Big Banks, Big Mistakes

10/21/09 Baltimore, Maryland – Here’s one of the more convincing series of charts we’ve seen in a while… bailing out the big banks — at least the way our government did it — was not a good idea:

In the year ending June 30, the biggest five banks in the U.S. grew deposits by 29%, the FDIC said this week. In dollar terms, that’s over $852 billion in deposits over the last year. But in spite of this, and the over $100 billion in TARP funds they’ve received, lending has increased only $564 billion.

So for all our troubles — the billions of taxpayer dollars, the tireless political battles, the violent market swings — what have we gotten in return? Too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger, and they are hoarding their larger market share. We can hardly blame them for it, but from the taxpayer standpoint, heh… looks like we got the shaft.

Ian Mathias

Ian Mathias is managing editor of The 5 Min. Forecast.  We discovered Ian working as a full time rock climbing guide and writing on the side. As it turns out, markets and global economics can be extreme too… at least enough to keep him around. Since working for Agora Financial, respected media outlets including Forbes.com, the Associated Press, Yahoo, and MSN Money have syndicated his writing. He received his BA from Loyola College in Maryland and is currently studying writing at the graduate level.

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