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{{Use American English|date=November 2024}}
The '''U.S. Savings and Loan crisis''' of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of 747 [[savings and loan association]]s (S&Ls) in the [[United States]]. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government -- that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts-- <ref>{{cite news | title= Financial Audit: Resolution Trust Corporation's 1995 and 1994 Financial Statements |
{{Short description|US financial crisis from 1986 to 1995}}
url=http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/ai96123.pdf | date=July 1996 |
[[File:Federal Home Loan Bank Board Building DC 01.jpg|thumb|right|This building at 1700 G St NW in [[Washington, DC]], now occupied by the [[Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]], housed the [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] from the 1970s onward. It was built in 1976. ]]
|publisher = U.S. General Accounting Office}}</ref>, which contributed to the large [[budget deficit]]s of the early 1990s.
[[File:Mortgages and interest rates.webp|thumb|Mortgages and interest rates
The resulting taxpayer bailout ended up being even larger than it would have been because [[moral hazard]] and adverse-selection incentives compounded the system’s losses. <ref>{{cite news | title=LESSONS FOR FEDERAL PENSION INSURANCE FROM THE SAVINGS AND LOAN CRISIS | url=http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Emmons.pdf |date=JULY/AUGUST 2006 |publisher= FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ST. LOUIS REVIEW}}</ref>
{{legend-line|#4572A7 solid 3px|30 year fixed rate mortgage}}
{{legend-line|#50E3C2 solid 3px|15 year fixed rate mortgage}}
{{legend-line|#89A54E solid 3px|5/1 adjustable rate mortgage}}
{{legend-line|#80699B solid 3px|10 year [[United States Treasury security|treasury]] yield}}
{{legend-line|#D0021B solid 3px|[[Federal funds rate|Effective Federal funds rate]]}}
{{legend-line|#F15AF7 solid 3px|Inflation [[Consumer price index]]}}
]]


The '''savings and loan crisis''' of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly dubbed the '''S&L crisis''') was the failure of approximately a third of the [[savings and loan association]]s (S&Ls or thrifts) in the United States between 1986 and 1995. These thrifts were banks that historically specialized in fixed-rate mortgage lending.{{sfn|Sharma|2022|p=39}} The [[Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation]] (FSLIC) closed or otherwise resolved 296 thrifts from 1986 to 1989, whereupon the newly established [[Resolution Trust Corporation]] (RTC) took up these responsibilities. The two agencies closed 1,043 banks that held $519 billion in assets. The total cost of taxpayers by the end of 1999 was $123.8 billion with an additional $29.1 billion of losses imposed onto the thrift industry.{{sfn|Curry|Shibut|2000|p=26 (total assets of closed institutions), 33 (cost to the public, broken down by taxpayers and industry also noting that liquidation of RTC assets would not materially affect losses); see also p. 29 noting confusion among previous estimates}}
The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic [[recession]]. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of new homes constructed per year dropped from 1.8 million to 1 million, the lowest rate since [[World War II]].
<ref>{{cite news |title= Housing Finance in Developed Countries An International Comparison of Efficiency, United States|url=http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/jhr/pdf/jhr_0301_ch6_USA.pdf | date=1992 |publisher= Fannie Mae}}</ref>


Starting in 1979 and through the early 1980s, the [[Federal Reserve]] sharply increased interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation. At that time, thrifts had issued long-term loans at fixed interest rates that were lower than prevailing deposit rates. Attempts to attract more deposits by offering higher interest rates led to liabilities that could not be paid-for by the lower interest rates at which they had loaned money. Nor could outflowing deposits simply be paid out by sale of now less-valuable assets. The end result was that about one third of S&Ls became insolvent, causing a first wave of failures in 1981–83.
==Background==
[[Savings and loan]] institutions (also known as S&Ls or thrifts) have existed since the 1800s. They originally served as community-based institutions for savings and mortgages. In the United States, S&Ls were tightly regulated until the late 1970s.{{Fact|date=July 2008}} For example, there was a ceiling on the interest rates they could offer to depositors.{{Fact|date=July 2008}}


