The following recent article explains why these 5 major banks may be dead, or undead zombies, already

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090309/pl_mcclatchy/3184724

From a purely selfish angle, this posting is concerned with "getting mine" while I still can.

I am talking about reward points on my credit card.

It seems that there is a good chance that the bank that I hold a credit card, is not likely to pass the upcoming "stress test". Indeed, if the stress test is to have any kind of meaning, based on these numbers, it would seem unlikely that "my" bank could pass this test.

That being the case, my little strategy of using the family credit card to charge all bills and the pay them off at the end of the month, (something we did for years in order to earn interest free "Reward points", which was the only way we could ever see of being able to afford to go to Turkey to see my friend Caglayan, who used to live here)

well it seems that strategy is in some danger of being run over and crushed on the road by those wacky credit default swapping bankers who drive the big bus.

It was a good plan. A former colleague of mine used to go the Caribbean every year, for free. He paid no interest on his credit card, because he was using it like a checking account. He was not spending any more money than he had each month, he just used it to buy all the things of life, like heating oil, food, clothes as necessary, and reaped the rewards in the form of free airline tickets.

However, if the bank goes bust I am betting that they will honor their agreement to reward me for all my purchases, well, sometime after they make good all their promises to holders of select stock and bondholders, ie, never.

That being the case, it would seem prudent to cash all my reward points, now.

My thinking is if I am thinking this way, so are a lot of other people.

And we will probably all come knocking for our rewards at this unfortunate time.

Rolf