This Week's Busted Banks

If it's Saturday morning, it's time to check to see how many banks the FDIC put under last night, and the answer this week is four.

Banks in Florida, Illinois, Nebraska and Oregon were shut by state regulators, boosting the toll of failed institutions to 13, as a worsening economy and slumping housing market pushes home foreclosures to records.

Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast in Cape Coral, Florida; Sherman County Bank in Loup City, Nebraska; Corn Belt Bank and Trust Co. of Pittsfield, Illinois; and Pinnacle Bank of Beaverton, Oregon were closed by state regulators yesterday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver.

TIB Bank of Naples, Florida, will buy Riverside’s $424 million in deposits, except $142.6 million in brokered deposits, for a 1.3 percent premium. Heritage Bank of Wood River, Nebraska, will pay a 6 percent premium for Sherman County’s $85.1 million in deposits. Carlinville National Bank of Carlinville, Illinois, will assume Corn Belt’s $234.4 million deposits for a 1.75 percent premium. Washington Trust Bank of Spokane, Washington, assumed Pinnacle’s $64 million of deposits, the FDIC said.

Regulators seized six banks in January, the highest monthly toll since 1993. State and federal agencies shuttered 25 banks last year, matching the combined total for 2001-2007, as home foreclosures soared and bank profits tumbled.

That last paragraph should scare the ever-loving snot out of every American who has a bank account.

From 2001-2007, the FDIC closed one bank on average roughly every 102 days. That's normal, baseline stuff.

In 2008 the FDIC closed one bank on average every 15 days, almost 7 times the going rate.

In 44 days through 2009 so far the FDIC has closed one bank on average every three and a half days. That's thirty times as many bank closings as just a few years ago. Thirty times. We're on pace to close 108 banks alone just this year.

We've gone from closing 3 banks a year to closing 3 banks a week recently. The pace is accelerating at an alarming rate.

Obama will have no choice but to nationalize the industry. Dozens, maybe hundreds of banks are zombies. They will not make it. They are insolvent, people. The industry is insolvent. The financial system is insolvent.

The country is insolvent.