When the problem became apparent, Congress acted to permit thrifts to engage in new lending activities with the hope that they would diversify and become more profitable. This included issuance of adjustable-rate mortgages and permission to enter into commercial real estate lending. Lower capital requirements and permissive accounting standards also allowed weaker thrifts to continue operating even though under the old rules or [[US GAAP]] they would have been insolvent. These changes allowed for substantial risk-taking and thrift industry growth. Many new thrifts were formed in the American southwest and levered themselves to substantial size rapidly. The regional concentration of thrift investments there, along with thrifts' inexperience in the new types of lending they had entered, proved highly fragile. When property prices in those regions dropped in 1986, a second and larger wave of failures started.
In the 1970s, many banks, but particularly S&Ls, were experiencing a significant outflow of low-rate deposits, as interest rates were driven up by the high inflation rate of the late 1970s and as depositors moved their money to the new high-interest [[money-market funds]].{{Fact|date=July 2008}} At the same time, the institutions had much of their money tied up in long-term [[mortgage loan]]s that were written at fixed interest rates, and with market rates rising, were worth far less than face value. That is, in order to sell a 5% mortgage to pay requests from depositors for their funds in a market asking 10%, a savings and loan would have to discount its asking price on the mortgage. This meant that the value of these loans, which were the institution's assets, was less than the deposits used to make them, and the savings and loan's net worth was being eroded.


The thrift deposit insurer, FSLIC, was unable to pay for all these failures and became insolvent. FSLIC's financial weakness, along with congressional pressure, also forced regulators to engage in regulatory forbearance. This allowed insolvent thrifts to remain open and tied FSLIC to capital injections. Attempts to recapitalize FSLIC arrived both too late and in insufficient amounts. Failures continued to mount through 1988 and by February 1989, congressional legislation – the [[Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989]] – was brought to establish the Resolution Trust Corporation to wind down all remaining insolvent thrifts. The law also brought more stringent capital regulations for thrifts and an increase in supervisory resources. Responsibility for thrift supervision and thrift deposit insurance were also transferred, respectively, to the then-new [[Office of Thrift Supervision]] and the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]].
Under financial institution regulation, which had its roots in the [[The Great Depression|Depression]] era, federally chartered S&Ls were only allowed to make a narrowly limited range of loan types. Late in the administration of President [[Jimmy Carter]], caps were lifted on rates and the amounts insured per account to $100,000. In addition to raising the amounts covered by insurance, the amount of the accounts that would be repaid was increased from 70% to 100%. Increasing [[FSLIC]] coverage also permitted managers to take more risk to try to work their way out of insolvency so the government would not have to take over an institution.

Carter left office in January 1981, a year in which 3,300 out of 3,800 S&Ls lost money. In 1982, the combined tangible net capital of this industry was $4 billion. The chartering of federally regulated S&Ls accelerated rapidly with the [[Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act]] of 1982, which was designed to make S&Ls more competitive and more solvent. S&Ls could now pay higher market rates for deposits, borrow money from the [[Federal Reserve]], make commercial loans, and issue credit cards. They were also allowed to take an ownership position in the real estate and other projects to which they made loans and they began to rely on brokered funds to a considerable extent. This was a departure from their original mission of providing savings and mortgages.


==Causes==
==Causes==
===Deregulation===
Although the deregulation of S&Ls gave them many of the capabilities of banks, it did not bring them under the same regulations as banks. First, thrifts could choose to be under either a state or a federal [[charter]]. Immediately after deregulation of the federally chartered thrifts, the state-chartered thrifts rushed to become federally chartered, because of the advantages associated with a federal charter. In response, states (notably, [[California]] and [[Texas]]) changed their regulations so they would be similar to the federal regulations. States changed their regulations because state regulators were paid by the thrifts they regulated, and they didn't want to lose that money.{{Fact|date=December 2007}}


