Despite the 123 banks that have failed so far in 2009 (that’s as of Nov. 13), it’s the FDIC’s job to keep your deposits of up to $250,000 unharmed, even if the bank that houses that cash goes out of business.

According to Chairwoman Sheila C. Bair, “there’s no safer place in the world for their checking, savings or retirement money.” She says that the chances of bank failure are low. For example, there are more than 90 banks headquartered in Maryland, and only two have failed this year.

Six other Maryland banks — Colombo Bank, Waterfield Bank, Eastern Savings Bank, First Mariner Bank, K Bank and Bay National Bank — are under federal scrutiny, meaning that if they don’t shape up, they could close down.

Even if those banks do fail, the FDIC’s leader says that there’s really nothing to worry about. If you’ve got less than $250,000 in a federally-insured bank, you’ll be able to recoup all of it, making a bank failure “a non-event” to use Bair’s words.

Bair lays out why banks are safe in the fall 2009 edition of FDIC Consumer News:

• Federal deposit insurance is backed by “the full faith and credit of the United States government.” That means that the U.S. government protects federally insured depositors. “In short, we cannot run out of money,” Bair said.

• The FDIC can quickly borrow money from the U.S. Treasury in an emergency. But the FDIC expects to collect money from the banking industry to pay for its own problems, rather than using taxpayer dollars.

• Federal law also requires that all insured deposits be paid asap. If a bank fails, the FDIC always repays depositors up  to the legal limit. In most cases, customers can access their accounts on the next business day when the FDIC arranges for a healthy bank to assume the insured deposits.

But thanks to lower fuel prices this year, AAA Mid-Atlantic is predicting that 4.6 percent more Marylanders will hit the roads for the holiday this year compared with last year. (Although not me — the only road I’m hitting is the parking lot when we go out during halftime to toss the football around. I’ve learned my lesson, thank you.)

In total, approximately 794,000 Marylanders are expected to travel in one form or another for Thanksgiving. That’s up nearly 4 percent last year. Airlines also appear to be losing out to other transportation modes as just 6.5 percent of travelers (52,000) are expected to take to the skies — a 5.2 percent decline.

“It’s not surprising that Marylanders are foregoing the airport this year to reach their Thanksgiving destination,” said Regina Averella in a news release. “Given the hassles of airport security, reduced capacity, as well as added surcharges and fees, it seems Marylanders are seeking other modes of transportation that are less restrictive and perhaps more inexpensive.”

Speaking of which, anyone hear about the new Super Bowl surcharge this year? When will these guys stop?

At any rate, I’ve also noticed in my commute to work along I-95, the roads have already gotten more congested since Thursday. Seems as if the traffic madness is already upon us.

Are you going to brave the storm that’s alrady accumulating out there? So are you like me and hiding from traffic this year?

Destination D.C. is unleashing some mini-warriors (think Mini Me) in select cities Friday as part of the arrival of China’s terra cotta warrior statues to the National Geographic Museum in the final stop on their U.S. tour.

More than 800 small, terra cotta warrior statues will be placed in high-traffic locations and near media outlets in Baltimore  Friday. Flagged with clever messages, the statues encourage their finders to log on to the Weekend Warriors promotion site for a chance to win a “Golden Warrior” weekend getaway in D.C.

Here’s a sample of the campaign in action Destination D.C. is passing around.

The blockbuster exhibition Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, opened in D.C. yesterday (Nov. 19) after drawing record crowds in its previous stops. Nearly 100,000 tickets to the show in Washington were purchased prior to the exhibition’s opening — and some weekend dates are fully sold out.

Happy hunting…

The above video was posted as a teaser to a photography exhibit Jeanine had at SubBasement Gallery in Baltimore. Taking us through her artwork, she starts by saying flatly,

“Hi, I’m Jeanine Turner, and I’m an artist”

She goes on to describe how she became an artist, starting with a little pocket digital camera that her husband bought her, and upgrading to better and better cameras, which she used to photograph Silo Point, her husband’s luxe condo project in Locust Point:

About six years ago, my husband bought me a camera. A little digital camera, something you can stick in your  purse. And I loved it. I took pictures of everything, but mostly my drunk girlfriends. And anyway, so from that, he, the next year for Christmas he brought me another camera, and then the next year he bought me then another camera, and another one and another one, I mean, he just every year I got a better camera, and I was very excited. So then he bought this amazing building. It is a grain silo, and it is in Baltimore, and I started taking pictures of it.

