The era of mega banks – The growth of too big to fail. American banking system still backing over $13 trillion in assets with a negative deposit insurance fund. 7,760 banks but 19 banks make up 50 percent of the asset base.
The growth of the too big to fail bank is something that is modern to this era. In the 1990s there were fewer than 40 institutions that had total assets above $20 billion. In the late part of the 1980s and 1990s this number was below 20. The peak was reached in 2005 with 55 […]
Catch 22 economics – The U.S. economy has 7,400,000 less workers than the peak in late 2007 yet nominal GDP is at a record. What does that mean for those without jobs?
The Friday jobs report was significant for a variety of reasons but one key theme is that it shows the true fragility of the state of the economy. Even though it was a net add of 39,000 jobs we need to remember that the nation needs to add roughly 150,000 jobs per month just to […]
The debt end game – Top 10 percent of families own an average of $700,000 in stocks while the next 15 percent own an average of $53,000. The other 75 percent are insignificant players by Wall Street standards.
The government recently announced on a slow Friday a $1.29 trillion budget deficit as if it were no big deal for the completed fiscal year. In fact, this was spun as grand news since the previous budget deficit topped $1.4 trillion. We are now reaching a nationwide tipping point of debt. The U.S. Treasury and […]
Bank of America has $2.3 trillion in assets but $956 billion of that is made up in loans. Think those loans are valued at current market levels? The FDIC would have a challenge even breaking up one too big to fail bank.
The FDIC has a herculean challenge in confronting the too big to fail banks. There is little doubt that having institutions that are too big is part of the reason for the current systemic crisis. Yet through the last few years the solution has been to make these banks even bigger allowing their web to […]