Friday, January 18, 2008

The Next Shoe to Drop?

Bank failures are at a historical low, with only three in 2007, and none in 2005 and 2006. The chart below shows bank failures as calculated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) since 1934. I couldn't get the years to appear on the horizontal axis, but the chart starts in 1934 at the right and ends at the far left. I know that it is in reverse order chronologically, but blame Google Docs for that not me.

The large bulge is from the banking crisis in the late 1980's and early 90's, and the smaller bulge is from the Great Depression. many banks failed prior to 1934, but since the FDIC was created in that year, that is all the data they have.

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