“ that I once withheld important information from readers”John Authers wrote in last weekend’s FT.  “ It was 10 years ago…….I think I did the right thing. But a decade on I need to discuss it”

"The moment came  September 17 2008…..when world finance came closest to...collapse. But I did not write as much.”

Authers authors (if you’ll permit me ) what can be  an influential FT column. If he writes it.

Last Saturday he touched on the names in the financial news 9/17/08: Lehman, AIG, the Reserve Fund which had “broken the buck”. And continued “none of this was visible. Queues do not form around the block to buy T-bills. But Wall Streeters I spoke to thought the banking system was at risk of failing"

“....I had a lot of cash in my bank account….I was  above the limit covered by US deposit insurance….I would lose money for good.”

"At lunch hour  I headed to Citi planning to take out half my money and put it into...the Chase branch next door. That would double the money I had insured…

“At Citi I found a long  queue, all well dressed Wall Streeters...Next door Chase was also full….."

He didn’t have to withdraw his money. The bank “opened accounts for each of my children….and my wife. In ...a few minutes I had quadrupled my deposit insurance coverage. I was now exposed to Uncle Sam, not Citi. With a smile she (the bank officer) told me she had been doing this all morning. Neither she nor her friend at Chase had ever had requests to do this until that week.”

How about you fellow dagblogger? Were you splitting your bank accounts on 9/17/08 ?

“ I was finding it a little hard to breathe…..The people who were panicking  were (those) who best understood what was going on.

“All I needed was ...a photographer…..and a caption explaining it.”

…………………………………………………..

“We did not do this”. “All our competitors  also shunned any photos of Manhattan banks”.

Fake non news? He gives his reason- you can read it.

“A few weeks later ,the deposit protection limit was raised ...to $250,000  …..by Congress.”

So that was alright then.The financial system wasn’t fixed but people with $250K to protect were. While  Greenspan's inadequate regulation  which forced John Authers to stand in that lunch time line  essentially continued .

And since Congressional Republicans refused to pass Bush’s bail- out the system teetered until Hank Paulson knelt to Nancy Pelosi.

And when Dodd,Frank  and Obama did something to prevent another 9/17/08 the Republicans stigmatized them for over regulation and  leftists for over leniency . But that’s another discussion.

What  about Authers & Co protecting us from ourselves.”All the news that’s John Authers thinks fit to print?” Is that how a free press works?

If the FT had published that photo and the capitalist  system had tanked would we have replaced it with a better one? Or hung bankers-maybe from my family- from lamp posts on Maiden Lane?