Fed Flushes $1.7B Worth of Taxpayer Funds Down the Toilet

Last week, under the cover of darkness and in an extraordinary show of Government incompetence, the FDIC seized United Commercial Bank. The problem is that Mingsheng, a Chinese bank, had already approached the Fed about a potential acquisition of UCB. Mingsheng, which had already invested $129M into UCB, was presumably trying to salvage some portion of it's investment. Unfortunately, Mingsheng's application was destined to whither away on a bureaucrats desk, as various branches of the federal government bumbled about in an attempt to resolve the problems at UCB - oblivious it seems to the cost effective solution right before their eyes. They (Mingsheng) were not the only investors though; last year the Treasury injected $298M into UCB as part of the now infamous TARP program. Furthermore, the FDIC estimates that the UCB failure will cost it's Deposit Insurance Fund $1.4B. The DCF is theoretically funded through premia leveled on the banking industry; however, we all know that this cost gets passed onto consumers in the form of higher overdraft, ATM, inactivity etc. fees. Therefore, the Treasury/Fed/FDIC - acting in disorganized concert - managed to flush $1.7B worth of taxpayer money down the toilet.

This is truly an embarrassment. Sphere: Related Content