Borrowings of Depository Institutions from the Federal Reserve

Ready for a little shock? Link

A reader has discovered this on Digg: “This is how fucked we are

That says it all.

Related article: Stressed banks borrow record amount from Fed
What does it mean if you have such a huge “shortage of liquidity in your system”?
Hmmmhhh?!? Oh! Run, run, run.

According to the FDIC I am just another blogger creating fear in the marketplace, so don’ t worry.

You can trust the government on this:

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday that the U.S. banking system is sound and the long-term fundamentals of economy are strong.

December 5, 1929
“The Government’s business is in sound condition.” — Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury

More Quotes from the Great Depression:

Read moreBorrowings of Depository Institutions from the Federal Reserve

Stressed banks borrow record amount from Fed

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Banks borrowed a record amount of funds from the Federal Reserve in the latest week as the year old credit crisis took a persistent toll, while the commercial paper market continued to contract, signaling tough conditions for short term borrowers.

Banks’ primary credit borrowings averaged $17.45 billion per day in the latest week, the second straight week this had hit a record and up from $16.38 billion the previous week, Fed data showed on Thursday.

“It shows there’s a shortage of liquidity in the system,” said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.

Read moreStressed banks borrow record amount from Fed

Small Florida bank is 8th U.S. failure this year

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bank regulators closed a small Florida-based bank on Friday, the eighth U.S. bank to fail this year under pressure from a weak economy and a credit crisis precipitated by falling home prices.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said First Priority Bank had $259 million in assets and $227 million in deposits and its failure will cost the federal fund that insures deposits an estimated $72 million.

SunTrust Banks Inc (NYSE:STINews) has agreed to assume the insured deposits of First Priority, whose six branches will reopen Monday as branches of SunTrust Bank.

Read moreSmall Florida bank is 8th U.S. failure this year

FDIC warns four US banks over liquidity

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation revealed on Friday that it had issued warnings to four small US banks that lacked sufficient reserves to cover potential loan losses.

The cease-and-desist orders issued in June said the four banks needed to raise more capital, expand their loss allowances and better oversee and diversify their loan portfolios. A fifth bank was cited for violating consumer protection laws.

Losses on mortages and other loans have helped bring down eight US banks this year, including one small Florida institution on Friday.

Read moreFDIC warns four US banks over liquidity

The Last Hurrah for the Banking System

The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of “stimulus” checks in the very near future. There’s no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can’t lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to “prime the pump” and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There’s no other choice.
The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people’s nerves. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the “impressive powers of the free market” anymore. They know things are bad, real bad. A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan’s West End. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the “big ticket” purchases and the “go-for-broke” trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and all the credit cards are at their limit. The country is drowning in red ink.

Read moreThe Last Hurrah for the Banking System

Washington Mutual: Soon to fail

WaMu’s Bloated Asset Values Don’t Fool Investors

July 30 (Bloomberg) — With goodwill like Washington Mutual Inc.’s, it’s no wonder investors are getting such bad feelings about the company’s finances. Shares of the Seattle-based savings and loan have fallen 89 percent the past year to $4.43, leaving the company with a $7.6 billion stock-market value. The stock’s plunge must be a horrible mistake if we are to believe the values WaMu attributes to the assets on its balance sheet.

Read moreWashington Mutual: Soon to fail

Queen’s stockbroker raided, biggest ever crackdown on insider trading

The Queen’s stockbroker Cazenove has been caught up in Britain’s biggest ever crackdown on insider trading.

Eight people were arrested in dawn raids yesterday by the City watchdog the Financial Services Authority.

Cazenove admitted that one of the arrested worked at its London offices as a sub-contractor.

A 40-strong team from the FSA swooped on addresses in London and the South East with back-up from City of London police.

Cazenove, the Queen’s stockbroker, has been at the centre of police raids into insider trading

They are believed to have seized computers and paperwork.

