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Any good ideas what to invest in to protect against further currency devaluations and economic drops? What are you doing or thinking of doing?

Yes, really. Off the wire this morning: FDIC Deposit fund had negative $8.2B balance in Q3 That's broke. Bankrupt. Kaput. Gone. Poof. Dead. Rotting. A corpse. Yes, yes, I know, Treasury has their back. But let's not forget - The FDIC does not have a legal "full faith and credit" guarantee from the US Federal Government and Treasury. It has a "sense of Congress" resolution, but not a formal, legally-binding guarantee. I am not, by the way, predicting an actual FDIC failure to pay. Should such an event happen it would be tantamount to a declaration of revolutionary war (by...

FDIC: Number of troubled banks rises to 552 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of distressed banks in the U.S. rose to the highest level in sixteen years, according to a report released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Tuesday. The FDIC said that the number of troubled banks rose to 552 at the end of September from 416 at the end of June and 305 at the end of March. This is the largest number of banks on its "problem list" since the end of 1993.

If Americans would stop and think of the implication of having an insurance fund with no money backing up $9 trillion in their deposits, they would probably pause for a few minutes. And just because your money is sitting in a bank account doesn’t mean that it is safe. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve is on a war path to devalue the dollar so even though your money is nominally the same, in real terms you have gotten a lot poorer. The dollar has fallen by over 15 percent since March. This is an enormous amount but given the...

ATLANTA -- In the waning days of the Great Recession, the federal government is still jumpstarting the economy and propping up financial markets. It is also trying to sell Dresden Heights, a failed condo development on a noisy freeway ramp next to a Motel 6, a Waffle House and a Do-It-Yourself Pest Control. For more than a year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has been seeking a buyer for 36 partially built condos it inherited from a high-flying, short-lived Atlanta bank. The agency has been fending off vandals, haggling with architects and uncovering the developer's blunders, all in a bid...

Regulators close two Florida banks and on in California, costing the FDIC $986.4 million. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two Florida banks and one in California failed Friday night, bring the 2009 national tally to 123. Regulators closed Century Bank, Federal Savings Bank in Sarasota, Fla., Orion Bank in Naples, Fla., and Pacific Coast National Bank in San Clemente, Calif. Customers of all the failed banks are protected, however. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has insured bank deposits since the Great Depression, currently covers customer accounts up to $250,000.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading U.S. bank regulator Sheila Bair said on Friday that the government's capital injections into the largest banks was "probably not a good thing." Bair, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, said the billions of dollars of capital infusions last year had a terrible impact on public perception of the financial industry and government regulators. "I think at the time it sounded like the right thing to do and, again, it was part of an international effort, but I just see all the problems it's created," Bair said during an interview with PBS NewsHour. "I...

In an expected move, the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. unanimously approved a 3-year prepayment by banks to the tune of $45 billion in order to put liquidity back into the Deposit Insurance Fund, which ran out of money in the third quarter, and has been running at a deficit ever since. The overall banking industry hasn’t fought against the move, saying it was less expensive than some of the alternatives out there. One difference the Independent Community Bankers of America asked for was for assessments to be under a two-year requirement, with an option for a third...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will collect $45 billion from the banking industry to cover the rising cost of bank failures, an unprecedented assessment that reflects the agency's projections that the current round of failures will not peak until next year. The FDIC's board voted Thursday morning to authorize the special collection, which requires banks to pay now the amount that they would owe the FDIC over the next three years. The agency collects insurance premiums from all banks, which it uses to repay depositors in failed banks.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Monday said Congress needs to provide regulators greater tools to control the risky financial behavior that helped trigger the recession and to unwind major firms on the verge of collapse. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said she supports such a winding-down process for financial institutions other than banks. But she does have reservations with a proposal now before the House, which would cover the costs for the government of dissolving troubled companies with fees charged to businesses after the firms' meltdown occurred. Bair says that fund should be...

