While we are diverted by news of CIA robotic flying machines launching Hellfire missiles at tall men in flowing white robes, prisoners locked up in Cuban kennels and mistaken raids on our allies' camps there is a much more serious threat to our national security looming below this Administration's horizon. While we are diverted by controversy over the politicization of the Mormon Olympics the Argentine economy is in the tank while the Japanese banking system is tottering and the Bush Administration doesn't seem to notice.

Enron, Global, K-Mart and Waste Management are more than just corporate failures. The collapse of the Enron Towers may well turn out to be more devastating to the American economy than the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Our attention is focused on Arthur Anderson and Enron executives trooping to Congress to take the 5th or not remember. Citibank is taking a 1.2 Billion-Dollar hit on the Enron debacle alone. Of course the risks of the Citibank Enron loans were hedged in mysterious derivative financial instruments that sold part of the risk. We don't know where the losses will end up in the banking system through these magical derivatives. We do know some things however.

We know that in the month since January 11th the FDIC has closed 4 banks, the last a go-go Internet institution, NextBank that had no brick and mortar facilities. NextBank was a creature of credit card issuer NextCard. Under capitalized it solicited jumbo CD deposits in $100,000 increments promising higher than average interest and used the deposits to back its investment in NextCard accounts. Risky NextCard accounts solicited on the Internet charged high-end interest rates. When the delinquency rates caught up there wasn't enough to pay for the cardholders' purchases. NextBank's limited capital was used up and the deposit accounts were imperiled. The FDIC acted on February 7th and 2,075 depositors holding 29.1 million in uninsured deposits will be left holding the bag. The January collapse of Miami's Hamilton Bank with a half-billion in deposits left 3,600 depositors with losses of up to $130 million.

When high flying Andy Fastow crashed into Enron Towers and collapsed the Enron house of cards the harm to American security may well be greater than when the airliners slammed into the Twin Towers in New York and it will take longer to clean up the damage. $38 billion for Homeland Security may well be a drop in the bucket when it comes to the cost of providing real security for the American people. The real threat to American security is the hole in the economic bucket punched by deregulation. An American population that has never known want and despair has forgot the lessons of the 1930's. High-flying financiers are navigating without traffic control and the crashes are coming one after another. This episode may make the Savings and Loan debacle look like a dress rehearsal.