rsquo;s nine years to Bubblevision) there was a real deadline, not an “un-real” situation as the bubblevisionistas attempted to promote. That deadline was so fixed, so real, and so ugly, it meant that fund managers actually had to “gasp” manage and financial wizards has to put their wands and secretaries up long enough to discombobulate the sudden sense of urgency being transmitted to them from their Calcutta call centers. You see, the wealthiest of Americans took one look at the poker table, and the decision was simple: No thanks, cash me out.

This meant the hedgies could not join the super wealthy at the Hamptons right away as they had to create more movement than a Larry Craig dance lesson in the men’s room stall. Suddenly, all of those financial instruments they created because they were allowed to operate overseas and behave like a bank, had to have a “value” assigned to them because their foundation, the mega-investors, demanded their cash back, penalties to be assessed and all. This unregulated “unbank” system of financial wannabes is finally coming home to roost and I’m postponing my trip to the Alps just to help explain all this to you (Don’t worry, the “Alps” is short for an Alpine butcher shop in town, not the mountains where they yodel; my Gulfstream is in the shop next to Lance Briggs’ Lamborghini). Thus the wealthiest of Americans, through their greed, ignorance and desire to preserve capital have created quite possibly the most devastating bank run in American history:

The Unbank Run.

Hedge funds became such huge success stories that everyone with a computer, the money to create a phone forwarding service in the Caymans or a boiler room operation in Mumbai, started to create a new industry that promised outlandish yields because the old mantra of “real estate never goes down, only up” was branded into the head of every American who watched those horrific Coke commercials on American Idol the last four seasons. The sad part is they convinced everyone that by offering mortgage backed securities, that safety was still there while the outlandish yield promises persisted as long as the price of real estate went up and people made their payments on time. Unfortunately, the people who had the money and time to actually make wise decisions found the appeal and promises of nine, ten and twenty plus percent yields so attractive they figured that only a few million at risk made no difference. As those fine average folks stood in line at the Countrywide branches nationwide last week, the millionaires got that sudden realization when the phone calls circumnavigated the globe and hit them in Monte Carlo or St. Johns; that they were in a bank run also. And the banksters, or “unbanksters” who made bank like promises of safety, security, and the ability to make money appear from behind their ears caused them to go into a tizzy and invest willy nilly. Now the real bank runs have hit home. And the unbank runs the millionaires and other investors have started will hit home. The belief that these hedgies were houses of ivory and stone was pierced when two of Bear Stearns hedge funds went into bankruptcy and rumors about every investment banker in America started to swirl. Then the realization that average people can not afford their mortgages caused another shock that there was a huge shortcoming in the new bankruptcy bill, the lack of debtor’s prisons, which meant that they could actually lose their money in the 20 to 1 leveraged Mortgaged Backed Securities that their unbanker told them were AAA safe like Treasuries.

So along comes the deadline for withdrawals from the hedge funds on August 15th and the most pressing concerns became obvious to all. First the family would have to leave without them for their vacations early. Second brokerages and investment banksters were facing wholesale abandonment as the super wealthy threatened lawsuits and complete account closure if the money was not made whole from the Cayman Casino operations the wiz kids created. After selling all of their highly liquid assets, the brokerages and banksters realized that some unbanks would have to liquidate and that might just cause a problem that they all knew about, but the public would be clueless about (that’s where us Dick Tracy historians come into the picture). The hedge fund managers in a panic called their parent companies, well, walked next door to the adjacent offices, and advised the head banksters that they would have to mark these creative financial devices they developed to market to sell them and raise cash. Of course after watching the Bear Stearns fiasco, the banksters all said “harrumph”, protested loudly and proclaimed “who dares to redeem our funds when we know what’s best for the world” and the problems started. The difference between JQP (John Q. Public) and the mega-wealthy commissioning a bank run is that we can be herded into a corner, convinced we are morons, and given a lollypop and sent along our way. The ultra wealthy, not so much. If you tell them they can not have their money, they send an army of attorneys or call their pet Congresscritter to launch an investigation which of course would reveal what almost everyone knows but doesn’t talk about. So the super banksters had to find a way to make their unbanks liquid and that meant, you guessed it, a call to Uncle Ben to get those helicopters airborne. The great academic that he is, Bernanke, thought there is no reason to get excited until the banksters whispered into his ear those dreaded words of “system failure” and that got him excited. So while the unbanks faced a bank run of their own, it became the Fed’s responsibility to fleece the taxpayers of billions of dollars to get the banksters liquid enough to pay off the investors in their foreign unbanks to prevent a real bank run at their own windows in New York. Make sense now? It shouldn’t, but sadly it does.

The dirty dark secret is that if the Fed did not act as it did, throwing money into the fire, promoting use of the discount window, and bending the law to accommodate the banksters, we would have seen a stock liquidation sale to cover the problems of the unbanks in the Caymans. We probably will still see this as the discovery that JQP can no longer afford their mortgage payments, especially when they work 20 out of 24 hours per day in 7-11’s thanks to the outsourcing of their jobs by these same mega-wealthy folks, is going to trigger another wave of derivative and bond payment defaults in the banking system. And that’s just the housing markets, just wait as word filters up that the commercial real estate market has crashed and the speculators in that business are about to stick it to the banksters and unbanksters in oh such a cruel manner.

The bottom line is that while we enjoy what’s left of summer and the mega-wealthy vacation in their palaces around the world, there is an unbank run underway. These hybrid animals created to speculate with our fiat currency under the impression that they would get taxpayer protection (which they are) are unwinding in such a fashion that there can not be a happy ending. Once the mega wealthy get their monies out, the impact will finally hit Main Street, USA in such a manner that the panic will make the early 1930’s look like a church social. The concerns people have about their retirement programs and the stability of the banking system are completely justified, as the people that manage both are the same ones who created the unbanks in an effort to circumvent regulatory supervision and fleece the middle class just one more time. The implosion is going to be of historic proportions, as when the unbank run ends, the real bank runs begin. Countrywide’s televised fiasco of long lines and upset customers was just a test drive for the future.

The individuals who had the common sense to see this coming, and got their money out ahead of time, get to watch the entire thing unfold before their eyes in the luxury of their own homes. And the even smarter souls who purchased precious metals as insurance against just such incompetence will have the ability to sleep at night and realize that the historical reality that all fiat currencies fail will come true once again. On the flip side, those that did not will at least get a lollipop and an IOU to sleep on. For some strange reason, I just do not think the power company will accept the lollipop to keep the lights on, even as the foreclosure and eviction notices are served.