Can you say old fashion bank run?
FDIC Insuring 8,200 Banks with $9 Trillion in Deposits and Zero in the Deposit Insurance Fund
Do you remember when the FDIC coverage was increased from $100k to $250k? Well, that doesn't matter now because the FDIC is broke. As in, it doesn't have any more money to cover depositors of failing banks. The FDIC is supposed to ensure depositors that the government will protect them should the banks fail. Banks are failing, and more of them continue to fail. When the public learns that their deposits aren't even covered by the government any more, what then? A failed bank means depositors lost it all. Of course there are solutions... We could inflate our currency even more. The Federal Reserve could print more money and we could then give it to the depositors. This of course is by stealing that value from everyone else first through inflation. I don't think our $3.1 trillion federal budget for 2009 is going to stay so miniscule.
What's interesting to note is that this was a known potential problem when the banks were bailed out. Our government didn't give any of that money to the FDIC to bail out the depositors should the banks fail... Only to the banks so they don't fail. Clearly the government is putting the banks' interests ahead of the peoples' interest.