Read moreQueen’s stockbroker raided, biggest ever crackdown on insider trading

The Big Bailout: America as a Full-Spectrum Kleptocracy

Its name somewhat anachronistically means “assembly of old men.” George Washington famously – and, it must now be admitted, with excessive optimism – characterized it as an institutional saucer intended to cool legislation passed in the intemperate heat of the moment. Its members demand, with entirely unwarranted self-approval, to be called, collectively, the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Read moreThe Big Bailout: America as a Full-Spectrum Kleptocracy

Worried Banks Sharply Reduce Business Loans


Drew Greenblatt of Marlin Steel Wire Products is having trouble getting a $300,000 loan to buy a robot for his Baltimore factory. “This is what a bank is supposed to do,” he said.

Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring.

Read moreWorried Banks Sharply Reduce Business Loans

Senate OKs bill providing mortgage assistance

And the taxpayer will have to pay for all of this and…

“If we’re lucky enough to help 400,000 households,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, “I’m afraid it’s a drop in the bucket.”
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Bush pledges to sign legislation to help Fannie, Freddie

Congress completed work Saturday on the government’s most sweeping response yet to the nation’s housing crisis, sending to President Bush a bill designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, spur home buying and prop up struggling mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Read moreSenate OKs bill providing mortgage assistance

National Australia Bank will shock Wall Street

The National Australia Bank’s decision to write off 90 per cent of its US conduit loans will have dramatic repercussions around the world. Wall Street will be deeply shocked when they understand the repercussions of what NAB has done. It is clear global banks have nowhere near provided for their exposures to US housing loans which in the words of John Stewart are experiencing a “meltdown”.

We are now way beyond sub-prime. NAB says that it is suffering a 55 per cent loss on American housing loans – an event that has never happened in the history of a developed country in recent memory. This is an unprecedented event and means that the cost of bailing out the US financial system is now far beyond the highest estimates. A US recession is now locked in, but more alarmingly, 55 per cent loan losses point to the possibility of a depression.

Read moreNational Australia Bank will shock Wall Street

FDIC takes over 2 more banks, closing 28 branches

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – The 28 branches of 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank, operating in Nevada, Arizona and California, were closed Friday by federal regulators.

The banks, owned by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based First National Bank Holding Co., were scheduled to reopen on Monday as Mutual of Omaha Bank branches, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

The FDIC said the takeover of the failed banks was the least costly resolution and all depositors – including those with funds in excess of FDIC insurance limits – will switch to Mutual of Omaha with “the full amount of their deposits.”

Read moreFDIC takes over 2 more banks, closing 28 branches

WaMu has $3.33 bln loss, may be cut to “junk”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Washington Mutual Inc, the largest U.S. savings and loan, posted a $3.33 billion second-quarter loss on Tuesday as souring mortgages forced it to set aside more money for loan losses.

The thrift’s deteriorating health prompted Moody’s Investors Service to say it may downgrade Washington Mutual to “junk” status. Shares of Washington Mutual fell in after-hours electronic trading.

Read moreWaMu has $3.33 bln loss, may be cut to “junk”

U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline

July 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier as falling home prices left borrowers owing more on mortgages than their properties were worth.

One in every 171 households was foreclosed on, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction. That was an increase of 121 percent from a year earlier and 14 percent from the first quarter, RealtyTrac Inc. said today in a statement. Almost 740,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, the most since the Irvine, California-based data company began reporting in January 2005.

Read moreU.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline

FDIC Faces Mortgage Mess After Running Failed Bank

Subprime Lender Made Problem Loans On Regulators’ Watch

Federal officials heap much of the blame for the subprime mortgage mess on lenders, claiming they recklessly made too many high-cost home loans to borrowers who couldn’t afford them.

[Loan Troubles]

It turns out that the U.S. government itself was one of the lenders giving out high-interest, subprime mortgages, some of them predatory, according to government documents filed in federal court.

The unusual situation, which is still bedeviling bank regulators, stems from the 2001 seizure by federal officials of Superior Bank FSB, then a national subprime lender based in Hinsdale, Ill. Rather than immediately shuttering or selling Superior, as it normally does with failed banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. continued to run the bank’s subprime-mortgage business for months as it looked for a buyer. With FDIC people supervising day-to-day operations, Superior funded more than 6,700 new subprime loans worth more than $550 million, according to federal mortgage data.

