About that bank bailout....

...when the bank bailout passed last year, I assumed half-heartedly that it was more or less a choice of either the bailout or lots of bank failures sucking the deposit insurance trust fund dry. Now, it seems that we may be getting both.

Look down at the bottom paragraph, too; $16.8 billion in assets (loans outstanding) backed by $9.4 billion in deposits--which means that half of their loans are backed by money from the Fed. The next time Bernanke and Greenspan try to deny culpability, well, you can know that's not exactly true. While there are other causes (CRA, Fannie and Freddie) in play, half their loans were backed by the Fed--and that doesn't even count the bad loans they sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.