Saturday, April 25, 2009

FDIC = Systemic Banking Failure

I guess this should be obvious, but I have read nothing of it, so I'll be happy to say:

The FDIC is the root cause of our systemic bank failure.

I hope it is obvious that the private FDICorporation is destroying our banking system. Bank stocks are down 75% - 100%. Jack-booted thugs blitz more banks every weekend.

There are many reasons that having an FDIC inevitably results in systemic failure of the banking system, here are some:
1) By promising to pay banker losses from any wild speculation, bankers would be crazy not to throw the sum total of their deposits, plus 40 times leverage, "on red."

2) With their implied taxpayer bailout (now real, the Dodd Bill will funnel the first $500B of $15T to his campaign contributors), the private FDIC has no reason to collect insurance premiums. So they don't. Current FDIC reserves are short by a mere $15T.

3) Because the FDIC is always stone broke, they have to use legal power as a substitute for money, so they force bank consolidations instead of paying depositors as required by law. By rolling up bank failures into bigger and now less stable banks, instead of paying their obligations, the FDIC loots the larger bank's shareholders as they must absorb the failed bank. The FDIC is eager to raid the stock market as their primary funding source.

4) By raiding the stock market (or by spiking taxation via TARP 1, 2 , 3, 4...) instead of paying their legal obligations, the FDIC destroys the collateral underpinning all bank loans. This forces the now bigger and weaker banks to stop lending as the FDIC intentionally disintegrates their balance sheets.

5) By collapsing bank lending, the FDIC causes prices to plunge from currency starvation. This results in inevitable bank risk realization, through default and foreclosure.

6) A tiny private company like the FDIC (half the size of Facebook) can't insure everybody in the nation/world. The idea is so fundamentally stupid, only the government would promise to buy it.

7) Insurance companies' interests are always inimical to the interests of those insured.
So I'll say it directly:

Without the FDIC, systemic bank failure would be impossible. The existence of the FDIC is the single most causal factor of our mega-depression. Without the FDIC, banker behavior would actually have to make sense.

5 comments:

  1. The problem with the FDIC is simple. They don't collect enough premium (fees from banks) to adequately cover the risk taken by banks. The real problem, however, is still the Federal Reserve, as they WON'T ALLOW the FDIC to collect the neceesary premium to bail out the DEPOSITORS in the case of bank bad bets gone bad.

    You have said it before, TARP represents FDIC default, but the money is going to banks execs rather than depositors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ehoffner here, from marketwatch.com

    I love this blog, FDR rules!

    ReplyDelete
  3. So shorting bank stocks is still likely to be profitable? - or are the losses by banks too socialized vis-a-vis the FDIC/Treasury to allow shorting to be a money-maker?

    What is your opinion FDR?

    ReplyDelete
  4. "ehoffner here, from marketwatch.com

    I love this blog, FDR rules!"

    I'm going long.

    ReplyDelete
  5. FDR,

    Would love to see your preferred Elliot wave count. This market has become uninteresting. perhaps we just trade sideways for the next decade.

    ReplyDelete

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