Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Chart of the Week: House Price Declines Since 2007

Wackdoodle sez: "I'll trade ya a poke of tulip bulbs fer your house"
Think that other store of value, your federally insured bank account, is safe? Think again, dear reader. The FDIC is officially broke according to its third quarter reports. Its deposit insurance fund went negative by $8.2 billion. Bank failures have cost FDIC $28 billion so far this year. In the second quarter of 2009 the number of problem banks grew from to 416 from 305 in the first quarter, the highest since the S&L crisis in 1994. Because of increasing commercial real estate losses the agency expects bank failures to cost about $100 billion over the next four years. Yet Forty-four fights on in the "graveyard of empire". It ain't me, babe.