The ring side seats may not be available and the knock outs sure won't bring much cheering, but this is the biggest new show for Friday nights.
The FDIC closes banks on Friday nights so they have the weekend to run through the files and open the doors on Monday. Expect this to become a bit of a ritual for the coming months. This is not good as it costs all of us.
Here is the play by play of failed banks from the FDIC.
I guess we will know it is bad when they hook the list up to an RSS feed or start Tweeting about it.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Both the FDIC and OCC were asleep at the swtich and the usual suspects greed and stupidity made an appearance. Read about the $32 billion Indymac rottenness here.
I alluded to this potential back in September 07. We can only hope we aren't looking at a replay of the panic of 1893.
As an anthropologist I look at money and currency as a socio-cultural phenomenon and a system of shared beliefs. These things ebb and flow, in the end we all progress along. I have been a currency trader for one of the world's largest banks in London and watched Thai Bahtilism spread in 1997. I have an MBA and quantitive background in finance, but at the end of the day, behaviour trumps all. Here is what the market has been saying about US chances of default, very low, but a little jumpy.
For the person truly interested in how often the failure of monetary beliefs occurs, I would recommend reading and truly thinking about this book by the esteemed economic historian Kindelberger.
Thousands of currencies have come and gone, to my knowledge the longest lived one is the British pound. Any thought or comments.
Gott's theorom would indicate the current USD which has been around since 1785 has a 50% chance of being around another 73 years.
Two things I learned from anthropology:
- All things change
- Everybody dislikes change
