William Black was one of the tough regulators during the S&L crisis. He knows what is going on and knows what needs to be done. According to Mr. Black: The FDIC is sitting there knowing that it has both the residential disaster and the commercial real estate disaster [and] knowing [...]

I received the following in an email. The emboldening/color emphasis is his not mine. Information shows more rather than less banks on the verge of problems. GOVERNMENT BANK AND MORTGAGE INSURERS HAVE DISCONCERTING FINANCIALS CONCLUSION: The U.S. deficit/borrowing  will be larger as taxpayers will fund these bank and mortgage insurers. [...]

Economists and lawyers think differently. Economists believe incentives are more effective to alter behavior; lawyers believe that coercion via laws is the way to affect behavior. The parable of the Sun and the Wind are illustrative. They are both intent to get a man to remove his overcoat. The Wind [...]

Here is another interesting chart that the mainstream economists, CNBC and the media probably prefer to ignore so that they can tout the “recovery.” Does this look like things are getting better? The rate of closures is double where we were last year at this point. Whether this means that [...]

Can We Have Another Banking Holiday? “But most commercial banking is “deposit banking” based on a gigantic scam: the idea, which most depositors believe, that their money is down at the bank, ready to be redeemed in cash at any time.” Murray Rothbard One of the most painful and important [...]

Despite the rising stock market, virtually everything else continues to deteriorate in the economy. An earlier post dealt with this anomaly. There literally is not one thing that can be claimed as a positive. And that includes the phony GDP third quarter “improvement” and presumably a better (preliminary) number for [...]

FDIC Fire Sale! 11 Homes For Under $10,000 (PHOTOS) From the Huffington Post: “But for our readers with a slightly tighter budget, we’ve compiled a list of some of the cheapest homes — all $10,000 or less — across the country. One Chicago house, sold for $280,000 two years ago, [...]

Frank Capra’s George Bailey of Bailey Savings and Loan would surely not recognize our banking system or its accounting. However, Mr. Potter, George’s evil competitor, would probably be right at home with what’s going on. The overhang to any economic recovery is the banking system. There is no way to [...]

Image via Wikipedia Image by Getty Images via Daylife Nearly six months ago, I taught a course entitled “Surviving the Crisis.” While not knowing how this crisis will end (either now or back then), I was pretty sure that it could not end given the economic policies put in place. [...]

Here is another, similar take on my previous post. This one via The Big Picture. The frightening thing, at least to me, about Rosner’s commentary, is less the stupidity of the legislation than the abrogation of Congressional oversight in future decisions. If we had a Constitution, clearly such a policy [...]

Image via Wikipedia Image by Getty Images via Daylife It is probably hard for the trusting public to believe what is being done to them by their government. Most of us were raised to think that government was “of the people, by the people and for the people.” It was [...]

Image via Wikipedia Image by 4PIZON via Flickr It is not complicated to understand how laws are being violated by the FDIC. Karl Denninger in his post details that and why there should be no losses from bank closings (unless there is bank fraud involved). Simply stated, it is the [...]

Image via Wikipedia A nice article detailing the recent history of the dollar. The fact that the dollar has declined 79% in the last 9 years versus the Euro is shocking. What is even more astounding is that it has declined so much against a currency not backed by a [...]

I suppose this type of speech comes with the job, but was it really necessary? Bair has access to data that we don’t. Does some of this data indicate rising public concern over the safety of their banks? Mere speculation on my part.

The rate of bank failures is increasing and probably will continue to do so. The primary reason to expect failures to increase pertains to the cash-strapped FDIC. Evidence that they are closing banks too slowly is apparent from the losses incurred. Additional reasons may be political pressures, lack of manpower [...]

To believe that we are leaving the financial woods to a return to sunshine implies that we know what is going on. That certainly does not appear to be the case with the banking system as evidenced in Banks Have Us Flying Blind on Depth of Losses: Jonathan Weil . [...]

The FDIC is broke (although not without additional Fed/Congress credit access) so is not closing banks that should be closed. Bank closures are occurring when they collapse under their own weight rather than FDIC guidelines. Thus, losses are bigger and taxpayers pay more as this game of pretend and extend [...]