"Good Morning. Your Bank Has Just Gone Bankrupt."

That was the message a friend of mine received today, when he went on line to do a transaction. Seeing that his Netbank website fell into the Ing system, he telephoned his bank immediately, only to be told the above news.


[Thanks to sheff.net.uk for the image.]

Nice way to drink your latte, no? Thank goodness, he didn't have over $100,000 in that bank, although his friend did. The friend can now look forward to hassling with the FDIC to get about 50% of what exceeds the $100,000.

This bank was apparently so small as to make little waves, which I think is a very good thing, given the times.

Whew.

And anyway, because Netbank didn't have any agencies in the street, there could be no videos of lines of worried depositors to send all over the TV. They have apparently suffered in silence, so to speak (if you can call that loud angry voice in my ear "silence").

I'm willing to bet that if they had been an ordinary bank, you'd have seen much, much more about this. Bernanke must be thanking his lucky stars, and hoping the damage stops here.