Share
The video below from the Wall Street Journal gets at the heart of why the bailouts have been so toxic for the economy. Banks, still laden with existing bad loans to small businesses, are unwilling to make new ones. Businesses, unable to receive credit, cannot expand or must downsize. This in turn puts a squeeze [...]

Share
Today, I received a press release from the complete list of federal government regulators of the financial industry which all but ordering banks to lend to small businesses. Clearly, regulators are concerned as comments by Marc Chandler intimated in my last post.
The regulators supporting the press release were the following: The Board of Governors of [...]

Share
CNBC’s Diana Olick has the breaking story on alleged fraud in the mortgage industry. She has been writing about this for a few days now.  See Big Banks Accused of Short Sale Fraud – Realty Check with Diana Olick at CNBC’s website.
Basically, second liens on properties like home equity loans have a blocking interest that [...]

Share
I have been largely silent about the recent populist call to arms by Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson. The duo advise Americans to withdraw their money from bank accounts at too-big-to-fail financial institutions and deposit them in a community bank. And they present a comprehensive list of community banks vetted by star bank analyst Chris [...]

Share
This clip will give you a better indicator of small lenders’ agenda as they met with the President to talk about expanding lending. The only commentary I would note is the desire by the IBCA President to allow the FDIC to keep its regulatory role.
See also Community Bankers Meet With Obama as Regulation Fight Heats [...]

Share
You kind of knew this was going to happen.  Given the fact that AmTrust Financial, the holding company filed bankruptcy (see my story here) after a bit of asset stripping, the FDIC was forced to come in and seize the banking subsidiary which was woefully undercapitalized.
The FDIC press release says:
AmTrust Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, was closed [...]

Share
Recently, I have been writing a lot about regional banks and the capital problems they have been having. This is having a direct impact on lending capacity available to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and households. As a result, a lot of workers are losing jobs in these smaller enterprises. And the unemployment statistics [...]

Share
AmTrust Financial, a privately held regional bank holding company based in Cleveland, has just filed for bankruptcy. With well over $10 billion in assets, AmTrust Bank is fairly large. The circumstances surrounding its failure are unusual in that the Bank Holding Company (BHC) has filed for bankruptcy but the banking subsidiary is still operating. The [...]

Share
After a huge fall off in credit consistent with the fall in nominal GDP, we are seeing credit stabilise at a lower level. Debt to GDP ratios may not be lower, but as GDP is lower, so too is credit in the system.  Yet there is a large difference between the haves and the have-nots, [...]

Share
You are a teacher at a local primary school. Each school day you and some of your colleagues watch over the children at the school playground to make sure all of the children follow the rules and keep their hands to themselves. Your role is to keep the children safe. Mind you, this is a [...]