We've had a massive bank failure tonight. The silence here and in the MSM is deafening.

[Pale Blue Dot]

BankUnited Fails in Florida, Marking Biggest Collapse of 2009

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators seized the troubled Florida thrift BankUnited FSB on Thursday, a failure the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates will cost its insurance fund $4.9 billion.

BankUnited is the second costliest bank failure of the recent banking crisis, trumped only by IndyMac, which officials believe will cost the FDIC close to $11 billion.

BankUnited had $12.8 billion of assets and $8.6 billion in deposits.

Regulators said BankUnited was critically undercapitalized. The FDIC sold the banking operations to a management team headed by John Kanas, the former head of North Fork Bank.

The bank's 85 branches will reopen Friday during normal business hours. Mr. Kanas's team will acquire $12.7 billion of BankUnited's assets and $8.3 billion in nonbrokered deposits.

The FDIC and the new bank agreed to share future losses on roughly $10.7 billion in assets under the agreement. The new management also agreed to recapitalize the bank with $900 million in new money.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124294168567644901.html

Bank failures usually only happen on Friday night. We know from this NPR broadcast: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102384657 that the FDIC likes to use long weekends to close banks as it gives them one more day to clean up the mess before the banks reopen.

Guess what is likely to happen tomorrow?

[aquart]

1. What's to say? "Oh, look, it's a day early"?

[TheMachineWins]

2. We'll hear "the worst is behind us, it's getting less bad all the time"

Double plus good!

[Kurovski]

3. Kick. (nt)

[Patsy Stone]

5. Sweetie!

:loveya:

[Kurovski]

6. Darling!

Are you responsible for this bank failure? How many times have I told you: "No withdrawals over two trillion a day."

But seriously, :hug:

[Patsy Stone]

9. Well, there was a big summer sale at Harvey Nicks...

Besides why spend my own money when I can spend someone else's? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5698784

So lovely to see you. :toast:

[Kurovski]

19. That's my girl!

Always puttering about the business of stimulating economies!

But not nearly as lovely as our Ms. Stone herself. :toast:

[scarletwoman]

23. Wait a minute... Do I know you? The name looks familiar...

I think I remember seeing it before... somewhere...

Or maybe it was just a dream...

[Kurovski]

25. That depends...if I owe you money, then "no."

But otherwise, how about a godam hug? :hug:

[scarletwoman]

26. I'm pretty sure you owe me a drink.

But I'll gladly give you a hug! :hug: :loveya: :hug:

How ya doin', stranger?

[Kurovski]

28. Oh,

yes, I'm definitely stranger.

Did you put that comma in on purpose?

:D :loveya:

[scarletwoman]

30. *snerk*

Of course I put that comma there on purpose, it's proper sentence construction. It's not as if I wrote, "How ya doin'? Stranger?"

In any case, "How ya doin'? Crazier?" would have been more apt.

:rofl:

[suchadeal]

4. The spin? It didn't fail. It was rescued.

The bank experienced a momentary lapse of sufficient assets.

[autorank]

7. "Guess what is likely to happen tomorrow?"

They'll declare CITICORP insolvent?

"At the end of the third quarter, Citigroup posted $2.227 trillion in liabilities. This was more than any other American bank and possibly more than any bank in the world. A mere 5.4% decline in the value of Citigroup's assets would make Citigroup insolvent."
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/11/question-of-solvency-at-citigroup.html

&

"Dig a little deeper, though, and Citi's stress-test results look more like an F than the B+ the bank seemed to get. Among the 19 banks the government probed, Citi was found to have the lowest common capital ratio, which the government said was a key measure to protect against insolvency. What's more, Citi also got credit for a capital conversion it has yet to complete. Strip that out, and the amount of capital Citi needs balloons to nearly $63 billion, more than any of the other banks tested. (See pictures of the dangers of printing money.)"
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1898049,00.html

[AllentownJake]

11. Citi going down would be pretty scary

However, not surprising. We are talking about a company that bought Travelers for the Umbrella logo than sold most of the Travelers assets at a loss, than stopped using the Umbrella logo.

