The FDIC is Very Hungry Today

The FDIC was especially hungy this holiday weekend as 7 banks, 6 of them in Illinois, were, as Atrios likes to say, Eaten. For those keeping score, that's 52 bank failures so far this year and I suspect the number will grow substantially as summer fades to fall and into winter. I don't know why the idiots at CNBC seem to think that things are turning around, they aren't by a longshot, but more and more, the so called experts are looking for any sign of optimism and those signs just aren't there. With the number of unemployed continuing to rise, a new set of home foreclosures about to begin and the collapsing retail industry, well, it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Now it's well known that I'm a doomer when it comes to the impending collapse of civilization as we know it but even I didn't expect it to come crumbling down so fast and in this manner. The economic collapse was primarily caused by two things, a crazy ass housing bubble and the record run up in the price of oil last year. Home prices continue to tumble with no end in sight and just in case you haven't been paying attention to the oil markets, well, we are in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and oil is trading at near $70 a barrel.

That tells me two things: The use of ones home as an ATM is never coming back and if we do somehow manage a small recovery, the price of oil will skyrocket once again, sending the economy crashing to the floor again. It's a cycle that we will most likely stay in over the course of the next few decades and it promises to change the way all of us live. As I've said many, many times before, the party is over and while it was a great run and a whole lot of fun, the hangover is proving to be quite painful, especially for those millions of people who have lost their jobs and will probably never get them back.

Happy 4th of July America!