Bank Failures

U.S. bank regulators Friday closed tiny Alpha Bank & Trust in Georgia, the 16th U.S. bank to fail this year as the weakening economy and falling home prices take their toll on financial institutions.

Certainly the FDIC’s and the banking industry’s challenges so far haven’t come close to the challenges of the 1930s and 1980s. Some 9,000 banks failed in the four years before Congress created the FDIC in 1933. Thousands of institutions also failed during the S&L crisis.