NPR: Zombie Banks

NPR Morning Edition February 17, 2009
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Zombie Banks Feed Off Bailout Money by Chris Arnold

• “A zombie bank is not quite dead, but it’s certainly not alive and is not doing any good for the economy.”
• “It’s not lending, but it won’t die so that you can restructure it and have a healthy bank again.”
• “I always liken zombie banks to Night of the Living Dead where you get these creatures walking around with their arms out ripping at the flesh of humans and turning them into the living dead as well."
• “Zombie banks eat the fabric of the economy, they’re just awful. This is what happened to the Japanese, they had banks that were overstuffed with non-performing loans so they had a decade-plus of just an awful economy.”
• “I’ve watched every single one of those zombie movies and you can’t cure zombie-ism, everyone knows that. You gotta shoot them, you gotta get rid of them, cut their heads off, put a silver bullet through their hearts, and get some healthy banks."
• “We have a situation where there’s zombies roaming around and government programs so far are an aspirin, when instead you’ve got to chop its head off to get the economy growing again.”

Of course, that's not quite right:
Spokesman: "The body should be disposed of at once - preferably, by cremation.
Reporter: "Well, how long after death, then, does the body become reactivated?"
Spokesman: "It's only a matter of minutes."
Reporter: "Minutes? Well, that doesn't give people time to make any arrangements."
Spokesman: "Oh, you're right, it doesn't give 'em time to make funeral arrangements. The bodies must be carried to the street, and...and...and burned. Ah, they must be burned immediately! Soak them with gasoline and burn them! The bereaved will have to forgo the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. Ah, they're just dead flesh - and dangerous!"

Comments

[RichL]

If you want to actually understand bank solvency issues, I'd suggest reading:

http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2009/02/bank-solvency-and-geithner-plan.html

It is to a degree a political decision to call a bank a zombie. Was WaMu a zombie? Wachovia received a competing bid after being forced into the hands of Citi by the FDIC. This commentary is much too flip.

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