Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Needed: A New Name For Huge, Sickly Banks

Community banks, the dull side of banking, receive front-page attention in today's New York Times.

New deposits and new customers keep trickling in at these safe-and-sane institutions. For some of them, that spells opportunity to gain new trust and investment business as well. But as David Segal writes in his Times article, community banks have an identity problem:
[T]he public, politicians and the media have made little distinction between the stress-tested behemoths and the 7,630 community banks across the country — the vast majority of which have watched the crisis like bystanders at a 10-car pileup.
What we need is a term to distinguish giant, high-toxicity "banks" from the real and healthy banks. "Blankety-banks'? No, there's got to be a better word or phrase. Ideas, anyone?

1 comment:

Jim Gust said...

How about "casinos"?