Is anyone else wondering if their money is safe in their banks?

I doubt there is such a site. I asked a similar question about retail establishments once and someone pointed out the logic that if you announce a weakness of any particular entity it will further undermine it…...by creating a panic.

I don’t know where else you could put your money. It is safer there than in a cookie jar. Make sure your bank is FDIC insured and that you fall under the threshold for the insurance. (Typically $100,000/depositer). One thought would be to spread your money amongst several institutions so that if any one of them folds you will still have immediate access to cash. There is a lag time between the bank closing and you having actual access to your cash even if FDIC insured.

I think Snoopy has some good advice here. We are not at the point of stuffing it in mattresses yet. You may want to keep a slightly larger amount of cash on hand. There is no list, but the news has been listing institutions in trouble including WaMu and Wachovia.

It does worry me, but I’m not in a panic. Yet.

What money?!

If my bank goes under, I’d be out of debt!

There is a list of banks and their ratings at Bankrate.com…..they suck though, and I don’t trust the list at all. FDIC insurance fund is virtually insolvent, and will be insovent with the failure of WAMU.
http://www.bauerfinancial.com/home.html
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/safesound/ss_home.asp

The 100k FDIC limit is per person per institution——lots of INDY MAC folks can tell you more about that. This type of fund has failed before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Deposit_Insurance_Corporation

Some folks are making money now. Try Euro Pacific Capital, or http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html
and please Snoopy if you disagree, kindly keep it in your sneaker.

Here is on OK explaination on the state of FDIC:
http://eldib.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/near-collapse-fdic-only-has-52-billion-to-insure-42-trillion-in-deposits/

I strongly disagree with the first 2 comments (i’m not attacking) Fractional Lending has left banks insolvent—go try and withdraw 20k—it could take weeks to get the money out….all of the banks money is tied up in illiquid mortgage backed securities that they cannot sell—which is a different topic. The Fed and international banks have injected 1.5 Trillion Dollars into the world banking systems in the last 72 hours as of 9/18, and it has not even made a dent in the insolvency issue.

It is time to panic, or past time.

Read this if you want to crap your pants:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/09/china-russia-intervene-in-equity.html

@allengreen. I don’t know what your problem is and I really don’t care….feel free to post whatever you want and I will do the same. I am not going to “keep it in my sneaker”.
That is a completely ridiculous request. If you want to only engage w/ people who are in lock step agreement w/ you, talk to yourself in the mirror.
Quit trying to “educate” me and others through intimidation. It belittles yourself.

My post was intimidation? Are you having a bad day?

Thanks for adding to the discussion Snoopy, that last comment was profound.

Are you angry for being wrong? Check the ego, and it is possible you may learn something, after all we are talking money, not politics. Check your baggage at the door and don’t hijack the thread.

@allengreen No, I am not having a bad day…..are you?
“Snoopy if you disagree, kindly keep it in your sneaker”
I don’t care if we view every issue from opposite sides. Based on what I have read of your posts on Fluther, we don’t….Share your views and I will share mine. Leave it at that….

That is some very scary stuff indeed, allengreen. I was listening to a news story on WAMU today, and I said to my husband, “If we have a series of cascading bank failures the FDIC will not be able to cover that.”

I understand the need not to cause panic (runs on the banks will not help), but I think that our leaders need to be alittle more straightforward about this.

Snoopy did our getting off on the wrong foot start on another thread, no? About the same issue, no? Did you not attack me personally over there just a few minutes ago? So my comments about keeping it in your sneaker did not happen in a vacuum—though you’d like us to beleive that to be so.

@snoopy & @allengreen, with all respect, please take that back & forth to the comments area. kthxbye

@ag Please, please, you said you were going to avoid the personal attacks. I don’t want to lose your insights. Can you not post without that stuff?

Can everyone not?

[Fluther moderator] Snoopy and Allengreen. Both of you have excellent, valid points coming from different perspectives (as I see it). Clearly, allen is more pessimistic about our economic future, a position I can understand. I believe that both of you should just agree to disagree on this, and keep the personal attacks to yourselves. I (and others) welcome and value BOTH of your economic viewpoints, just as there is room for the more optimistic Wall Street Journal and the more pessimistic New York Times (Paul Krugman). But, when both of you engage in name-calling, it diminishes your ability to make a strong point. Feel free to send me a PM to discuss further.

OK! Thanks to everyone for the info. I checked locally and the bank my daughter has her inheirtance in is ranked a number 1 (5 being the ideal). As this is all she has and because she just entered college, we’ll be moving her money. Not that I’m panicking, but loosing any amount of her money would mean the abrupt end to her college education for the time being.
Not anything to play around with.

Having said that, I think our government is so out of touch with things and reality, it can only get worse.

No, I never worried about it. The money you have in your account is insured up to $100,000 dollars per account by the FDIC. So even if something bad should happen to your bank like it gets bought out and taken over by a different bank you will still be able to access your money. If another bank doesn’t take it over, then it will be run by the FDIC. So either way, your cash is safe no matter what. Unless of course you have more then 100K in which case you should get another account.. Or tell me your account number, mother’s maiden name, security question and answer, SSN, and PIN..

Just heard this morning, money market accounts, are not covered under FDIC.

@dd: it depends on where the MM is deposited. If it is deposited in a bank that IS FDIC insured, then it is covered. If it is deposited w/ somewhere like Fidelity, who is not FDIC insured, then it is not covered.

See the following from this FDIC link

What Is Insured?
You are probably familiar with the traditional types of bank accounts – checking, savings, trust, certificates of deposit (CDs), and IRA retirement accounts – that are insured by the FDIC. Banks also may offer what is called a money market deposit account, which earns interest at a rate set by the bank and usually limits the customer to a certain number of transactions within a stated time period. All of these types of accounts generally are insured by the FDIC up to the legal limit of $100,000 and sometimes even more for special kinds of accounts or ownership categories.

Ugly reality check. Should all the banks fail, the government will not be able to cover all the losses.

Insurance does not work when it has to pay out to all at once. See the AIG fiasco!!!!!!!!!!

I think that is a great point, Marina.
It is a similar predicament facing PBGC for pensions.

@Snoopy Very good point about the pension board. I have little hope they will be there and solvent when I am ready. I don’t get this plan to eliminate social security and have people rely on pensions, but then allow corporations to loot pension funds.