With the Super Bowl over, last week's coast vs. coast game of gun control one-upping saw California Democrats announcing an effort to out do New York's midnight end run Safe Act. Flanked by the state's two urban figureheads, State Senate leadership says it will use its supermajority to ramrod a...

The acrimony of politics continues to get in the way of looking at public safety and mental health issues. That's not surprising. Christmas spirit -- yes I insist on calling it by its offensive religious overtone name -- seems to have deserted the United States this year giving way to...

Sometimes you have to step back from horror to look for solutions to it. In the United States, we have seen a pattern of violent behavior emerging for a number of years. It's become "common" enough that "active shooter" scenario training is now part of the annual cycle of training...

This is a shortened version of an article in the October 29, 2012 issue of The Institutional Risk Analyst where I comment on the risk implications of the secular increase in the bank deposit market that has occurred over the past five years. The original article, "Placement Considerations...

A long time ago when I first worked in strategic policy analysis I was given two things to read. The first was a copy of Getting To Yes, the guidebook used by President Carter during the Camp David negotiations that first brought Israel and Egypt to the bargaining table. The...

Earlier this week my company reported on our findings about the first quarter number of the banking industry. Our industry fact sheet indicates that banking is getting healthier. The number of F rated banks is at the lowest point since the start of the 2008 crisis. The FDIC's...

In December 2009, my friend Arianna Huffington called with this idea to educate "ordinary" people about the financial system. At the time, I directed Institutional Risk Analytics to prepare and launch a pro bono zip code tool to search for best of breed small and mid-sized banks....

Like a wave of tornadoes touching down, the FDIC struck across the country on Friday shuttering five banks from coast to coast. The regulator took down Plantation Federal in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, Bank of the Eastern Shore of Cambridge and HarVest Bank of Maryland in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Inter Savings...

Recent high-profile current events have called into question legal statutes commonly known as "Stand Your Ground" laws. Sparked by a frenzy of media coverage of a shooting in Florida that is now thankfully winding its way through the real court system, pundits have engaged in weeks of knee jerk tabloid...

The Bank of America seems to have a knack for stepping on its own feet. The institution that continues to struggle with cleaning up a mortgage portfolio that includes the remnants of the acquisition of Countrywide has been at a disadvantage competing with better-positioned competitors in the performing loan accumulation...

Dearborn, Mich. -- The FDIC closed Fidelity Bank today following almost two years of being undercapitalized as the result of a collapsing market in mortgages and commercial real estate. It's parent holding company Dearborn Bancorp, Inc. had been struggling with capital woes since March of 2010. It had failed to...

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today that it is commencing secondary public offerings of the preferred stock it holds in the following six institutions. For you users of the IRA Bank Monitor, here are the ID numbers to punch up to look at them,

2126977...

The FDIC closed the second bank of 2012 to fail with no acquirer today. South Michigan Avenue became the focus of Friday evening activities to shutter the $71 million institution. The bank had been internally stressed for sometime and took a turn for the worse around the middle of 2011....

The FDIC closed another bank in Georgia this week bringing the total to three so far in 2012. Global Commerce Bank in Doraville, Ga. became the latest casualty of the bank clean up's march through the South. The $143.6 million asset bank had been under capitalized for over a year....

It doesn't happen very often, but this week one of the two banks closed by the FDIC failed to find a buyer. Such failures have been rare events to date as the regulator resolves troubled institutions. The preferred strategy is to sell the failing bank to a stronger acquiring institution,...

On Friday, Feb. 10, 2012 the FDIC shifted bank closure activity from the south to the center of the country this week failing Charter National Bank and Trust in Hoffman Estates, Ill. and SCB Bank of Shelbyville, Ind. SCB at $200B assets was the larger of the two and began...

Maybe that Mayan calendar is right and the world will be ending shortly after the presidential election. You'd certainly think so by the furor of deck chair arranging going on in the banking industry. I'm told the buzz of the 2012 season of meetings is all about "Who's buying whom?"...

The FDIC shuttered four additional banks today bringing the 2012 count to seven. The four banks closed were BankEast in Knoxville, Tenn., Patriot Bank Minnesota in Forest Lake, Minn., Tennessee Commerce Bank in Franklin, Tenn. and First Guaranty Bank and Trust Company of Jacksonville in Jacksonville, Fla. The general pattern...

The FDIC closed it's first banks of 2012 today. A total of three insitutions were shuttered by the regulator. Central Florida State Bank of Belleview, Florida, The First State Bank of Stockbridge, Georgia and American Eagle Savings Bank of Boothwyn, Pennsylvannia each received the dreaded visit by FDIC teams to...