i worked on a trading floor at a major US bank and i have a degree in economics. its sometimes mind boggling to see the lack of knowledge of some of these senators.
to put it in a tech perspective, remember back to the "series of tubes.."
1. The Fed publishes -several- press releases every day. They report on the most mundane issues (meeting times, etc) up to their financial decisions. So this event must have been mentioned in a press release.
2. The best match I found was this one: (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/2008...). If it is about the same event, they described the crisis as "elevated pressure in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets." Response: $180 billion dollar increase in swap lines by the Fed.
This press release was posted on Sept 18th this year, the date of the supposed catastrophe.
3. I couldn't find a single reputable news source or agency that even hinted at a possible catastrophe.
For your amusement, Google "federal reserve 550 billion" and watch the Ron Paul references fly by. Considering the lack of supporting evidence I think it's safe to say the world wasn't about to end on Sept 18th this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0liegrixknA
...what really happened was that the fed gave FDIC-style assurances to the money markets, which are not regulated in the manner of FDIC-insured commercial banks. That sounds boring as hell, I know.