One year ago this week, we brought you the story of a bank failure. The Bank of Clark County was a small bank in southwest Washington state. One Friday, in what has become a weekly ritual of the Great Recession, the FDIC stepped in to take it over. We told you about [...]
Since Congress hasn’t held 1930’s-style hearings into the causes of the financial crisis, we stage one of our own. The subject? The regulators and watchdogs who were supposed to be overseeing the banks and the finance industry—to make sure things wouldn’t blow up like they have. Clearly something went wrong. Today we [...]
The story of what it really looks like when a bank fails and is taken over by the FDIC. Listen here for the NPR story and here for a longer This American Life version.
With some banks closing and many others announcing massive layoffs, this is clearly not a good time to find a job in the financial industry. But business is booming for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The government agency insures bank deposits and takes over whenever a bank fails — an almost weekly occurrence these days. [...]