t to add to people’s anxieties…”

It’s not? Then what is your intent? I’m not saying that Americans shouldn’t be paying attention to this stuff, because we should be, but I’m so sick of “economists” and talking heads on television (ie, CNN) trying their damndest to scare the crap out of people.  The media wants so badly to see a run on the banks, the way customers lined up outside of IndyMac’s branches in California earlier this summer, that they’ll feed the fear however they can.

And it’s driving me nuts!