The FDIC then sold a big chunk of the loans to another bank. That loan pool was afflicted by the same problems for which regulators have faulted the industry: lending to unqualified borrowers, inflated appraisals and poor verification of borrowers’ incomes, according to a written report from a government-hired expert. The report said that many of the loans never should have been made in the first place.

Read moreFDIC Faces Mortgage Mess After Running Failed Bank

Banks: Plans to Seek Secret Emergency Funding

So in a free market it is justifiable to keep some “potentially situations” secret!?!? Hmmhh.
Secret from whom?

“The main case for an exception would be if disclosure could panic investors and lead to fears for a bank’s solvency, the regulator said.” Investors in the U.K. have all the right to panic.

Under certain circumstances, immediate disclosure would still be required.”
These “certain circumstances” will occur when it is too late to panic!
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The City watchdog has laid out plans to allow banks to tap the Bank of England for emergency funding without informing the market, in a move which might avoid a repeat of the run on the bank which led to the collapse of Northern Rock.

Under the European Union’s market abuse directive, regulated firms have to disclose price sensitive information. However, the Financial Services Authority yesterday said there were potentially situations where banks would be allowed to keep it secret if they had applied to the Bank.

The main case for an exception would be if disclosure could panic investors and lead to fears for a bank’s solvency, the regulator said. The FSA laid out a series of proposals in a consultation document. It invited industry groups to respond by September 30.

Read moreBanks: Plans to Seek Secret Emergency Funding

Wachovia Has Record $8.9 Billion Loss, Cuts Dividend

If Wachovia fails, then you can probably forget about the FDIC.

And remember that there are no more bailouts left:
Fed: No more bailouts, except Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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July 22 (Bloomberg) — Wachovia Corp., the U.S. bank that hired Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel as chief executive officer two weeks ago, reported a record quarterly loss of $8.9 billion, slashed the dividend and announced 6,350 job cuts. The stock slumped as much as 10 percent in New York trading.

The second-quarter loss of $4.20 a share compared with net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.23, a year earlier, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said today in a statement. The loss included a $6.1 billion charge tied to declining asset values.

The writedown, job cuts and second dividend reduction in three months reflect Steel’s response to the worst housing market since the Great Depression, which cost former CEO Kennedy Thompson his job after eight years. Wachovia has dropped more than 75 percent since it spent $24 billion two years ago to buy Golden West Financial Corp. just as home prices were peaking.

Read moreWachovia Has Record $8.9 Billion Loss, Cuts Dividend

8,500 U.S. banks; many will die soon

I called the death of Indymac Bancorp on Monday, July 7th. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized Indymac on Friday, July 11th.

I called the implosion of the two Government Sponsored Entities in the mortgage business, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday, July 9th. Sunday, July 13th the White House announced a bailout for them.

Related article: Fed: No more bailouts, except Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Want to know what happens next? It’s ape ass ugly and it’s going to happen to you, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Read more8,500 U.S. banks; many will die soon

U.S. Financial Breaking Point Soon

Something is going to break, and soon. Banks are insolvent and failing by the hundreds if not thousands. Hedge funds are on the edge of oblivion. Only a tiny percentage of toxic waste losses in real estate and other asset classes of collateral, which will eventually amount to over $1.4 trillion in the US alone, has to date been recognized by the lying bankster fraudsters. Bonds are producing negative rates of return even based on ludicrously understated official rates of inflation (until this month, when we finally got some data bordering on the truth).

Read moreU.S. Financial Breaking Point Soon

US banks fear $5 trillion balance impact

Accounting changes could force US banks to take thousands of billions of dollars back on to their balance sheets in the coming months in a move that is likely to curb further their lending and could push them into new capital raisings, analysts have warned.

Analysts at Citigroup said a planned tightening of the rules regarding off-balance sheet vehicles would force banks to reconsider arrangements and could result in up to $5,000bn of assets coming back on to the books.

