Troubled Banks Have a New Benefactor: You

Bank tells Fed it'll shrink its footprint if things get rough

(NEWSER) - Should we start calling it Bank of Some of America? If push comes to shove, the banking giant is prepared to pull its operations out of some parts of the country, sources tell the Wall Street Journal . The unpalatable retreat is one of several contingency plans the bank drew up last year at the Federal Reserve's insistence, an exercise intended to prepare for the possibility that its mortgage and other financial problems could worsen. More»

Failures down in 2011, but weak banks are taking longer to recover or die

(NEWSER) - Bank failures were down significantly in 2011, but that doesn't mean banks are getting healthier—it just means sick ones are taking longer to die, the Wall Street Journal finds. Some 92 banks failed last year, down from 157 in 2010. But many of 2011's casualties were in weaker shape than the banks that failed in 2010. There are still 844 banks on regulators' problem-bank list, and analysts expect many more undercapitalized banks to fail over the next two years. More»

Only 0.2% of his bills have become law

(NEWSER) - Ron Paul has sponsored 620 measures in his 11-and-a-half terms in Congress, but only one of them has become a law—a bill allowing the sale of a Galveston customhouse to a historical society. That tells you much of what you need to know about Paul’s congressional record, which according to the Washington Post “stands out for its futility.” Of the 47 bills Paul has proposed this year, 32 have failed to attract a single cosponsor. More»

Here's two: Let's vote on weekends and stop making pennies

(NEWSER) - Ezra Klein uses his Washington Post column to give a push to what he sees as logical bills languishing for lack of "partisan passion." Among his first No-Brainer Awards:

• Weekend voting: A bill from Rep. Steve Israel and outgoing Sen. Herb Kohl would end the outdated silliness of forcing people to vote on a Tuesday and make Election Day the first full weekend of November. "Two days when most Americans don’t have to work, drop their kids off at school or rush home to prepare dinner."

They charged bigger interest rates on cheap money from Uncle Sam

(NEWSER) - Crisis-walloped banks aided with federal loans likely made a fortune by lending the same money back to the federal government at substantially higher interest rates, a new report indicates. The study by the Congressional Research Service supports complaints that the largest banks essentially engaged in taxpayer-financed arbitrage by cashing in on loans to Uncle Sam using money obtained almost for free from ... Uncle Sam. At the same time, American businesses were dying and homeowners were going under because bank loans or federal aid weren't available to them. More»