Five More Failed Banks Cost US Government an Additional $334 Million in Losses

The losses from the mortgage securities frauds and the subsequent bubble collapse continue to debilitate the US financial system, particularly the regional banks, in a slow bleed costing the US government additional millions each week. The public relations campaign promoting the idea that the bank bailouts are done and successful, and that the US made money on this egregious abuse of public monies is patently false, and probably can be described as corporatist propaganda.

The banks continue to mount a campaign to resist reform and regulation. They are taking advantage of the weakness of the Obama administration in failing to reform the banking system through liquidations and managed bankruptcies, including indictments and investigations as was seen in the Savings and Loan scandal.

It is difficult to continue to assume good intentions in this administration, or even mere incompetence. The objections put up by Geithner and Summers to the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as the head of the new consumer protection agency shows how reactionary they continue to be, and resistant to fundamental reforms.

American Banker
Failures on Two Coasts Stretch Toll for Year to 108
By Joe Adler
Friday, July 30, 2010

Five bank closures in four states Friday cost the federal government an additional $334 million in losses.

Regulators shuttered the $373 million-asset Coastal Community Bank in Panama City Beach, Fla., the $66 million-asset Bayside Savings Bank in Port Saint Joe, Fla., the $168 million-asset NorthWest Bank and Trust in Acworth, Ga., the $529 million-asset The Cowlitz Bank in Longview, Wash., and the $768-asset LibertyBank in Eugene, Ore. The failures brought the year's total to 108.

The hammered Southeast bore the brunt of the failure activity, as it has for so many Fridays since the financial crisis began. Twenty banks have been seized in Florida in 2010, while 11 have failed in Georgia so far this year.

The two Florida institutions that failed Friday went to one buyer: Centennial Bank in Conway, Ark. The acquirer agreed to take over Coastal Community's $363 million in deposits, Bayside Savings' $52 million in deposits and roughly all of the assets of both institutions.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed to share losses with Centennial on $303 million of Coastal Community's assets, and $48 million of Bayside Savings' assets. The two failures were estimated to cost the FDIC, respectively, $94 million and $16 million.

Meanwhile, the failure of NorthWest in Georgia was estimated to cost the agency nearly $40 million. The FDIC sold all of NorthWest's $159 million in deposits, and essentially all of its assets, to State Bank and Trust Co. in Macon. The acquirer agreed to share losses with the FDIC on about $107 million of the failed bank's assets.

Elsewhere, the FDIC sold all of The Cowlitz Bank's $514 million in deposits to Heritage Bank of Olympia, Wash., which paid a 1% premium. Heritage also acquired about $329 million of the failed bank's assets, and will share losses with the FDIC on about $161 million of those assets. The FDIC estimated the failure will cost $69 million.

Home Federal Bank in Nampa, Idaho, paid a 1% premium to assume all of LibertyBank's $718 million in deposits, and agreed to acquire $420 million of its assets. The FDIC and Home Federal will share losses on $300 million of those assets. The failure's cost was estimated at $115 million.

Guest Post: Inside the New GDP Numbers - Consumer Metrics Institute

"The 2010 contraction is now clearly worse than the "Great Recession" was at the same point in their respective time lines. And we don't see a bottom forming yet."

Consumer Metrics Insitute
Inside the New GDP Numbers
July 30, 2010

On July 30th the Bureau of Economic Analysis ('BEA') released its "advance" estimate of the annualized growth rate of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product ('GDP') during the 2nd quarter of 2010. Per their report, the GDP grew during the quarter at an annualized rate of 2.4%, down from 3.7% in the 1st quarter of 2010. Several points from the report merit comment:

► Readers familiar with prior GDP reports will be more surprised by the reported 1st quarter growth as by the new 2nd quarter number (which had been leaked by Mr. Bernanke last week), since only last month the Q1 of 2010 was supposedly growing at a 2.7% rate. Why did the Q1 number suddenly get altered upward by 1%? The BEA quietly revised the 1st quarter inventory adjustment up to a level that represents a 2.64% component within the revised 3.7% figure, with 1st quarter "real final sales of domestic product" now reported to be growing at a modestly improved 1.06% annualized clip, compared to the 0.9% number reported last month. In short, factories were piling on inventory at a substantially higher rate than previously thought, while the "real final sales" remained anemic.

► The 2.4% figure will garner all of the headlines, but the more important "real final sales of domestic product" continues to be weak, growing at a reported 1.3% annualized rate. The real cause for concern is that the reported inventory adjustments dropped from a 2.64% component in the revised 1st quarter to a 1.05% component during the 2nd quarter. If factories have begun to realize that end user demand remains anemic, the inventory adjustments could well go negative soon, pulling the reported total GDP down with it.

Chart 1




► The BEA revised much more than the first quarter of 2010. They revised down 2009, 2008 and 2007 as well. Apparently the "Great Recession" has been worse than our government has previously reported. And the recovery's brightest moment, Q4 2009, has been revised down from 5.6% to 5.0%. Similarly Q3 2009 dropped from 2.2% to 1.6%. And so on. The bottom of the recession was shifted back one quarter, with Q4 2008 now reported to have contracted at a -6.8% rate, revised down from the previously reported -5.4% rate. Most quarters of 2007, 2008 and 2009 have been revised down substantially, shifting the recession shown in the chart above back in time.

