I've been learning a lot about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation lately. That's the agency that insures our bank deposits and takes over our failed banks. I've spent time with some of the 600 new staff they are hiring, and we working away at another This American Life/Planet Money collaboration that looks at what actually happens when the FDIC takes over a failed bank.
Still, no matter how much time I spend learning about this stuff, I am taken aback every time Friday rolls around and a few more banks fail. Yes, at least one bank fails almost every week in our country right now. Last Friday there were 3 banks and 2 credit unions. (Read a strange story about one of those credit unions here.) We are now at 20 failures since the start of 2009.
At a couple banks a weekend, we're not anywhere close to Savings and & Loan Crisis levels — 747 banks went down. But as one FDIC director pointed out to me, there are significantly less banks now. During the S&L crisis we had about 14,000 banks, today there are about 8,400. The banks we have now are much bigger and much, much more complicated.
They are keeping good watch on bank failures over at Calculated Risk. Banks failures during the Great Depression compared to the S&L crisis.
Click to enlarge. The x axis is years. The y axis is the number of failures.
Click to enlarge. The x axis is years. The y axis is the number of failures.
Bank failures during the S&L crisis compared to now (this was put together last month and does not include the last 7 failures).
Click to enlarge. The x axis is years. The y axis is the number of failures.
Click to enlarge. The x axis is years. The y axis is the number of failures.
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