failed banks

Another Private Equity Pig Fest to buy Failed Banks

The FDIC released new rules, of course on Friday when no one was watching. HuffPo:

As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, in what are called a "loss-share" agreements, buyers of failed banks are getting billions of dollars in government guarantees to snatch up the bank's bad assets. To entice buyers, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is offering to cover around 80 percent of the losses associated with buying a bank. The result, the WSJ points out, is a massive subsidy to the private equity industry, and a huge risk to the American taxpayer.

As bank failures have mounted this year, much has been made of the FDIC's dwindling Deposit Insurance Fund. But, as the WSJ reports, the FDIC's potential risk through loss-share agreements "is about six times the amount remaining in its fund that guarantees consumers' deposits."