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- <text id=91TT0285>
- <title>
- Feb. 11, 1991: Business Notes:Banking
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Feb. 11, 1991 Saddam's Weird War
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 67
- Business Notes
- BANKING
- Is It Broke Yet?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> With banks failing at the rate of one every two days, will
- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's bailout fund run
- out of money soon? That fear was magnified last week when the
- Congressional Budget Office predicted that the fund, which
- contains only $8.5 billion to cover $2 trillion in deposits,
- could run dry by the end of the year because the recession has
- aggravated the cost of bank failures. The FDIC may need to
- borrow $11 billion from the Treasury to keep from going broke,
- the CBO predicted. The House Budget Committee further undermined
- confidence in the FDIC by criticizing its 1988 rescue of First
- Republic Bank of Dallas, charging that "preposterous tax
- breaks" could double the original cost estimates of more than
- $2 billion.
- </p>
- <p> FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman disputed the CBO's bleak
- prediction, contending that the insurance fund would remain
- "solvent but weak." Seidman said the banking industry could
- bolster the fund without help from taxpayers. But Seidman did
- acknowledge that if the recession lasts for more than a year,
- the fund will run dry by the end of 1991 and run a deficit of
- more than $5 billion in 1992.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-