[autorank]

14. Rigtt. Here's something scarrier

The guys in charge of all the money are pretty limited intellectually, as you point out with Citi. They allow a Ponzi
scheme to fester because they're all making money then lack an exit plan, no way out. So now the exit plan is to loot
the Treasury. They don't know if it will work, they just do it because ... it's their nature.

[AllentownJake]

20. No they have an exit plan

What the hell do you think those corporate jets are for.

[autorank]

33. Damn! That's why they won't give them up.

But where are they going to go. It really doesn't matter. Unless they take the army and all of those weapons,
where ever they land will be target #1 for an enrage, totally broke, U.S. public. We'll just make the demand
and Dubai or whomever will surly give them back (but keep the bribes paid;).

My far fetched scenario, btw, is about the only way we'll see these guys do a perp walk.

[Critters2]

17. OMG! Even I'M a better businessperson than that! nt

[BzaDem]

13. In case you haven't noticed, our Treasury is not going to let Citigroup go insolvent.

See stress tests results for more information.

[autorank]

16. Saw 'em

"THEY" (the government) own 40% of Citi. Such a bargain.

When they delayed the results, it was obvious to anyone with any common sense that it was bad news.

The "cleaned up" version was just so much garbage.


<img src="">
http://americanpolitics.com/

[truedelphi]

8. If regulators said it was seriously under-capitalized, than why

Wasn't it offered Capital?

If its name was spelled Goldman Sachs, it would have gotten more than ample funding.

Shakespeare's "What's ina name" meme can now be proven worng!

[dorkulon]

18. It's not 'too big to fail'

The reason it's a small story is it's a relatively small bank.

[truedelphi]

21. Doh!

You've got it - my bad!

But the scary part is - we the taxpayers have offered these monies to the Big Boys - and they can decide how much the y will funnel out and to who.

And by deciding to not offer out that much money, as being available to the small and mid-siozed banks - the Big Players ensure that the ratings of all small banks go down!

So this practice should be stopped! Now. before all the small to mid-sized banks go down.

[dorkulon]

22. What needed to happen from the beginning is the dismantling of these monsters

into smaller, not-too-big-to-fail chunks. "Too big to fail" really just means "too big." But they've still got a stranglehold on government.

[truedelphi]

24. Have you heard that they are going to create this entire agency to

Oversee the Wall Street stuff?

Totally unnecessary but a way for Bernanke and Geithner to say "Look how hard we are working to ensure that things will be regulated and will not be a mess any time soon."

As though it were not possible to be totally effective - I mean, what should really happen is that Glass Steagall should be re-instated, and also the Banking Reform Act of 1999 and its subAct, The Credit Modernization Act, should both be repealed.

[AllentownJake]

27. I heard there are thoughts of a Consumer Protection Agency for financial products

I believe Obama wants to house it in the Federal Reserve (probably believing it will protect it from political whims).

Not sure if the federal reserve is the best place for it. Seeing that the FED is owned by the banks.

[Ilsa]

10. That's big. I was in a workout bank of size $8 billion in loans and

real estate owned back in 1988 through 1992. Lots of staff was needed.

If anyone has lending and collection experience, there will be some good jobs for you out there.

[Ilsa]

12. College grads with business degrees need to apply to the FDIC

for jobs to workout loans. That may be their best bet for employment for the next two or three years.

[BzaDem]

15. It probably was announced early because they thought it might be leaked.

This happened with WaMu I think, where it was announced on Thursday instead of Friday.

[janx]

29. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

:rofl:

[MadMaddie]

31. You know what? Chrysler is going to probably file banktruptcy

why because they had bad business plans, they had not real plan for the future and because of those failures they are paying the price.

The banks have done this to themselves, they got greedy, they made bad businesses choices and they shouldn't be propped up so they can eventually fail. Many got money and didn't change any of their businesses practices.

I look at it as the market correcting itself. The Credit Unions and other mall banks seem to be surviving. The banks that fail probably should fail.

I guess that is harsh but there are no bailouts for small businesses that had good business practices why should we bail out big companies that had bad business practices.

[Wednesdays]

32. K&R

:kick:

[omega minimo]

34. What's The Matter With Florida?

:wow:

[anigbrowl]

35. Um, the WSJ is part of the MSM

What were you expecting, news flashes? I'm sure it'll be in most of the papers, on CNBC etc. tomorrow.