Bostom Globe:

Now-needy FDIC collected little in premiums
With fund going strong, banks didn’t pay for decade

By Michael Kranish
Globe Staff / March 11, 2009

WASHINGTON – The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized – and that bank failures were so infrequent – that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts. [..]

So basically banks didn’t even have to internalize some small portion of their own bailouts.

I blame the Republicans. But of course I’m wrong.

Why AIG?

Glad you asked.

I hate to say I told you so, but…

I told you so.

See in particular Glenn Greenwald’s rundown. He’s been on this since the beginning.

Also, I want to point to a previous post from many moons ago. See? One President does it, and the rest want in on the action, too.

And not just Republican candidates. Also some Democratic ones, including the one that won.