issued by Lehman Brothers. Continuing investor anxiety as a result of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and other pending financial troubles caused significant redemptions from money funds in general, as investors redeemed their holdings and funds were forced to liquidate assets or impose limits on redemptions. Through Wednesday, September 17, 2008, prime institutional funds saw substantial redemptions. Retail funds saw net inflows of $4 billion, for a net capital outflow from all funds of $169 billion to $3.4 trillion (5%). In response, on Friday, September 19, 2008, the US Department of the Treasury announced an optional program to "insure the holdings of any publicly offered eligible money market mutual fund—both retail and institutional—that pays a fee to participate in the program". The insurance guaranteed that if a covered fund had broken the buck, it would have been restored to $1 NAV. The program was similar to the FDIC, in that it insured deposit-like holdings and sought to prevent runs on the bank. The guarantee was backed by assets of the Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund, up to a maximum of $50 billion. This program only covered assets invested in funds before September 19, 2008, and those who sold equities, for example, during the subsequent market crash and parked their assets in money funds, were at risk. The program immediately stabilized the system and stanched the outflows, but drew criticism from banking organizations, including the Independent Community Bankers of America and American Bankers Association, who expected funds to drain out of bank deposits and into newly insured money funds, as these latter would combine higher yields with insurance. The guarantee program ended on September 18, 2009, with no losses and generated $1.2 billion in revenue from the participation fees. Analysis The crisis, which eventually became the catalyst for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, almost developed into a run on money funds: the redemptions caused a drop in demand for commercial paper, preventing companies from rolling over their short-term debt, potentially causing an acute liquidity crisis: if companies cannot issue new debt to repay maturing debt, and do not have cash on hand to pay it back, they will default on their obligations, and may have to file for bankruptcy. Thus there was concern that the run could cause extensive bankruptcies, a debt deflation spiral, and serious damage to the real economy, as in the Great Depression. The drop in demand