Putnam closed its Prime Money-Market Fund.

Putnam Investments LLC closed its $12.3 billion institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund yesterday and plans to return all cash to investors.

The fund, which was valued yesterday at $1 a share, experienced "significant redemption pressure," the Boston-based company said in a statement.

In other news, Bloomberg just reported that Morgan Stanley has been in talks with China Investment Corp about selling a 49% stake, otherwise it will merge with Wachovia. Wachovia stock has gone up 50% rather quickly, so there may be a new merger on the horizon.

The krazed keynesians have been all over the financial news today, spraying their venom to anyone who wants a sound bite. One guy, on the "Bloomberg Minute," said "about 10 banks will control 80% of the money....that's about the right number, and I'm sure a model would prove that.....we need to follow the French and Canadian models, where a very few highly-regulated banks are in existence."

Worse yet was Paul McCulley, the Managing Director of Pimco (he's cut from New Deal cloth, by the way). He was on BubbleVision this morning, and he stated that the government (he's calls it "the sovereign") "needs to inject the system with liquidity with overwhelming force." (He likes Colin Powell quotes.) He said that "Uncle Sam must put his capital (the loot stolen from the rest of us) at risk and buy GSE securities." He said Hank Paulsen must "open his wallet." When McCulley was asked about the inflationary consequences of the Fed's injection and the AIG bailout, he replied, "I don't think we should give one thought to the dollar or the inflationary consequences..." This nutcase, by the way, is a guy who gets extremely wealthy via central monetary planning. Listen to the last 30 seconds of the clip, where some gal in the background says, "This all sounds like socialism to me..." The sound is then cut immediately, and the clip ends. Funny, I was listening to this in the car, so I do not know who said that. But I immediately talked to a friend on the west coast who said he caught the interview, and he also caught the remark. We Austro-Libertarians have an ear for these things.

If you want to see this absolutely insane interview, here's a link. I strongly suggest you watch this to know what we are up against.