Only 92 bank failures

[Kevin Yeats]

The FDIC closed 2 more banks on 12/16. Unless the FDIC wants to play Scrooge and close 8 more banks before the end of the year, it does NOT look like we will hit the century mark unlike the last 2 years (140 in 2009 and 157 in 2011).

Of course the assets in these failed banks are up over prior years.

[Kevin Yeats]

Mark to market accounting and that fact that banks do not have to adhere to that standards certainly creates a lot of the distortions and feeds into the difficulties in the business of banking and the regulation thereof.

In my view, it would be a very difficult task to mark all of the assets of a bank to anything close to a market value as there is no market for many of those assets. While many mortgages against primary residences are fairly standardized, look at the difficulty that arose in that market. Now try standardizing business loans.