In the previous article regarding the failure of the Georgia-based bank, I mentioned that the real estate fiasco that is currently going on in the United States is a great illustration of how the US economy is different from every economy on Earth. In the interests of clarity, I’d like to expand on that idea a little more.
The US business world is based entirely on the idea of extremes. It is essentially the closest thing to a pure free market that exists, but at the same time it is also not exactly a free market in many different cases. The US economy however is not as regulated by the government as most of the other developed nations of the world and that means that the business extremes are more pronounced in the US than they would be anywhere else.
During the good times, this is a fantastic thing because it means that businesses boom in the US to levels that the rest of the world could not hope to match. It is also what allows the country to generate the massive amounts of wealth that it has. However, during the bad times, the businesses and the individuals suffer a lot more than they would in other countries and this is what we are witnessing now. Without casting aspersions or praise on this method of doing business, I will say that it is an interesting difference that the United States has.
[tags]developed_nations, massive_amounts, fiasco, business_world, extremes, doing_business, rest_of_the_world, clarity, illustration, economy, boom, failure, earth, real_estate, united_states[/tags]
The real estate lending business is an interesting beast and it really illustrates how the American economy is different from every other economy on Earth. What was once the most secure way to do business is now as treacherous as can be. There have already been nine banks claimed by the treacherous waters of real estate lending gone bad and today the business world was aghast at the news that a tenth bank had fallen.
The unlucky number ten was the Integrity Bank based in Georgia. The ironically named Integrity Bank had risen from nothingness to big money holdings through the business of real estate lending and when those deals went bad, it found itself fighting for its life almost from day one. It’s something of a minor miracle that the bank lasted this long, but it’s finally thrown in the towel and divided its assets between the Regions Bank of Alabama and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The bank had about $974 million in deposited money that is split between deposits that were insured and deposits that were not. In both cases, the deposit load has been assumed by the Alabama-based bank, while the FDIC assumed the rest of the assets and reported that the failure of the bank resulted in a $250 million loss for the government corporation.
[tags]deposit_insurance_corporation, federal_deposit_insurance, federal_deposit_insurance_corporation, money_holdings, government_corporation, american_economy, treacherous_waters, regions_bank, business_world, integrity, banks, assets, failure, real_estate[/tags]
One of the fascinating aspects of viewing the credit crunch that is going on around the world is trying to figure out if any parallels can be drawn between the different countries. While the credit crunch has most severely affected the United States and United Kingdom, at the same time many of the developed nations of the world (Western Europe, South Africa and Japan) have had their share of troubles as well. And because different analysts will hold different factors important in their analysis, anything that changes in another country might be construed as something that could change here.
Well, as far as Japan goes, things appear to be improving in the general economy. Loans are up, real estate is starting to look a lot more promising than it did a few months ago and even the unemployment rate is starting to come down. It was 4% in February, 3.9% in March and as April comes to a close it has been clocked in at 3.8%, showing a very distinct downward trend. How low it will go is anybody’s guess, but at the same time there are many people jumping on the bandwagon and stating that conditions in Japan improving might be a sign that things are going to improve in other places within the developed world as well.
