Monday, February 16, 2009

The Great 2009 Bank Die Off

I had to go back and check the date of my last post because I could not believe that the total bank failures for the year had jumped from 9 to 13 in a single week. This is quite an acceleration of the existing trend and definitely supports the view the U.S. is going to face a major bank die off this year.

The new banks failures reported on the FDIC site are the

Pinnacle Bank of Oregon, Beaverton, Oregon, with approximately $73.0 million in assets was closed. Washington Trust Bank, Spokane, Washington has agreed to assume all deposits (approximately $64.0 million).

Corn Belt Bank and Trust Company, Pittsfield, Illinois, with approximately $271.8 million in assets and approximately $234.4 million in deposits, was closed. The Carlinville National Bank, Carlinville, Illinois has agreed to assume all non-brokered deposits.

Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, Cape Coral, Florida, with approximately $539.0 million in assets and approximately $424.0 million in deposits, was closed. TIB Bank, Naples, Florida has agreed to assume all non-brokered deposits.

Sherman County Bank, Loup City, Nebraska, with approximately $129.8 million in assets was closed. Heritage Bank, Wood River, Nebraska has agreed to assume all deposits (approximately $85.1 million).

These new failures are expected cost the FDIC upwards of $330 million bringing the yearly total to about 1.5 billion, and its still February! How's that for a burn rate?

You have to remember that all the bail out money floating around has been going to the big banks that sold all the toxic products in the first place. While these little guys may have made some stupid mortgages to people they did not create the sea of derivatives that are bound to destroy the whole system, nor were they the ones advising their clients to buy the same products they were shorting. The system is corrupt and will let scores if not hundreds of these little banks fail.

How much more proof do we need to realize they don't give a crap about the little guys neither the small banks nor the public in general? This is all about saving the companies that politicians hope to work for some day, companies that politicians expect to get donations from or those companies already owed favours for past donations.

Most importantly these bailouts are designed to further the agenda of consolidating financial power to the detriment of the masses. These bailouts are corporate welfare of the worst kind because they are not even doing it fairly. The bigger, the guiltier and the more incestuous your relation to political power the more likely they will save your corporate ass.

"and the Guilty will inherit the Earth"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take a look at the value of the failed bank's assets on this site:



Calculated Risk

Anonymous said...

Last week I went silver via an RSP that matured. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the certificate string, as that was my education for this first-time purchase. I avoided that and went with Maples.

It was a first both for me and my ScotiaBank manager. Here's my question. ScotiaBank is a Canadian company, in this case doing business with a Canadian, so why did the usurous (IMO) fee get whacked along with the U.S. exchange for the actual purchase? Taking the above into consideration, should that charge not have remained in Cdn $ only?

Anonymous said...

metal is priced in U.S. dollars and then converted to local currency and that is normal world wide .

The service fee for the purchase is ususally $5 plus a likely shipping fee if you had to deal with a local scotia branch. Neither of these fees should have been in U.S. funds.

I'll check one of my old invoices but I'm sure they convert the metal price to canadian then add the additional fees below that subtotal in Can.
I'd have you manager call the metals desk in toronto and verify the proceedure.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this.

Re, "I'll check one of my old invoices but I'm sure they convert the metal price to canadian then add the additional fees below that subtotal in Can."

See, at last week's spot on the day I bought, the price was CDN $18.70/oz. (five bucks factored in). This amount, times the quantity I purchased, then got whacked with the exchange.

As I said, it was a first for my manager (small NS town). She had to be walked through the transaction by phone by someone at the Halifax main branch. The shipping charge T.O.-Halifax was $1/coin in CDN and that was okay. (There is no coin nor bullion anywhere in the Maritimes.)

Anonymous said...

$1 per coin is not as bad as I thought it would be, I figured a flat rate under a certain weight making small purchases overly expensive.

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