Feb. 2012 ..link.. Credit Card Debt? Robo-Signing is the Tip of the Iceberg for the Banks and ..Link .. Euro crash test re-voices the Greek currency market and ..link .. U.K. Is Pondering End of the Euro ~ FSA will host top bank execs, senior regulators, and int'l companies with London investment-banking arms Dec. 2011 ..link .. IMF chief calls for global cooperation to tackle economic challenge
June 2011 Fed Expanding Capital Tests for US Banks ...
Link to .. Links ~ Bank of America
February 05, 2012
Snips From ...
The Financial Crisis Of 2008 Was Just A Warm Up Act For The Economic Horror Show That Is Coming
The people out there that believe that the U.S. economy is experiencing a permanent recovery and that very bright days are ahead for us should have their heads examined. Unfortunately, what we are going through right now is simply just a period of "hopetimism" between two financial crashes.
Things may seem relatively stable right now, but it won't last long. The truth is that the financial crisis of 2008 was just a warm up act for the economic horror show that is coming. Nothing really got fixed after the crash of 2008.
We are living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it has gotten even bigger since then. The "too big to fail" banks are larger now than they have ever been.
Americans continue to run up credit card balances like there is no tomorrow. Tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions of jobs continue to leave the country. We continue to consume far more than we produce and we continue to become poorer as a nation. None of the problems that caused the crisis of 2008 have been solved and we are even weaker financially than we were back then. So why in the world are so many people so optimistic about the economy right now?
Sadly, most Americans seem oblivious to all of this.If you go out to malls in the wealthy areas of America today, people are charging up a storm. In all, Americans charged a whopping 2.5 trillion dollars on their credit cards during 2011.
Way too many people have already forgotten the lessons that we all learned back in 2008.Of course some Americans pay off their credit cards every month, but way too many Americans are not doing that.
In 1980, Americans were carrying 54 million dollars in revolving credit balances. Today, Americans are carrying 794 million dollars in revolving credit balances.And student loan debt is an even bigger bubble than credit card debt is. As I have written about previously, total student loan debt in America is rapidly approaching a trillion dollars.
So it looks like U.S. consumers have not learned to stay away from debt.That is not good.Well, what about the banks?
Has the financial system learned any lessons since 2008?
No, not really.Sadly, the "too big to fail" banks are now even bigger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011. If they were to fail today, they would be even more of a threat to our financial system than they were back in 2008.And our major banks continue to be very highly leveraged. In fact, major banks all over the world are absolutely swamped with debt.The following statistics come from Zero Hedge....
The U.S. banking system is leveraged 13 to 1.The Japanese banking system is leveraged 23 to 1.The French banking system is leveraged 26 to 1.The German banking system is leveraged 32 to 1.
Major banks all over the globe are going to be crying out for more bailouts when things take a turn against them.They are making the exact same mistakes that they made before, and they are going to be expecting more government handouts when things go bad.Will we ever learn?So obviously the banking system has not learned any lessons.What about the federal government?
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