► The new GDP report shows that the current gap between the consumer demand that we measure and the BEA's reported number continues to grow as factories build their inventories in anticipation of a strong recovery. If factories curb their enthusiasm during the third quarter, the BEA's "advance" estimate for Q3 2010 might be brutal, just 4 days before the U.S. mid-term election.

► We understand that economists want to ultimately get the numbers right, even if it is three years after the fact. We applaud the BEA for their efforts. But we also understand people who are concerned about quiet governmental revisions to history.

Back to the real world: our Daily Growth Index has dropped to new recent lows, and it is now contracting at a -3.4% rate.

Chart 2



This contraction rate puts the trailing 'quarter' nearly into the 5th percentile among all quarters since 1947, meaning that only about 1 in 20 quarters officially recorded by the BEA since then has been worse. Our "Contraction Watch" places this movement into the perspective of the 2006 and 2008 contractions:

Chart 3



The 2010 contraction is now clearly worse than the "Great Recession" was at the same point in their respective time lines. And we don't see a bottom forming yet.

SP 500 September Daily Chart; Gold Daily and Weekly Charts; Silver Weekly Chart

SP futures failed at overhead resistance, but still have not yet taken out support, and the important pivot, to the downside.

Still it was a low volume weak ending to the month of July.



Gold held the all important support and came roaring back today, rallying as the selling for the option expiry and Comex contract rollover are done.

It is hanging around the important 1180 level, but taking out 1200 and sticking it is quite important.

So in summary, a very nice rally for the beleaguered bulls, but it is too soon to write home to mother about it.



Gold Weekly

Classic Bull Market



Silver Weekly Chart

Bull market but the trend is wider allowing for greater beta and a wilder ride.

Financial Times Says European Banks Lent Their Customer's Gold to the BIS

Although it does not appear until almost the end of this article in the Financial Times, BIS Gold Swaps Mystery Unravelled, the source of the gold provided in the dollar swaps with BIS is coming from customers of about 10 European banks who are holding their gold at the banks in 'unallocated accounts.'

"The gold used in the swaps came mainly from investors’ deposit accounts at the European commercial banks. Some investors prefer to deposit their gold in so-called “allocated accounts”, which restrict the custodian banks’ ability to use the gold in their market operations by assigning them specific bullion bars. But other investors prefer cheaper “unallocated accounts”, which give banks access to their bullion for their day-to-day operations.

The European Banks, including HSBC, Société Générale and BNP Paribas, were desperately in need of dollars because of a repeat of the eurodollar short squeeze which we had previously identified. Their customers were withdrawing dollars previously on deposit at the banks, which were unable to meet the demand because of the deterioration of the dollar assets they held, and because of the fractional reserve nature of their operations.

So the BIS stepped in, supplementing the swap lines the ECB has with the Fed, and swapped its dollar holdings directly for the some of the banks' customer's gold. Let us be clear about this. The gold is on deposit at the banks, in the same way that customer dollars had been on deposit. I do not wish to fuss too much about it, but at the time that the BIS swaps were revealed, a noted blogger pooh-poohed it with the toss off that 'everyone knows that the European commercial banks own quite a lot of gold.' Well, in this case, the ownership is greatly exaggerated. It is on deposit, owned by other people, but utilized as an asset by the bank. There is a difference.

In lending out the gold to BIS, they were relieved of their dollar short squeeze and were able to supply their customer demands. BIS obtained a fee of some sort in the swap, and so it is happy. But it should be noted that BIS had not done gold swaps for over forty years. So why now?

The question remains unanswered though. What is the duration of the swap, and does BIS intend to hold the gold or use it in other interbank operations?

A secondary question would be: why did the banks go directly to the BIS and swap their customer's gold, rather then to the ECB which is perfectly capable of managing swaplines for currency with the BIS and the Fed. Is the Fed running out of dollars? I have an open tab in my mind that the BIS was seeking gold to balance out demands from other banks for gold, not for dollars, and the eurodollar swaps were a convenient way to do it. This story that 'the BIS had lots of dollar lying around and were itching to use them' strikes me as being of the whole cloth.

Yes, the nice high level chart the FT includes shows the spike in gold holdings at the BIS, but does this mean that it is sitting there in their reserves unencumbered, or are they leasing any or all of it out, 'putting it to work' as they say? Central banks are notorious for making little distinction between unencumbered gold assets and real assets in the vault.

But it is nice to see verification in the mighty Financial Times that if you hold your bullion gold in an 'unallocated account' even with a prestigious bank, it may very well not be there when you wish to have it, and the prices will soar as the banks scurry to cover, just as has happened twice of late with their US dollar assets.

Or you may be asked to settle in cash if there is some clause in the contract, as in the case of the ETFs or the Comex.