Failed Bank List Expanding...

While the Fed speaks of removing emergency supports as the economy improves, it quietly ignores the steady stream of bank failures buried in the back sections of the news. One had to search hard to find that the Fed's had to shutter seven more banks on Friday.

Regulators on Friday shut down two big California banks, as well as banks in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, bringing to 140 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the weak economy and mounting loan defaults.

The 140 bank failures are the most in a year since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis. They have cost the government-backed deposit insurance fund — which has fallen into the red — more than $30 billion so far this year. The failures compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2009-12-18-bank-failures_N.htm?csp=34
Source: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html