Five more banks, including a California-based institution that reportedly received federal bailout funds in 2008, were closed Friday by regulators, bringing the 2009 total to 120 failed banks. The latest banks to be taken over were United Security Bank of Sparta, Ga.; Home Federal Savings Bank of Detroit; United Commercial Bank of San Francisco; Gateway Bank of St. Louis and Prosperan Bank of Oakdale, Minn., according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. United Commercial, which had branches across the U.S. and also in Hong Kong and Shanghai, focused on the Chinese-American market in the U.S. and had obtained a very...

Sheila is apparently upset at the banks "pushing back" against reform: Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, said on Monday that some in the financial services sector are trying to argue that regulatory reform would stifle innovation and impede economic growth. "That makes me angry," Bair said in a text of remarks prepared for a lecture at Kansas State University. It does? You're not showing it. How hard is this Sheila? You have the authority, along with the OTS and OCC, to walk into any bank in the United States with your examiners, look at every asset...

Forget our babble. Here's the data. Won't you please give to UNICEF the FDIC fund this Halloween? Failed Bank City State Deposits (in millions) Assets (in millions) Branches Bank USA, National Assoc. Phoenix AZ $212.8 $117.1 2 California National Bank Los Angeles CA $7,792.2 $6,160.4 68 San Diego National Bank San Diego CA $3,608.1 $2,892.4 29 Pacific National Bank San Francisco CA $2,335.3 $1,762.8 18 Park National Bank Chicago IL $4,706.1 $3,730.9 30 Community Bank of Lemont Lemont IL $81.8 $81.2 1 North Houston Bank Houston TX $326.2 $308.0 2 Madisonville State Bank Madisonville TX $256.7 $225.2 1 Citizens National...

Federal Regulators Close 9 Banks TIM PARADIS and MARCY GORDON NEW YORK – Regulators shut nine banks Friday, including Los Angeles-based California National, as the still-weak economy produces a stream of loan defaults. The banks were units of privately held FBOP Corp., a Chicago-based bank holding company. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said U.S. Bank in Minneapolis agreed to assume the deposits and most of the assets of the banks. The banks are mostly in the West and had combined assets of $19.4 billion at the end of September. The closings boost the number of failed U.S. banks this year...

Yeah, ok, the title is dramatic and will never happen. Nonetheless, if we were truly a nation of laws, it would happen. The LA Times notes regarding IndyMac depositors over the insurance limit: The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. delivered some bad news personally to uninsured depositors who lost money last year when IndyMac Bank crashed and burned, saying an act of Congress is their only hope for recovering their funds. “When a bank fails, we have to do what’s least-cost to our deposit insurance fund,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said during a public appearance Wednesday in Los...

my favorite part: "The real shocker that we discovered some time ago is that the FDIC ‘funds’ were never even held in a segregated bank account – the fees collected from the banks are accounted for as a part of the government’s general revenues that go towards military spending, bailouts, interest costs and other government programs. The FDIC ‘fund’ merely consisted of IOU’s from the general revenues accounts. And now that the Deposit Insurance Fund balance as of September 30, 2009 is negative13 the FDIC wants the institutions to prepay their assessments for all of 2010, 2011 and 2012. In...

Scribd document did you know the FDIC funds if there are any and according to this there are not but anyway they are not even in a segregated account? See page 3 Must read from top to bottom

"Not even the guys at Washington Mutual know about this." Yet somehow CNBC found out. This video is a gem because it's probably the only existing report in mainstream press with any questions about the seizure of Washington Mutual. Once the FDIC formally announced the seizure the propaganda machine was turned on and the only thing that was repeated over and over was that JP Morgan had saved the day and that it was simply "Business as usual". The bank was likely seized on a Thursday to keep them from transferring 16+ billion dollars from WaMu fsb, a subsidiary which...

First Dupage Bank, Westmont, IL Riverview Community Bank, Otsego, MN Bank of Elmwood, Racine, WI Hillcrest Bank Florida, Naples, FL Flagship National Bank, Bradenton, FL American United Bank, Lawrenceville, GA Partners Bank, Naples, FL

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a big number that only tells part of the story. The number of banks that have failed so far this year topped 100 on Friday — hitting 106 by the end of the day — the most in nearly two decades. But the trouble in the banking system from bad loans and the recession goes even deeper. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively — partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad...

