g. Let's begin small and watch it spread.

"Banks are pretty safe today, aren't they? The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation insures all depositors for deposits up to twenty thousand
dollars now. A bank is hedged in by so many legal fences that it is
almost impossible for one to fail in the same way that they failed all
over the country in the early Thirties. Even if one does fail, through
the gross mismanagement or illegal activities of its governing board,
the depositors don't get excited; they know they're covered. There
hasn't been a really disastrous run on a bank for more than thirty
years.

"But banks don't just keep their money in vaults; they invest it. And a
significantly large percentage of that money is invested in power
companies all over the nation. In an attempt to keep their heads above
water, those banks would be forced to make up tremendous losses if Power
Utilities failed overnight. It would force them to draw in outstanding
loans for ready cash. It would mean turning in United States Savings
Bonds, which would put a tremendous strain on the Government.

"In spite of that, most banks won't be able to stay solvent because
their other capital investments will be dropping rapidly in value. As
Mr. Olcott said, our monetary system isn't based on gold, but on
production and goods. If Power Utilities and its members fail, you and
your machine will have destroyed--made worthless--several billion
dollars worth of machinery and equipment. You will have thrown tens of
thousands of people out of work. You will have cut the underpinnings
from beneath the American dollar.

"And it won't stop there. What will happen to the companies that build
the dynamos and the boilers and the atomic plants for the power
companies? What will happen to the copper industry when the need for
millions of miles of copper wire vanishes? They will all suffer
tremendous setbacks, throwing tens of thousands more out of work and
lowering the value of their stock drastically.

"The banks, then, will find their investments suddenly worth only a
fraction of their former value. They'll fail wholesale. And you can see
what that will do to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other
insurance companies."

Sam Bending nodded slowly. He could see that. Insurance companies base
their business on the prediction that a certain event--death, accident,
or the failure of a bank--will happen to a certain percentage of their
covered clien