Before Atrios's big shitpile hits the fan yet again because
banks are still failing at ten times the pre-crisis rate. A significant part of this failure involves the inability to compete against the banking behemoths. On March 31, 2009, the FDIC reported that there were 8,246 FDIC insured institutions with total domestic deposits of $7.5 trillion. Just four institutions, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup, controlled 35 percent of all the insured domestic deposits in 2009.By June 30, 2013, according to FDIC data, the 8,246 banks and savings institutions had shrunk to 6,940 institutions with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup controlling a combined $3.511 trillion in domestic deposits, a stunning 58.8 percent of the total. The market share of these four mega banks has increased by 24 percent in just 4 years.
They destroyed trillions of dollars of equity, millions of full-time jobs, and the fortunes and dreams of millions of households, and they were rewarded for it. Let that sink in for a moment . . . I suppose there might have been a more complete and utter public-policy failure that transpired during the last five years, but at present I frankly can't think of one, can you?
---Baron V
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