Two snacks for the Easter Bunny?

[Jeff Tumbarello]

New Frontier Bank, Greeley, CO
Cape Fear Bank, Wilmington, NC

I believe we've hit another familiar tipping point with New Frontier's takeover outcome.

New Frontier's Press Release says there were $1.5B in Deposits, but then says $150M were "insured" and $4M were "uninsured". Unless I misunderstood the verbiage, there's about 1.4+ BILLION left in the void. Note there is no "buying Bank", just a San Francisco Bank hired to manage the COLORADO Bank shutdown, with an FDIC-created "Bank" to give 30 days to move the accounts elsewhere. This is the 1989 "Oh God, We're TOAST" version of the 1982-1987 ignored failures, so I think we're seeing a revisit of a trend put in the closet for a long time now. Either "It" has returned in this form or I've misread the press release in some way.

There's a helpful link and a phone number for checking to see if your deposits are insured, but NEITHER of these Banks are on the list yet - that should give some folks a warm and fuzzy feeling for the Easter Holiday, by God. I'm tempted to call the phone number just to hear the Easter Bunny chuckling on the answering message.

And, of course, the "public unit deposits" are to be fully protected at all costs - it's how that goes, too.

I'd suggest it's COLD out there on the New Frontier today:

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2009/pr09053.html

Cape Fear of North Carolina's been handed to a South Caronlina Savings and Loan - somebody's running out of willing and able Banks to buy the failed banks. One might wonder why BoA in NC didn't snap this snack up, but perhaps the "stress" is a bit high or something. Cape Fear is not a publicly-owned Bank, so there's a helpful note about "You're TOAST, Sucker, call the Bank" for those who yesterday "owned a Bank".

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/capefear.html#press_release

Happy Easter - Mr. Hopeful's working overtime, so rest easy and wait patiently to be stimulated (or else).