Georgia’s bank failures earn state recognition!
May 5, 2009 at 2:15 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe AP’s Russ Bynum writes an excellent piece that helps explain why Georgia has found itself at the tippity top of a terrible list — the state with the highest number of bank failures:
Experts say it’s a combination of an antiquated state law that favored a plethora of smaller community banks over multi-branch giants; a population explosion in metro Atlanta that fueled massive suburban real estate development and a crush of new banks formed to cash in on the Atlanta boom shortly before the market tanked.
…
Georgia’s diversity of small banks was an asset when the economy was strong, with consumers benefiting from competitive rates and broader sources of credit, said James Verbrugge, a professor emeritus of finance at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. It became a liability when the bottom fell out of the housing market and smaller banks had less capital to weather the crisis.
The excerpts don’t do the article justice. Give it a read for your daily dose of edumacation.
(Hat tip to Travis Fain)
May 6th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
May I please call BS on all the “Banking Experts” in Georgia?
Afterall, they are the ones that sat blindly and dumbly by while all this mess accumulated in the first place:
“Experts say it’s a combination of an antiquated state law that favored a plethora of smaller community banks over multi-branch giants;”
Excuse me, but didn’t mega-multi-branch Bank of America come back to the great-grandchildren-of-current-taxpayer’s well today
for $34 more Billion to coverup their sins of corruption???
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=bac
Reports: Wells Fargo needs $15B capital boost following stress test
at bizjournals.com(Wed 6:05pm)
Break Up the Banks
at BusinessWeek (Wed 5:53pm)
[$$] BofA Faces $34 Billion Gap
at The Wall Street Journal Online (Wed 5:44pm)
Details of ’stress tests’ of 19 US financial firms
AP (Wed 5:30pm)
BANKING INDUSTRY NEWS UPDATED MINUTE BY MINUTE
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/news/410.html
May 6th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Georgia State Senate Banking Cmte Members:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/senate/banking.php
Georgia House Banking Cmte Members:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/house/Committees/banks/gahbb.htm