Troubled US Banks In 1991 Were 25 Times Worse Than Now

From a comment by “stilettoheels” on this CD post: “Yep. The commercial banks are in just fine shape. Bottom line: In Q3.08, the banks are back to the early 1990s recession by most measures. Once the early 1980s are taken out, then it will be the Great Depression II.”

The top chart above shows the number of FDIC “problem institutions” annually back to 1990 (year to date for 2008). There are currently 171 problem banks, which is higher than the peak of 136 problem banks in 2002 following the 2001 recession, but far fewer than in the earlier years like 1990 (1,496 troubled banks), 1991 (1,430), 1992 (1,066), 1993 (575), 1994 (318) and 1995 (193).

The 171 banks currently identified as “problem institutions” have assets of $116 billion, which is 1.04% of the total commercial bank assets of $11,115 billion average for 2008, and only 0.97% of total bank assets of almost $12,000 billion for October 2008 (data here). The bottom chart above shows that the current level of about 1% of bank assets being held by troubled banks is nowhere close to the levels of 10-25% in 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993. So by this measure, troubled banks in the early 1990s were 10 to 25 times “more troubled” than banks today.

Bottom Line: In 1990 there were almost 9 times as many troubled banks as today, and in 1991 the percent of total bank assets held by troubled banks was about 25 times higher than 2008. We’re nowhere close to the troubled bank situation of the early 1990s. As in 25 is a much bigger number than 1, and 1 is nowhere close to 25. And if we’re not even close to the weak banking conditions of the early 1990s, we’re light years from Great Depression II.

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Comment by Robert

2008-12-01 15:16:20

You couldn’t be farther from the truth…

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