Time For Prozac

"Regulators are getting nervous. In a speech to Florida bankers at the end of January, John Dugan, the Comptroller of the Currency, noted that more than one-third of America's community banks—and more than three-fifths of Florida's—have commercial-property loans that are more than three times their capital. And he went on to predict increases in loan-loss reserves and a rise in bank failures. How bad could things get? Gerard Cassidy of RBC Capital Markets estimates that between 50 and 150 banks with assets of up to a couple of billion dollars each could fail in the next couple of years, the highest rate since the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s."