Banks in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, were shuttered, costing the FDIC an estimated $356.6 million. The tally of bank failures easily broke past the No. 100 milestone on Friday night, with regulators announcing the year's 106th closure. That's more than four times the number that were closed in 2008, and the highest total since 1992, when 181 banks failed. Earlier on Friday evening the dubious honor of the 100th failure went to Partners Bank, of Naples, Fla., which had $65.5 million in assets, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The 101st failure was American United Bank, of...

100: Partners Bank, Naples, FL 101: American United Bank, Lawrenceville, GA 102: Hillcrest Bank Florida, Naples, FL 103: Flagship National Bank, Bradenton, FL As you watch the bobbing metronome of Sheila C. Bair's head during this video ("...but as I said [left tick] we have the ability to immediately access [right tock] up to $500 billion from our Treasury line [left tick]...") wonder to yourself quietly: How is the FDIC going to slurp down another $500 billion without some roof rasing action on the debt ceiling? How can ANYONE promise that no insured depositor will ever (until the heat death...

Gee, who saw this one? Anyway, the point stands. The FDIC is clearly out of money, and this is nothing more than yet another legalized accounting fraud game, where they'll get "the money" now but allow the banks to "recognize" that "charge" over time. And now we find that this is not a short-term issue either: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government insurance fund designed to protect consumer bank deposits will likely stay in the red through 2012, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair said Wednesday. I know I have brought this up repeatedly, but these sorts of losses...

The government insurance fund designed to protect consumer bank deposits will likely stay in the red through 2012, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair said Wednesday. Testifying before members of the Senate Banking Committee, the nation's top commercial bank regulator stressed that her agency was taking immediate steps to replenish the dwindling fund. But she said those efforts would not put the rescue fund in the black until a little more than two years from now at the earliest.

Calif. Bank Becomes 99th in US to Be Shut in 2009 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS October 16, 2009 NEW YORK (AP) -- Regulators shut down San Joaquin Bank in California on Friday, marking the 99th failure this year of a federally insured bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of San Joaquin Bank, based in Bakersfield, Calif. It had $775 million in assets and $631 million in deposits as of Sept. 29. The FDIC said the bank's deposits will be assumed by Citizens Business Bank, based in Ontario, Calif. Its five branches will reopen Monday as branches of Citizens...

Small Banks Fail at Growing Rate, Straining F.D.I.C. By ERIC DASH Published: October 10, 2009 A year after Washington rescued the banks considered too big to fail, the ones deemed too small to save are approaching a grim milestone: the 100th bank failure of 2009. In what has become a ritual, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has swooped down on a handful of troubled lenders almost every Friday, seizing 98 since January alone and putting their assets into the hands of another bank. While the parade of failures still represents a mere fraction of America’s small banks, it underscores a...

My mother would have understood the implications of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s recent announcement that it is requiring U.S. banks to collectively remit advance payment of some $45 billion in future deposit insurance premiums. As a grade-schooler, I had to clear big purchases with her, even if the cash came from my own piggy bank. "I'll pay for it with my own money," I'd plead when she vetoed some imprudent outlay. "It's still all gotta come out of this one old farm," she would reply. Banks may write the checks for FDIC premiums, but the money really has to...

Now that the FDIC has effectively admitted they’ve run out of money in the Deposit Insurance Fund, what does that mean to for the banking system in the U.S., and the consumers and businesses using them? First we have to understand that the banking system, the FDIC and the Treasury Department are essentially insolvent. If Japan and China decide to stop buying Treasury Bonds, the U.S. economy would immediately collapse. Japan is already moving in that direction, and many expect China to do the same if the value of the U.S. dollar continues to fall. This isn’t an immediate concern,...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is expected to take the unprecedented step of collecting banks' regular premiums early to inject cash into the shrinking deposit insurance fund. Three industry executives and a government official say the FDIC board likely will call for "prepaid" bank insurance premiums at its meeting Tuesday. The banks prefer that option over a special emergency fee — which would be the second this year. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision has yet to be made public. A spokesman for the FDIC declined to comment Monday afternoon. It would be the...

