Free Republic

Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence. The instant, global, 24/7 communications of today make them ever more so. President Obama, in his pursuit of liberal big-government spending, has totally neglected the role of the president of the United States in reversing global panic. To the contrary, his every remark and the constant preoccupation of his Cabinet is to heighten the sense of crisis and to escalate the predictions of doom if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later. Instead of being a firewall, reassuring Main Street even...

Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence. The instant, global, 24/7 communications of today make them ever more so. President Obama, in his pursuit of liberal big-government spending, has totally neglected the role of the president of the United States in reversing global panic. To the contrary, his every remark and the constant preoccupation of his Cabinet is to heighten the sense of crisis and to escalate the predictions of doom if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later. Instead of being a firewall, reassuring Main Street even...

Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence. The instant, global, 24/7 communications of today make them ever more so. President Obama, in his pursuit of liberal big-government spending, has totally neglected the role of the president of the United States in reversing global panic. To the contrary, his every remark and the constant preoccupation of his Cabinet is to heighten the sense of crisis and to escalate the predictions of doom if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later.

A large Spanish bank has won the bidding for Austin-based Guaranty Financial Group, according to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. Federal regulators who have essentially been running Guaranty in recent months have chosen Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria as the buyer. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News both said that regulators had chosen BBVA, citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is expected to make the announcement Friday. Under the expected scenario, the FDIC will seize Guaranty, then sell most or all of it to BBVA. Guaranty’s financial condition has been deteriorating for...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Guaranty Bank is hardly a household name. But the Austin, Texas-based thrift's looming failure is shaping up as a big headache for bank supervisors -- not to mention a black eye for Carl Icahn and others in the smart money set. Guaranty (GFG) could be soon seized by the government in what would be the biggest bank failure in a year that has already had 64 of them. Last week, the bank warned investors to expect a federal takeover after regulators forced a writedown of its risky mortgage investments and a bid to raise new capital...

Transparency at the central bank is a serious question. It deserves a serious answer. The Federal Reserve Board's independence is a bit like the judiciary's independence. Absolutely vital for the institution's proper functioning, it nevertheless depends on Congress and the president to respect decisions with which they disagree. In such cases, the best protection for either the Supreme Court or the Fed is to stay strictly within its legally prescribed authority and to act according to principled criteria: legal ones for the justices, technical economic ones for the central bank. Which brings us to the proposed Federal Reserve Transparency Act,...

The survival of one of the nation’s largest commercial lenders, the CIT Group, was thrown into doubt late Wednesday after federal officials rebuffed pleas to rescue the struggling company a second time. Unless a buyer emerges for CIT — a prospect that seems unlikely — the century-old lender could founder, even after it received a $2.33 billion taxpayer-financed bailout in December. The plight of CIT, which provides loans to about a million small and midsize companies, particularly in the sagging retail sector, poses a crucial test of the Obama administration’s attempts to stabilize the nation’s financial industry.

NEW YORK (AP) - Regulators on Friday shut down five small banks, boosting to 45 the number of failures this year of federally insured banks. More are expected to succumb in the prolonged recession. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the failed banks: Community Bank of West Georgia, based in Villa Rica, Ga.; Neighborhood Community Bank, located in Newnan, Ga.; Horizon Bank in Pine City, Minn.; MetroPacific Bank in Irvine, Calif.; and Mirae Bank in Los Angeles. Community Bank of West Georgia had $199.4 million in assets and $182.5 million in deposits as of May 15. Neighborhood...

Bank of Lincolnwood becomes the 37th bank to be closed by regulators this year. BY BEN ROONEY NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Bank of Lincolnwood was shuttered by Illinois regulators Friday, bringing the number of failed banks this year to 37 and costing the Federal Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s deposit insurance fund $83 million. The two offices of Lincolnwood, Ill.-based bank will reopen Saturday as branches of Republic Bank of Chicago. Bank of Lincolnwood customers will retain their deposit insurance coverage, the FDIC said. As of late last month, Bank of Lincolnwood had total assets of about $214 million and total...