[[Thrift institutions]] originated in the 19th century with the goal of pooling resources among members to make loans with which to purchase residential properties.{{sfn|Sharma|2022|p=39}} The industry grew rapidly at over 10% annually in the [[postwar period]] amid government support for home financing.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=129, 139 (Table 5.1)}} At the time, thrifts were regulated by two – or three, if state regulators are included, – institutions. Examinations were conducted by the [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] (FHLBB); but supervisory authority was separate and resided in regional [[Federal Home Loan Banks]].{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=171}} Conflict of interest concerns also existed in the privately-owned home loan banks, leading to poor working relationships between federal employee examiners and the private supervisors. Delays between examinations and their reports arriving to supervisors also meant that supervisory action, if it were to be taken, would be months late.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|pp=171–72}} Weak enforcement powers, along with thrifts' rights to contest unfavourable reports, meant the Federal Home Loan Bank Board was highly deferential to bank management.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=172}}
===Imprudent real estate lending===
In an effort to take advantage of the [[real estate boom]] (outstanding US mortgage loans: 1976 $700 billion; 1980 $1.2 trillion){{Fact|date=December 2007}}and high interest rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s, many S&Ls lent far more money than was prudent, and to risky ventures which many S&Ls were not qualified to assess. [[L. William Seidman]], former chairman of both the FDIC and the [[Resolution Trust Corporation]], stated, "The banking problems of the '80s and '90s came primarily, but not exclusively, from unsound real estate lending." <ref>{{cite article|title=Lessons of the Eighties: What Does the Evidence Show? |
url=http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/vol2/panel3.pdf |date=September 18, 1996 |publisher=FDIC }}</ref>


===Keeping insolvent S&Ls open===
=== Interest rate increases ===
{{see also|Stagflation|Early 1980s recession in the United States}}
Whereas [[insolvent]] banks in the United States were typically detected and shut down quickly by bank regulators, Congress sought to change regulatory rules so S&Ls would not have to acknowledge insolvency and the FHLBB would not have to close them down.
The early 1980s saw a recession along with high interest rates, which stressed both thrift and other banking institutions considerably.{{sfnm|Sharma|2022|1p=39|Mason|2004|2p=213}} Negative net interest margins, due to the low interest earned on assets with high deposit interest expenses needed to retain deposits, caused a wave of thrift failures between 1981 and 1983.{{sfn|Sharma|2022|p=39}} Federal regulations, especially [[Regulation Q]], placed caps on deposit interest rates. Depositors responded by withdrawing their cash and depositing them in [[money market mutual funds]]. In response to these outflows, Congress passed the [[Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act]] of 1980 which phased out Regulation Q interest rate caps and expanded thrift lending powers to include construction loans. The deposit insurance limit was also raised from 40,000 to 100,000 dollars per account.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=215–16}} The phase-out of deposit interest rate caps, however, caused thrifts' deposit interest expenses to increase substantially as they scrambled to retain depositors. The resulting decline in profitability led to a wave of thrift failures in 1981–83.{{sfnm|Sharma|2022|1p=39|Mason|2004|2p=218}}


Many of these failures were outside of their managers' control. The high and volatile interest rates in the early 1980s meant that even thrifts with diversified residential mortgage portfolios, constrained by existing price caps, became unable to meet their obligations.{{sfn|Bodie|2006|p=326}} The historical institutional characteristics of thrift institutions – low loss rates accompanied by low earnings and capital – were stable but severely challenged by these market conditions.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=255–56}}
===Brokered deposits===
One of the most important contributors to the problem was [[deposit brokerage]].{{Fact|date=April 2007}} Deposit brokers, somewhat like stockbrokers, are paid a commission by the customer to find the best [[certificate of deposit]] (CD) rates and place their customers' money in those CDs. These CDs, however, are usually short-term $100,000 CDs.{{Fact|date=December 2007}} Previously, banks and thrifts could only have five percent of their deposits be brokered deposits; the race to the bottom caused this limit to be lifted. A small one-branch thrift could then attract a large number of deposits simply by offering the highest rate. In order to make money off this expensive money, it had to lend at even higher rates, meaning that it had to make more, riskier investments. This system was made even more damaging when certain deposit brokers instituted a scam known as "linked financing." In "linked financing," a deposit broker would approach a thrift and say he would steer a large amount of deposits to that thrift if the thrift would lend certain people money (the people, however, were paid a fee to apply for the loans and told to give the loan proceeds to the deposit broker). This caused the thrifts to be tricked into taking on bad loans.{{POV-statement|date=December 2007}} [[Michael Milken]] of [[Drexel Burnham Lambert|Drexel, Burnham and Lambert]] packaged brokered funds for several S&Ls on the condition that the institutions would invest in the [[junk bond]]s of his clients.