In an unprecedented disclosure, the FDIC has highlighted that it expects the DIF reserve ratio to be negative as of September 30. As there are a whopping 48 hours before that deadline, one can safely assume that the DIF is now well into negative territory: as of today depositors have no insurance courtesy of a banking system that has leeched out all the capital of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Let's pray there is no run on the bank soon. Pursuant to these requirements, staff estimates that both the Fund balance and the reserve ratio as of September 30, 2009,...

The government said the fund that protects consumer bank deposits has fallen into the red and will remain there into 2012, a pointed symbol of how the aftershocks of the financial crisis will reverberate for years as banks continue to fail at a high rate. The negative balance is a headache for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which runs the fund. On Tuesday, it proposed the unprecedented step of having the banking industry prepay $45 billion in fees by the end of the year to give the government more breathing room to handle future failures.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday recommended that its member banks pay in advance three years worth of deposit insurance premiums in order to meet the agency's ballooning needs to protect customers of failed banks. "The banking industry has substantial liquidity to prepay assessments. As of June 30, FDIC-insured institutions held more than $1.3 trillion in liquid balances, or 22% more than they did a year ago," the FDIC said in a published statement. The board also voted to raise the annual premiums for member firms by three basis points - or...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury officials and regulators are weighing a fresh round of bailouts for banks that were deemed too risky to qualify for earlier aid. Representatives from the Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and House Financial Services Committee discussed the plan by phone Thursday, said California Bankers Association Chairman Dan Doyle, who was on the call. Small community banks are struggling as commercial real estate and other loans go sour. Officials and industry representatives are considering how to get money to those banks, Doyle said Friday.

Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government. Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks. The plan, strongly supported by bankers and their lobbyists, would be a major reversal of fortune. A hallmark of the financial crisis has been the...

Markets were mixed yesterday. The Dow was down along with the NASDAQ while the S&P 500 gained. This morning, futures are back up. The Dollar is weaker ant it's hit a one year low against the Euro. Meanwhile, the place that insures bank deposits may need a bailout of its own.

Another two US banks have been closed by the federal regulator, taking the total number of American banking failures this year to 94. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which controls the banking sector, has shut Irwin Union Bank & Trust and Irwin Union Bank. The move comes after their parent firm - Irwin Financial - was unable to meet an FDIC demand to boost their capital. The failure of the two banks is likely to cost the FDIC $850m.

Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government. Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks. The plan, strongly supported by bankers and their lobbyists, would be a major reversal of fortune. A hallmark of the financial crisis has been the...

Regulators close subsidiaries of Irwin Financial Corporation in Kentucky and Indiana at a cost of $850 million to the FDIC. BY BEN ROONEY NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Regulators closed subsidiaries of Irwin Financial Corporation in Kentucky and Indiana Friday, bringing the total number of bank failures this year to 94, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The U.S. government said Wednesday it had successfully completed a test program to help deal with the toxic loans still weighing on bank balance sheets, providing a glimmer of hope on an issue that has repeatedly stymied policymakers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it received bids from 12 different consortiums interested in purchasing an ownership stake in a newly-created company that will receive a $1.3 billion residential mortgage portfolio owned by the FDIC following the failure of a Texas-based bank. Residential Credit Services, which used a 6-to-1 leverage option offered by the government, will pay $64.2 million in cash...

By most measures, the past year has been the worst financial crisis in a lifetime. But not by one significant measure: Bank failures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has closed 92 banks so far in 2009, after seizing 25 ailing banks last year. By contrast, during the last banking crisis, 381 banks were seized in 1990, 268 in 1991, and 179 in 1992. Still, the pace of bank failures is accelerating. In recent days, three banks failed, including Illinois-based Corus Bank, doomed by $3.2 billion in construction loans, mostly to condominium developers. The relatively slow pace of bank failures during...

