BANK....BUST....FRIDAY !!!!!!! Ho Ho Ho

[marmar]

Bank Closing Information - December 18, 2009

First Federal Bank of California, Santa Monica, CA
Imperial Capital Bank, La Jolla, CA
Independent Bankers Bank, Springfield, IL
New South Federal Savings Bank, Irondale, AL
Citizens State Bank, New Baltimore, MI
Peoples First Community Bank, Panama City, FL
RockBridge Commercial Bank, Atlanta, GA


www.fdic.gov

[tnlefty]

1. Kicked w/o much of a comment...

except to mention that a lot of these bank failures have been in GA thus far. My spouse has noticed it too. :shrug:

We're not sure why it seems to be that way.

[MetaTrope]

5. Isn't Georgia the center of the credit card industry

for some legal reason or another?

[tnlefty]

8. I truly can't comment on that either...

as stated it's been a trend we've noticed and we don't know why.:hi: :shrug:

[FBaggins]

6. It's a function of state laws over decades

regulations (and regulators) that encouraged fewer big banks and lots of smaller banks.

In addition to just making it statistically more likely that more would fail, this encouraged excessive competition (sure there's such a thing). One mini bank would pay an unusually high rate on an account and others would have to jump to match. Decades of FDIC insurance means that consumers are (or rather WERE) less likely to care how well managed the bank is and just look at rates.

In my reasonably informed opinion, many of these banks were never even designed to be profitable long-term. They were founded with the intention of growing rapidly (with those mis-priced deposits/loans) and then selling themselves to a larger bank for a fat profit. Most larger banks got out of that business years ago (or at least stopped paying insane premiums) and these banks were left to their own management.

In many cases, they never got involved in sub-prime or other risky lending practices... they just did a lousy job of running their business. They paid too much for deposits and charged too little for loans because that was the only way to win business. They had looser credit standards and/or were more heavily involved in local CRE. Just a normal market downturn would have driven many of them under... and this has not been normal.

[tnlefty]

7. Okay...

I dumped a bigger bank (Regions) for a smaller local bank and a credit union...no problems thus far. I'll stay with the smaller bank and the credit union, or I'll put it all under the mattress.

[BR_Parkway]

10. Too heavy into Florida real estate for one

[FBaggins]

11. This is certainly true... but...

... you would certainly anticipate that the Florida banks would be at least as heavily in that boat, no?

[AllentownJake]

2. Doom and Gloomer son of a bitch

:rofl:

I'm not even trying to post the things economically till Health Care stops.

The Citigroup tax breaks went barely noticed as well as their capital offering fail.

[marmar]

3. You know me.......

But the dog and pony show people won't get as mad at me as they would if you'd posted this. :P

[AllentownJake]

4. Oh they wouldn't even notice it unless I incorporated Howard Dean somehow.

For now economic realities are second to Howard Dean calling the Health care bill what it is.

[Major Hogwash]

9. I saw this the first time, when it was the savings and loan crisis of the 80s under Reagan

We're going to wind up with 3 large banks in America before it is over.