clipped from: www.ritholtz.com   

So you’re looking at how the bank’s balance sheets will look under stress. And then you say to them, “This is our assessment of the amount of capital you need to cover your losses, and to stay in business, and be able to make loans, through what appears to be a severe recession.”


Now you have a month, or two, to raise this amount of capital privately.

the ones that can’t raise the capital are in violation of the terms of their banking license

We have no problem in this country shutting down small banks. In fact, the FDIC is world class at shutting down and managing the handover of deposits, for example, from small banks. They managed IndyMac, the closure of IndyMac, beautifully. People didn’t lose touch with their money for even a moment. But they can’t do it to big banks, because they don’t have the political power. Nobody has the political will to do it.


it’s called an intervention. The bank is intervened. You don’t go into Chapter 11 because in that’s too messy

The FDIC takes you over