the real 2012

"On Thursday [18 September 2008], at 11 a.m. the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-dawn of money-market accounts in the US; [money] to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped %105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.
If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2 p.m. that afternoon $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money-market system of the US; [this] would have collapsed the entire economy of the US, and withing 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it"