There are only 19 banks in the US with assets greater than $100 billion.
Almost 100% of the problems in banking are concenterrated in these banks. The top 12, or what I call the DIRTY DOZEN, are the ones most responsible for almost 90% of all banking problems. The list is as follows, by name and the billions of assets held:

Name Total Assets (Billions)
1. Bank of America 2,500 (including Merrill Lynch)
2. JPMorgan Chase 2,175
3. Citigroup 1,947
4. Wells Fargo 1,310
5. Goldman Sachs 885
6. Morgan Stanley 659
7. MetLife 502
8. PNC Financial Services 291
9. U.S. Bancorp 267
10. Bank of New York Mellon 238
11. GMAC 189
12. SunTrust 189

The remaining 7 of the top 19 banks are:

Name Total Assets (Billions)
13. State Street 177
14. Capital One Financial Corp. 166
15. BB&T 152
16. Regions Financial Corp. 146
17. American Express 126
18. Fifth Third Bancorp 120
19. KeyCorp 105

These are the banks that are being “stress tested” by TurboTimmy and his non-existent staff at the nearly defunct US Department of the Treasury. Every one of these banks is having major financial solvency issues.

By the way, the FDIC started out with less than $50 billion to cover potential liabilities of almost $8 TRILLION in deposits and now has near zero left after including the still unresolved IndyMac potential liabilities. The FDIC had a $30 billion credit line with the Treasury, and now this is being increased to $100 billion, but that is a tiny fraction of the potential deposit liabilities just in the DIRTY DOZEN.

The FDIC should but can’t close Citi - it has nearly $2 trillion in deposit liabilities. The FDIC has nearly zero in its reserves (blew through all of its $50 billion) and only a $30 billion (to be expanded to a $100 billion) credit line with the Treasury. The FDIC is absolutely impotent in regards to Citi, so don’t look to see them on the FDIC FRYDAY crispy cookout soon.

Yes, folks the FDIC is FLAT-OUT BROKE!

Goldman Sachs is an arm of the US Treasury, and JP Morgan Chase is an arm of the Federal Reserve. Both should be put out of business without further ado. Both have been engaged in massive market manipulation and neither are worthy of any trust or credibility whatsoever. Get rid of both of them as soon as possible and sell their assets to regionals.

Most Credit Unions appear to be pretty financially stable and strong because they stuck to basic banking and sound lending practices. I’ve said for a long time that we need to DECENTRALIZE BANKING like it was prior to the 1980s when it became a national business. Prior to then banks were STATE CHARTERED and prohibited almost completely from operating in multiple states or nationally. This kept banking under diverse local control and substantially limited problems to much smaller banks.

The huge concentration and national operations of the DIRTY DOZEN and their top 20 cohorts is WHAT CREATED THE CURRENT BANKING CRISIS. Previously, such as in the S&L Failure Fiasco, many more banks (S&Ls and Thrifts) went busto (over 1,000) but the total carnage was miniscule in comparison. When all was said and done with the Resolution Trust Corporation which was used to clean up this 1980s mess, the total cost was only around $125 billion in 1995 dollars which is neglible by today’s numbers - and that was the final net cost.

I strongly advocate people using local banks and credit unions - this is the way to return to a stable banking system and the best way to keep money within local communities where it can benefit people the most and the profits can be reinvested in those communities. That is how banking worked best, how it now works best, and that is the answer to restore the future of solid banking to America.