The president of the Dallas Fed on inflation risk and central bank independence. BY MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY Dallas From his perch high atop the palatial Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, overlooking what he calls "the most modern, efficient city in America," Richard Fisher says he is always on the lookout for rising prices. But that's not what's worrying the bank's president right now. His bigger concern these days would seem to be what he calls "the perception of risk" that has been created by the Fed's purchases of Treasury bonds, mortgage-backed securities and Fannie Mae paper. Mr. Fisher acknowledges that events...

The Office of Thrift Supervision on Thursday closed BankUnited of Coral Gables and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver. BankUnited was "critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business," the OTS said in a statement. The bank reported losses of $1.2 billion in 2008. BankUnited had $8.7 billion in deposits and 85 branches, including 23 in Broward County and 16 in Palm Beach County.

And the US government will go bust, he guarantees.

Thousands of Home Valley Bank customers recently learned that their Presidential Guarantee accounts have become decidedly less presidential. Instead of paying a promised 3 percent interest yield annually on the special checking accounts, the southern Oregon bank in mid-April unilaterally cut the rate to 2.02 percent. Don't blame us, Home Valley executives said. Blame the FDIC. In February, the federal agency that insures deposits approved a one-time special assessment that will increase the annual charge paid by many Northwest banks by three times or more. That leaves Home Valley and the other 8,300 banks across the country facing a significant...

Regulators seized a Bremerton, Wash., bank late Friday as the financial crisis claimed its 33rd federally insured financial institution of 2009. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimated that the failure of Westsound Bank would cost its deposit-insurance fund $108 million. Westsound is the second Washington bank to be closed by regulators so far this year. Westsound had total assets of $334.6 million and total deposits of $304.5 million as of March 31.

Worst-Case Capital Shortfall of $75 Billion at 10 Banks Is Less Than Many Feared; Some Shares Rise on Hopes Crisis Is Easing. BY DAVID ENRICH, ROBIN SIDEL and DEBORAH SOLOMON The federal government projected that 19 of the nation's biggest banks could suffer losses of up to $599 billion through the end of next year if the economy performs worse than expected and ordered 10 of them to raise a combined $74.6 billion in capital to cushion themselves. The much-anticipated stress-test results unleashed a scramble by the weakest banks to find money and a push by the strongest ones to...

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - So many U.S. banks are failing that three government bank watchdogs want the law changed to force a review only when a bank failure costs the federal insurance fund $300 million or more. The inspectors general, or IGs, of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., citing a heavy workload of "material loss reviews" of failed banks, want Congress to change the law that triggers a review, according to a letter obtained by Reuters on Monday. Currently a review must be done if a federally supervised bank's failure costs...

New Frontier Bank, Greeley, Colorado, was closed today by the State Bank Commissioner, by Order of the Banking Board of the Colorado Division of Banking, which then appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Greeley (DINB), which will remain open for approximately 30 days to allow depositors time to open accounts at other insured institutions. At the time of closing, the receiver immediately transferred to the DINB all insured deposits of New Frontier, except for brokered deposits, certificates of deposit (CDs) and individual retirement accounts...

NEW YORK (AP) — Regulators have shut down Cape Fear Bank — the first North Carolina bank to collapse since 1993, and the 22nd U.S. bank to fail this year. On Friday, the small Wilmington, N.C. bank was closed by state regulators and taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. was chosen to assume all of Cape Fear Bank's $403 million in deposits and buy about $468 million of its $492 million in assets. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named receiver of Cape Fear Bank on...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — New Frontier Bank, one of Colorado state's biggest banks, was closed down by state regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said in a statement. Based in Greeley, Colorado, New Frontier had, as of March 24, total assets of two billion dollars and and total deposits of about 1.5 billion, the FDIC said. . . . . . Unable to have a rival bank take charge of New Frontier's credits and deposits, the FDIC said it "created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Greeley (DINB), which will remain open for approximately 30 days to allow depositors time to...

Omni National Bank shut down Friday by federal regulators. FDIC expects failure will cost $290 million, more than any other nationwide. BY PAUL DONSKY Omni National Bank in Atlanta, reeling from bad real estate bets, was shut down by federal regulators Friday, becoming the ninth Georgia bank to fail in the past year. Omni, one of the state’s largest community banks with $956 million in assets, posted a $14.5 million loss last year. Moreover, the bank was saddled with $114 million in nonperforming loans at the end of the fourth quarter. Omni’s regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the...