Regulators today won't define 'systemic risk,' unlike 25 years ago. With Congress back in session and the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers failure upon us, the Obama Administration is resuming its quest for greatly expanded authority to bail out American businesses. Under the Treasury reform blueprint, any financial company, whether a regulated bank or not, could be rescued or seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation if regulators believe it poses a systemic risk. If recent history is any guide, when the feds stage their next intervention, they will not define "systemic risk" and they will refuse to release the...

The government's temporary guarantee program for money market funds is set to expire on Sept. 18. There is little chance the year-old program, put in place during the height of the financial crisis, will be extended past next week. The guarantee applies only to money funds that paid premiums to participate in the Treasury Department's insurance fund. Almost all funds did initially, although some that invest only in U.S. government securities later dropped out. The guarantee covered balances that were in participating taxable and tax-free money funds when the program started Sept. 19. "It's extremely unlikely" the program will be...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Regulators closed Chicago-based Corus Bank N.A. and Woodbury, Minn.-based Brickwell Community Bank on Friday, bringing the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 91 and costing the federal deposit-insurance fund more than $1.7 billion as the credit crisis continues claiming victims.

Last October was a pretty brutal time to be in the prognostication business. I had just called Gold the opportunity of a lifetime at the end of August at a price of around $800/ounce. By the time late October came around, the price had fallen to around $725 and the catcalls had begun in earnest. The Keynesian Kakistocracy was out in full force, hurling insults so rich and humorous that I felt compelled to write some of them down. Now a year later it is time to do another quick review and probably set myself up for yet another barrage...

The head of the committee overseeing how Uncle Sam is spending its bailout dollars offered withering criticism of the feds' handling of Citigroup's rescue, blasting regulators for their lack of transparency -- and the absence of any clear exit strategy. Noting that other companies that have received federal aid have served up proposals to pay back the money, Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, had harsh words about the lack of such a plan in the case of Citi, which has received $45 billion in rescue cash and is more than one-third owned by US taxpayers. "Too big...

Regulators close banks in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. BY AMY HAIMERI NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Five small regional banks were closed by regulators on Friday evening, pushing 2009's tally so far to 88 institutions. Of the five failures, two were in Illinois, and there was one each in Arizona, Iowa and Missouri.

Money funds, once considered a safe place to park cash, could become moderately risky again when the government program hastily initiated last year to guarantee money fund deposits expires on Sept. 18. In 2008 the colossal Reserve Primary Fund, with $62.5 billion in its portfolio "broke the buck" when Lehman Brothers defaulted on $785 million in bonds which the fund held. Investor redemptions skyrocketed. This prompted then Treasury secretary Henry Paulson's unprecedented intervention to protect all money market assets, approximately $3.5 trillion, and thus avert a panic, writes Joe Nocera in The New York Times. "Here we are a year...

Welcome to the FDIC's version of "let's screw the consumer" (again): To encourage banks to pick through the wreckage of their collapsed competitors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has agreed to assume most of the risk on $80 billion in loans and other assets. The agency expects it will eventually have to cover $14 billion in future losses on deals cut so far. The initiative amounts to a subsidy for dozens of hand-picked banks. Uh huh. And how are these "hand-picked" banks picked? Oh, that will never be disclosed, right? There will never be an open process on that, will...

New banks will be kept under strict supervision for a longer period of time because they are failing at a higher rate than more established lenders, US regulators said on Friday. The new policy from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation comes as regulators try to cope with a rising number of bank failures as the recession takes its toll. New lenders – those who have been insured less than seven years – have been ‘’over represented’’ on the list of institutions that failed during 2008 and 2009 and they pose an ‘’elevated risk’’ to the fund that protects depositors, the...

Regulators on Friday shut down banks in California, Maryland and Minnesota, pushing to 84 the number of bank failures this year amid the soured economy and rising loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the three banks: Affinity Bank, based in Ventura, Calif., with about $1 billion in assets and $922 million; Baltimore-based Bradford Bank, with $452 million in assets and $383 million in deposits; and Mainstreet Bank, based in Forest Lake, Minn., with assets of $459 million and deposits of $434 million. Pacific Western Bank, based in San Diego, agreed to assume the deposits and assets of...