BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

For all the reassurances we have received over the past few weeks perhaps we need to take a closer look at where we keep our money, or at least how we keep our money.

Yesterday, Friday, the Office of the Comptroller closed the First National Bank of Nevada and the First Heritage Bank NA of California.  I wonder if someone in Washington is marking the names off the watch list as one by one the banks are closed or taken over by the FDIC.

The FDIC said the cost of the transactions to its insurance fund is estimated to be $862 million, adding that the two failed banks represent just 0.3 percent of $13.4 trillion in total industry assets at about 8,500 FDIC-insured institutions.

The FDIC said the 28 offices of the two banks will reopen on Monday as Mutual of Omaha Bank. Over the weekend, customers can access their money by writing checks, using automatic teller machines or debit cards.

Mutual of Omaha Bank currently has more than $750 million in assets and operates 14 retail branches in Nebraska and Colorado with commercial lending offices in Dallas and Des Moines, Iowa, the FDIC said.

We have been warned of more banking failures probably throughout the remainder of this year and next year.  Of course, according to regulators none of the banks on the watchlist are expected to be the size of IndyMac, the countries third largest bank failure.  However, lest we become too comfortable with that analysis, IndyMac was not on the watchlist.  It was a totally unexpected failure.

It has been reported that there are about 90 banks currently on the secret watchlist.  That list will reportedly be updated at the end of next month, not that we will know the names of the endangered banks.

The FDIC insures individual accounts up to $100,000 and retirement accounts up to $250,000.