The rest of it is just as good. As we await the jury’s verdict, I encourage you to enjoy this.

It’s so bad, the best draw his show could get last week was 5.8 million viewers last Tuesday. Last Monday’s show was the worst of the week, drawing just 4 million viewers. That’s fewer viewers than Fox’s Cops (5 million viewers last week), Cops2 (5.5 million) and CBS’s Crimetime Saturday (5.5 million) which is actually mostly RERUNS of the network’s crime-related shows.

I’m sensing a theme here…maybe Leno needs to add some crime skits to pique viewers’ interest. But that’s not why his show was in Baltimore recently — check out this skit done in Baltimore that aired on Leno’s show last week. (My favorite part is the shot of the lady in the soup shop with a tear streaming down her face.)

The gist of this vignette is Leno lackey Owen Benjamin goes around town to different businesses and creates a one- or two-verse jingle about their store.  The Leno Show has created similar videos for other major cities around the U.S. and it appears as if it’s another way to pander to the major markets where Leno might be able to boost his ratings.

But if you’re not watching the show already, would watching the Baltimore video make you tune in? Seems to me the only thing that could save his show at this point is some kind of wardrobe malfunction or a Jerry Springer-esque mishap to get audiences buzzing and tuning in for the next meltdown.

But then again, as Ari Gold (Jeremy Pivon’s character) said on HBO’s show Entourage – “Drama, this is NBC. They gave ‘Joey‘ 46 episodes.”

Yikes.

The clothier ranked 44th in 2006, 27th in 2006, 54th in 2007 and 47th in 2008.

Forbes looked at profitability and sales growth (among other stats) to determine its rankings. Jos. A. Bank posted $747 million in sales over the last 12 months with $64 million in profit.

In a press release dated Tuesday (the list came out last month), President and CEO R. Neal Black said he was proud to be one of the select companies to make the list five years in a row.

“Our strategy to consistently grow the Company in a controlled manner has produced a strong sales, earnings and cash flow performance over the past five years,” he said. “During this same five year period, we have added nearly $400 million in sales and approximately 2,100 jobs, while growing our brand throughout the United States.”

Unfortunately, Forbes doesn’t let you search the list by state anymore so it’s not as easy to determine how many Maryland companies made the list this year. But after a quick scan I can tell you, Owings Mills-based Medifast also came in the top-25 on the list at No. 16. (Medifast, which ranked 85th last year, makes weight-management products.) Hunt Valley-based Tessco Technologies, a wireless communications company, ranked 177th this year, and this is the third-straight year the company has made the list.

Under Armour, which ranked 28th last year, didn’t make it this time around. Our friendly slots neighbors, Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment, came in at No. 179 this year (the third straight year the company has made the list).

If you find any more Maryland companies that made the list, let us know.

Compiled by Northern California-based Permuto Discoveries, the graphic (available here) outlines statistical reasons why Cyber Monday, billed as the busiest online shopping day of the year, is not and never has been the top dog of online shopping days.

The term Cyber Monday was originally coined in 2005 by Shop.org after a significant number of  retailers reported a sizable increase in online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving. Since then, sales have grown from $486 million on Cyber Monday in 2005 to $846 million last year.

But neither one of those days was the busiest online shopping day of the year, according to Permuto.

$556 million in online sales took place on Dec. 12, 2005 and $887 million in sales on Dec. 9 last year made those days the busiest online shopping days of their years.

But further on, the graphic notes Cyber Monday’s sales totals are getting closer to the top online day of the year. That could mean that consumers and retailers are buying (no pun intended) the hype anyway and creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

Last year, Cyber Monday was only about $41 million off from the true busiest online day of the year. Could this year be the year it actually lives up to its name?

After the system went private in 1984, some big changes had to be made to make it financially stable.