The off-balance sheet vehicles have been used by financial institutions to keep some assets off their balance sheets, thereby avoiding the need to hold regulatory capital against them.

Birgit Specht, head of securitisation analysis at Citigroup, said: “We think it is very likely that these vehicles will come back on balance sheet.

“This will not affect liquidity because [they] are funded, but it will affect debt-to-equity ratios [at banks] and so significantly impact banks’ ability to lend.”

Ms Specht told a seminar at a conference on asset-backed securities in Cannes that the uncertainty about what might change was making banks uneasy about their investments. “Banks are not investing [in assets] right now because of funding issues and regulatory uncertainty.”

Read moreUS banks fear $5 trillion balance impact

French bank Credit Agricole seeks six billion euros after subprime losses

French banking giant Credit Agricole said on Tuesday it was seeking 5.9 billion euros (9.2 billion dollars) in fresh cash from shareholders after taking new charges of 1.2 billion euros for problems in the US subprime market.

(Credit Agricole and giant UBS are just drawing fresh cash from shareholders into the market before the crash happens. If this would be a game of chess – and for the elite behind the scenes it is. They are not after money. They have all the money in the world. They are after POWER. – then one could really admire those people for their excellent moves. They have left (almost) nothing out. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreFrench bank Credit Agricole seeks six billion euros after subprime losses

JPMorgan Chase CEO: Recession Just Beginning

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive said Monday that while the crisis in the credit markets appears to be three-quarters over, he believes a U.S. recession is just beginning.

“Even if the capital markets crisis resolves, it does not mean that this country will not go into a bad recession,” said CEO James Dimon, whose bank saw its first-quarter profit fall by half due to the recent collapse of the U.S. mortgage market. “The recession just started.”

“We don’t know if it’s going to be mild or severe,” he continued, speaking at a conference in New York hosted by Swiss bank UBS AG. “We’re thinking there’s a third of a chance that it’s going to be pretty bad … closer to the 1982 recession than the very mild recessions we had in 2001 and 1990.”

Read moreJPMorgan Chase CEO: Recession Just Beginning

JPMorgan Admits Receiving Multi-Billion Dollar Gift From the Fed

The controversial deal orchestrated by the Federal Reserve that pushed Bear Stearns into the hands of JPMorgan Chase, at the height of the sub-prime crisis, will turn into billions of dollars in gains for for JPMorgan Chase.

The deal will result in an immediate second quarter gain of $1 billion for JPMorgan Chase, admitted Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon.

(Guess who paid or will pay for this gift? – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreJPMorgan Admits Receiving Multi-Billion Dollar Gift From the Fed

Bailing Out Banks – Congressman Ron Paul

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed’s actions couldn’t be further from the truth.

The current market crisis began because of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the early 2000s in which the Fed lowered the interest rate to a below-market rate. The artificially low rates led to overinvestment in housing and other malinvestments. When the first indications of market trouble began back in August of 2007, instead of holding back and allowing bad decision-makers to suffer the consequences of their actions, the Federal Reserve took aggressive, inflationary action to ensure that large Wall Street firms would not lose money. It began by lowering the discount rates, the rates of interest charged to banks who borrow directly from the Fed, and lengthening the terms of such loans. This eliminated much of the stigma from discount window borrowing and enabled troubled banks to come to the Fed directly for funding, pay only a slightly higher interest rate but also secure these loans for a period longer than just overnight.

Read moreBailing Out Banks – Congressman Ron Paul

81% of Americans think country on ‘wrong track’

WASHINGTON – FOUR out of five Americans believe things are ‘on the wrong track’ in the United States, the gloomiest outlook in about 20 years, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

The poll, released on Thursday, found that 81 per cent of respondents felt ‘things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track’. That was up from 69 per cent last year and 35 per cent in early 2003.

Only 4 per cent of survey respondents said the country was better off than it was five years ago, while 78 per cent said it was worse, the newspaper said.

Read more81% of Americans think country on ‘wrong track’