Rothbard no IHT

There's a run on a bank in Britain: Could it happen in the U.S.?

U.S. bank runs are possible, as the brief panic over Countrywide suggested. But even if one happens, U.S. depositors shouldn't fret too much about losing their shirts.

Not only are most investors' deposits guaranteed by the government, the Fed is obligated to bail out a bank if its failure would be detrimental to the economy, Benston said. "If it were Citi, Chase, Bank of America — they'd step in."

And as the late economist Murray Rothbard wrote in a 1985 article for the publication "The Free Market" during the savings and loan panic: "Everyone knows that, in the case of a bank run, the U.S. Treasury would simply order the Fed to print enough cash to bail out any depositors who want it. The Fed has the unlimited power to print dollars, and it is this unlimited power to inflate that stands behind the current fractional reserve banking system."