Yesterday when deFazio and his allies presented their alternative bailout plan to Congress, one of the group - the woman from Ohio, I think - said that in her district, all the businesses were seeking lines of credit from credit unions. Why? Word she got was that the FDIC was telling banks to shut down their credit lines.

Assuming that's true (she did say it in a press conference on the floor of the House, after all; there could be consequences to making it up), the innocent explanation would be that the FDIC was sincerely worried about meeting those obligations, specifically that it might have to sacrifice obligations that it hadn't (before tonight) actually had but was widely assumed to be ready to cover - amounts above 100,000 - for what it was legally obligated to cover - amounts up to 100,000. That seems a little convoluted, though, and since the government is already printing money anyway, and the obligations above 100,000 are far less in total, I assume, than those below it, I don't know that that really works. The conspiratorial explanation is the the FDIC is trying to gin up a credit crisis to get the public behind the bailout.