The world could have ended on September 18, 2008

Here is a calm explanation possible only on C-Span--far away from the shoutfest at the news channels.  There was an electronic run on the banks that day, and $550 billion was withdrawn from the money markets within two hours!  

It is a 6-minute clip--watch it with patience, and you will be stunned.    

Here is how the NY Times reported about the meeting that Paulson and Bernanke had with Congressional leaders:

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”

When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.”

“What you heard last evening,” he added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly.”

Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

“You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.” Mr. Schumer said. “That hasn’t happened before. It’s a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can’t leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.”

As he spoke, Mr. Schumer swooped his hand, to make the gesture of a plummeting bird. “You know we’d be lucky ...” he said as his voice trailed off. “Well, I’ll leave it at that.”

As the folks at Motley Fool write:

Britain we know came within 3 hours of utter collapse, and now we see that the U.S. came just as close a month prior! Indeed, the entire world economy came within a day of systemic failure. It makes you wonder... how many hours do we stand from such a scenario at the moment? Further, what warnings can officials from the new administration utilize to influence Congressional votes that could possibly trump those warnings of Paulson and Bernanke on that Thursday evening back in September? These are fascinating and perilous times, and I urge all Fools to keep watching intently. Our modern financial system is gravely ill, and may never recover... 

The C-Span link thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link to Zero Hedge.