... whether that is a shortage of assets or an excess of liabilities is a tangled questions, since one institutions liability is another institutions asset.

And even more, commercial banking solvency is the focus of this diary, though contract banks like general insurance firms are also at risk.

Now that we have all the investment banking in the hands of bank holding companies, by acquisition, reorganization, and downsizing, we can remove the distinction between bank holding companies and commercial banking operations and shift the focus of commercial banking regulation up to the bank holding company level.

And of course, since all the bank holding companies of threat to macroeconomic stability operate interstate, the Federal Government has broad powers to regulate their activity, over and above the carrot and stick of Federal Reserve regulation of state banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System.

I would really like to see government assistance to mortgages in trouble be used to establish a much more broadly based sector of not for profit community credit unions.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.