Emanuel? Hoyer? LaTourette?
I just read those names off the c-span website, but i don't have real media player. I'd say search around the website and if you find that, post it to youtube.

Are you sure he wasn't talking about "Congressional Martial Law"?

It's a procedural thing, that speeds up legislation. It's not what most people think of when they think of martial law.

I agree that he is probably passing on info he received, but let me put it this way, I think that the big banks wish for rumors of bank runs (because of the bailout bill, i.e., follow the money) with the same fervor that teenage males wish that a nude pinup girl would come to life in their rooms.

I'm worried by this "disinformation campaign," if that's what it is. If you look around the web you'll see that there's an increase in (?)floggers(?) who's only purpose seems to be to stir up emotions without any logical discussion. Above some critical level those emotions are going to be taken out in some physical form. Just going down to the local supermarket I now constantly overhear heated talk that can be deemed 'subversive.'

Worse yet, what if this "bailout"/"rescue package" gets okayed and the economy still keeps going down? Now you'll be dealing with hundreds of millions of angry (and clueless) people potentially running amok. Modern crowd control technology probably works well in defined spaces, but what if you get an 'Iraqi-insurgency' type attacks on infrastructure just to let off steam?

I think this is DEFINITELY THE WRONG TIME TO START WITH IMPROV DRAMA.

Leanan: I will take your Jim Willie and match it with a Peter Schiff (on Glenn Beck Sept 29) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMrQMUGxTS4

I would be surprised if the government wasn't preparing to do something in the event of a widespread run on the banks. Sheesh, the banks don't trust each other. Why should the public trust the banks? IMO, once the public wakes up to the situation, a run on the banks is quite likely.

There is precedent for this of course in the Emergency Banking Act of 1933.

The act allowed a plan that would close down insolvent banks and reorganize and reopen those banks strong enough to survive.

Roosevelt also got Congress to declare a 4-day "bank holiday" to let the government take a look at the books and calm public jitters.

Of course, I wouldn't expect Bush to bother with the formality of going to Congress. On the other hand, Roosevelt wasn't above political shenanigans:

Despite the importance of the bill, it was passed in immense haste by Congress. Few, if any, Congressmen had the chance to read the bill; most were only able to hear the clerk read it. Quite a few Congressmen vocally protested the haste in which the bill was considered, but nevertheless it was passed sight unseen

The Shock Doctrine 70 years before Naomi Klein's book.

The bill also gave the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to confiscate the gold of private citizens, in exchange for an equivalent amount of paper currency which was subject to later devaluation with relation to gold.

Goes good with alchohol too...

Bank of America states this in their policy:

When are funds available after deposit?

Usually on the first business day after the day we receive your deposit. However, depending on the type and amount of your deposit, we may delay the availability of your funds for up to 11 business days. If we delay the availability of funds, we send you a notice and tell you when the funds will be available. A delay may occur under the following circumstances:
You deposit checks totaling more than $5,000 in one day.
You re-deposit a check that has been returned unpaid.
We believe a check you deposit won't be paid.
You've overdrawn your account repeatedly in the last six months.
There is an emergency such as an equipment failure.

For more information on the circumstances under which a delay may occur, refer to the Deposit Agreement and Disclosures.

My credit union has a similar policy, not that I've ever had a check that big :)

DownSouth,

I really don't have any inside information on this.

My guess is that the bank has greatly expanded its list of companies on the list corresponding to

We believe a check won't be paid.

I would expect that the list originally named specific companies to which there procedures applied. Now with credit drying up, the procedures are being applied to everyone, or a very long list of companies, perhaps excluding a favored few. People don't have access to their funds as quickly, and business don't either. This could very well cause problems for those who try to time things tightly.

Actually, since nearly all money is debt, when you pay off a loan, you are destroying money. If this seems odd, consider how the money was created in the first place.

When a bank makes a loan, it creates the money out of thin air by simply entering the balance on a ledger. One side is an "asset" to the bank. The other side is credited to the borrower. BAnks were granted the authority to create US dollars this way by the Federal Reserve Act. Prior to that act, the bank had to issue a bank note, backed only by the bank. Bank notes were problemmatic, because they were not "legal tender" and would go poof if the bank went under.

As the borrower pays back the loan, the amount on the ledger gets smaller. Eventually, it is 0, and all the money that was created as part of the loan is gone, destroyed....plus interest of course.

The problem is that the interest the borrower paid back was the principal on someone else's loan. There is now not enough money in existence for that other borrower to pay back his loan. The money to pay the interest on existing loans comes out of new loans. This is why deflation and/or a credit squeeze is so deadly to a fractional-reserve fiat currency: constant credit expansion is necessary to keep the money supply from being sucked into a black hole of payoffs and defaults.