When Indymac collapsed, 1929 style, last week, it wasn't a sign of things to come, it was a loud, clanging alarm bell that should even alert the Marie Antoinette's on the right (like Phil Gramm,) that the U.S., and indeed the world, economy is in trouble. The bank is being taken over by the feds after pannicky account holders withdrew $1 billion in a run on the bank on Friday.
Depending on which international headline you believe, Indymac FSB is either the second, or the third largest bank collapse in U.S. history. Britain's Sky News had one other interesting tidbit:
IndyMac was founded in 1985 by David Loeb and Angelo Mozilo, who also founded Countrywide, another big mortgage lender whose loans helped fuel the housing boom.
Countrywide was taken over last week by Bank of America Corp.
That says volumes, doesn't it? The bank reopens this morning as Indymac Federal Bank, under control of the FDIC. So what was the largest U.S. bank collapse? For that we go to the Times of London:
NetBank is the largest US bank to fail since the savings-and-loans crisis in the early 1990s. The bank, based in Geor-gia and launched in the late 1990s, had $2.5 billion in assets and was seen as a leading inter-net-only savings bank. The Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates American lenders, blamed the bank’s demise on thumping loan losses and poor underwriting standards.
NetBank’s problems were made worse by its decision to expand into sub-prime mortgages, leaving it exposed to the meltdown in the US housing market.
ING, the Dutch bank, is taking over NetBank’s customers and $1.5 billion in insured savings deposits. It paid just $15m for the savings book.
And just for Phil Gramm, the Carpe Diem blog helpfully chronicles the history of big, bad, bank failures in the U.S. of A, and concludes that unlike the high water mark for bank failures in the 1980s, today's market really isn't all that bad.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warns of $300 a barrel oil if three U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobile succeeds in pushing through a freeze on that country's assets in a dispute over a nationalized oil project.
Meanwhile, this bud's pour vous: Annheuser-Busch has been sold to Belgium's InBev. The company's St. Louis, MO hometown will become the headquarters for the company's North American division. A-B has about a 50 percent share of the U.S. beer market. The company has said it will retain "key management" and distribution personnel, but has made no representation about other U.S. jobs.
In Washington, Dubya announces that he will lift his father's 1990 executive order banning offshore oil drilling. The move will have no effect unless Congress takes action to lift its ban, too. Don't hold your breath for that one, unless enough Democrats get the idea that their seats are in as much jeopardy as their GOP colleagues. |
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
