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I can’t help but notice the Next Big Story on America’s financial meltdown isn’t getting much press this morning on the mainstream media, so let me break it to you here:

The FDIC - the iron-clad $100,000-per-person-per-bank insurer that has “never failed” to deliver and has been continually promising during this crisis that your money is safe (read: “please don’t run on the bank”) - is underfunded. Woefully. To the tune of about $150 billion, and it’s going to need a bailout of its own within the next year. Read more here.

The FDIC expects about 100 banks to fail between now and the end of 2009. Is yours among them? Perhaps. But you’re not allowed to know. Ignorance is good for you in a democracy, apparently. And especially good when you’re trying to avoid a total market meltdown.

No alarm bells though. I didn’t even see it listed on Drudge early this morning, so I promptly alerted them to the story and, like a lot of you, waited to see how long it would take to make the headlines there…. Less than 45 minutes. (I’m sure I wasn’t the only news hound to tip them off, but you always feel like the one who spread the news when the story finally posts, right? A good deed for the day.)

Let’s face it: It’s belt-tightening time for America, and no amount of money is going to staunch the bleeding. An informed electorate working with a (finally) concerned Congress might.

With this latest news, though, perhaps you are left wondering (as am I), what is next? Even without a crystal ball, the picture isn’t pretty. Foreign banks are already beginning to turn their backs on us. So is spending $700 billion on smoke and air now, so quickly and with so little promise of return on investment, the best course of action - or shall we wait until we see what happens?

I don’t know that answer. But I do know we’re being bamboozled. We’re in it up to our necks. Let’s hope our financial system’s still got the strength to swim, or that there is a fix that’ll grab us by the scruff of our necks and get us to higher ground for now, anyway.