Frank Gunther, the first UMMS chairman of the board, told me one change was that the clinical chiefs at the University of Maryland Medical Center were going to be held accountable for their budgets, something that had never really been a practice. That didn’t quite sit right with R Adams Cowley, the world-renowned doctor behind the Shock Trauma Center, according to Gunther.

I have a very vivid memory of telling them they had to submit their budgets. And Dr. Cowley came in and said, “Here you go, see you next year.” And I said, “No, we’re going to be looking at this and making sure that you’re following your budget.” He was aghast that anyone would be looking at his budget and checking up on him.

The system also struggled with changing the employment culture. Those who stayed on from the old system were still state employees, with state benefits and two times as many holidays as system employees.

When Gov. Harry Hughes declared the Friday after Christmas a state holiday in 1986, it was great news for the state employees, but bad news for the system. The hospital system needed to run 24-7, and so it had to pay state employees double time for their work. It was a Christmas present that cost UMMS $400,000.

Morton Rapoport was the system’s CEO for more than two decades, beginning in 1982. He was trained as a doctor and had some management experience from his time at the medical school, but mostly he told me he was learning his business skills on the job.

It turned out his management style left a little something to be desired. The clinical chiefs of staff at the hospital publicly said that they wanted Rapoport out.

Around that time, Shock Trauma was getting new helicopters, and Cowley, its chief, had really been pushing for the state to pick a French company as the vendor. One day, Cowley called and said the CEO of the helicopter firm was in town and wanted to take Rapoport for a ride.

For a fleeting moment, perhaps an insane moment, I thought that the clinical chiefs had come up with an ingenious plan to remove me. I would be killed in a helicopter crash. ~Excerpted from Rapoport’s book “Alignment,” about the system’s privatization, written with Stephen C. Schimpff, the former executive vice president and chief operating officer of the system.

Rapoport only agreed to take the trip if Cowley came along, not knowing that the pilot would let Cowley take over the controls.

In this case with Magna, the term is used to characterize a bid that basically serves at the benchmark bid — it’s one that the company in bankruptcy feels is as a good price for its assets. The stalking horse bid was to be the measuring stick competing bidders should use to form their own offers.

But we wondered why “stalking horse”? Why not something more literal like “starting bid”? So I did a little Internet sleuthing.

According to word-detective.com, the term comes from horses used in hunting. “‘Stalking horses’ were trained to allow a hunter to dismount and then use the horse as a blind to conceal his presence as he ’stalked’ the game (which apparently did not notice that it was being approached by a six-legged horse),” the author writes. “The term was expanded fairly quickly to cover any sort of portable blind.”

The explanation makes sense for the use of “stalking horse” in the context of being a decoy, such as a stalking horse candidate entered into an election to conceal the candidacy of another or to divide the opposition, as thefreedictionary.com defines the term.

But how did the term get linked with auction proceedings? That connection is provided by Ken Naglewski in his 2006 article in Financier Worldwide:

“It appears that the tactical leverage…dissuades other qualified bidders who might have bid more from even entering the fray,” he said. “There have been cases where other potential bidders choose not to participate rather than spend more time and effort trying to overcome the bidding advantages offered to the stalking horse.”

Although the stalking horse bid has been an increasingly common process in bankruptcy auctions over the last few years, Naglewski says a stalking horse bid is not required. He also says it’s typical for the stalking horse bid to wind up as the winning bidder, which also backs up that “chilling effect” theory.

So now that we know the history, do you think it matters that Magna is going ahead without a stalking horse bid? Without a leading bid, is anyone at a disadvantage?

ARAMARK does not comment on potential bids, but when asked if it submitted one for its own contract a spokesman said, “we hope to continue providing services at the ballpark.”

Last month, ARAMARK, which recently lost a bid at the Baltimore Convention Center, filed a notice with the state that 609 full- and part-time employees at its Camden Yards office would be affected if ARAMARK did in fact lose its deal with the Orioles.

ARAMARK also has offices at the Warehouse (which is owned by the state), and there’s no guarantee that a new concessionaire would take the same space — or even any space.

And a drop in rent income is not something I imagine the agency wants to be staring at during the last half of an already tough fiscal year for Maryland.