=== Deregulation and commercial lending ===
===End of inflation===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;"
Another factor was the efforts of the federal government to wring [[inflation]] out of the economy, marked by [[Paul Volcker]]'s speech of October 6, 1979, with a series of rises in short-term interest. This led to increases in the short-term cost of funding to be higher than the return on portfolios of mortgage loans, a large proportion of which may have been [[fixed rate mortgage]]s (a problem that is known as an [[asset-liability mismatch]]). This effort failed and interest rates continued to skyrocket, placing even more pressure on S&Ls as the 1980s dawned and led to increased focus on high interest-rate transactions. Zvi Bodie, professor of finance and economics at [[Boston University]] School of Management, writing in the St. Louis Federal Reserve ''Review'' wrote, "asset-liability mismatch was a principal cause of the Savings and Loan
|+ Thrift examination activities{{sfn|White|1991|p=89 (Table 5-13)}}
Crisis"[http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Bodie.pdf]
! Year !! Exams per thrift !! Exams per asset (billions)
|-
| 1980 || 0.80 || 5.41
|-
| 1981 || 0.85 || 4.96
|-
| 1982 || 0.85 || 4.08
|-
| 1983 || 0.68 || 2.62
|-
| 1984 || 0.75 || 2.40
|}
[[File:Federal Home Loan Bank Board members, 1985.png|thumb|right|Federal Home Loan Bank Board members, pictured in the Board's 1985 annual report. From left to right, Donald I. Hovde, Edwin J. Gray (chairman), and Mary A. Grigsby.]]


The 1981 [[Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act]] completed a process of deregulation that provided relief to weak thrifts by allowing their deposit insurer, the [[Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation]] (FSLIC), to provide direct capital injections through "net worth certificates".{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=219}} The Garn–St. Germain Act also hugely expanded thrift lending powers, allowing them to engage in commercial real estate and line-of-credit lending, which many thrifts eagerly exploited.{{sfnm|Mason|2004|1p=219|Hanc|1997|2p=10}} Between 1980 and 1986, thrifts' residential mortgage holdings as a proportion of assets fell from over 80 percent to less than 60.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=179 (Figure 4.1)}}
===The major causes of Savings and Loan crisis according to United States League of Savings Institutions===
The following is a detailed summary of the major causes for losses that hurt the savings and loan business in the 1980s<ref name="multiple1">{{cite book |author= Norman Strunk, Fred Case |title=Where deregulation went wrong:a look at the causes behind savings and loan failures in the 1980s|publisher= United States League of Savings Institutions |location= Chicago |year=1988|pages=15-16 | isbn=0929097327 9780929097329|oclc=18220698|doi=}}</ref>:


These new lending powers were not accompanied by any increase in supervisory resources or powers.{{sfn|Hanc|1997|p=26, noting that underwriting standards fell without controls by property }}{{sfn|Curry|Shibut|2000|p=27, noting "the deregulation of the thrift industry without an accompanying increase in examination resources"}} The view at the time was that the interest rate environment would quickly ease, allowing for thrifts to restructure their asset portfolios,{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=173}} and that expanded lending powers would allow for thrifts to diversify their portfolios and engage in more profitable lending activities.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=219}} It was expected that thrifts would continue being the relatively docile institutions they had then always been and diversify their portfolios prudently; few believed at the time that these deregulatory episodes would allow thrifts engage in excessively risky lending.{{sfn|White|1991|pp=90–92, remarking at length on "silence on the safety risks" and that a thrift crisis "seemed too remote"}}
# Lack of net worth for many institutions as they entered the 1980s, and a wholly inadequate net worth regulation.
# Decline in the effectiveness of [[Regulation Q]] in preserving the spread between the cost of money and the rate of return on assets, basically stemming from inflation and the accompanying increase in market interest rates.
# Absence of an ability to vary the return on assets with increases in the rate of interest required to be paid for deposits.
# Increased competition on the deposit gathering and mortgage origination sides of the business, with a sudden burst of new technology making possible a whole new way of conducting financial institutions generally and the mortgage business specifically.
# A rapid increase in investment powers of associations with passage of the [[Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act]] (the Garn-St Germain Act), and, more important, through state legislative enactments in a number of important and rapidly growing states. These introduced new risks and speculative opportunities which were difficult to administer. In many instances management lacked the ability or experience to evaluate them, or to administer large volumes of nonresidential construction loans.
# Elimination of regulations initially designed to prevent lending excesses and minimize failures. Regulatory relaxation permitted lending, directly and through participations, in distant loan markets on the promise of high returns. Lenders, however, were not familiar with these distant markets. It also permitted associations to participate extensively in speculative construction activities with builders and developers who had little or no financial stake in the projects.
# Fraud and insider transaction abuses were the principal cause for some 20% of savings and loan failures the past three years and a greater percentage of the dollar losses borne by the [[Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation]] (FSLIC).
# A new type and generation of opportunistic savings and loan executives and owners—some of whom operated in a fraudulent manner — whose takeover of many institutions was facilitated by a change in FSLIC rules reducing the minimum number of stockholders of an insured association from 400 to one.
# Dereliction of duty on the part of the board of directors of some savings associations. This permitted management to make uncontrolled use of some new operating authority, while directors failed to control expenses and prohibit obvious conflict of interest situations.
# A virtual end of inflation in the American economy, together with overbuilding in multifamily, condominium type residences and in commercial real estate in many cities. In addition, real estate values collapsed in the energy states — [[Texas]], [[Louisiana]], [[Oklahoma]] particularly due to [[1980s oil glut|falling oil prices]] — and weakness occurred in the mining and agricultural sectors of the economy.
# Pressures felt by the management of many associations to restore net worth ratios. Anxious to improve earnings, they departed from their traditional lending practices into credits and markets involving higher risks, but with which they had little experience.
# The lack of appropriate, accurate, and effective evaluations of the savings and loan business by public accounting firms, security analysts, and the financial community.
# Organizational structure and supervisory laws, adequate for policing and controlling the business in the protected environment of the 1960s and 1970s, resulted in fatal delays and indecision in the examination/supervision process in the 1980s.
# Federal and state examination and supervisory staffs insufficient in number, experience, or ability to deal with the new world of savings and loan operations.
# The inability or unwillingness of the [[Bank Board]] and its legal and supervisory staff to deal with problem institutions in a timely manner. Many institutions, which ultimately closed with big losses, were known problem cases for a year or more. Often, it appeared, political considerations delayed necessary supervisory action.


Many of the loans made under expanded lending powers were concentrated in rapidly-growing states such as California, Florida, and Texas.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=224}} Lax state supervision and highly permissive leverage restraints allowed thrifts in these states to expand rapidly, taking on considerable risk concentrated in these business lines and geographic regions.{{sfnm|Sharma|2022|1p=40|Mason|2004|2p=224}} The highly-sensitive nature of commercial real estate values to local economic conditions made these thrifts highly sensitive to those local economic conditions.{{sfn|Freund et al.|1997|p=158}} These issues were compounded by the relative inexperience of thrift staff in evaluating risks of commercial lending and equity investments.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=258–59}}
==Failures==
The [[United States Congress]] granted all thrifts in 1980, including savings and loan associations, the power to make consumer and commercial loans and to issue transaction accounts. Designed to help the thrift industry retain its deposit base and to improve its profitability, the [[Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act]] (DIDMCA) of 1980 allowed thrifts to make consumer loans up to 20 percent of their assets, issue credit cards, accept [[negotiable order of withdrawal]] (NOW) accounts from individuals and nonprofit organizations, and invest up to 20 percent of their assets in commercial real estate loans.


The deregulatory policy of the [[Reagan administration]], enforced by its appointment of thrift executive [[Edwin J. Gray]], reduced thrift examinations between 1981 and 1984 by 26 percent.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=226}} Normalized per institution or by assets held, FSLIC-insured institutions' supervisory resources were stretched.{{sfn|White|1991|pp=88–89}} However, Gray's position reversed after the fraud-induced failure of Texas-based Empire Savings and Loan: he spent the next two years increasing examination resources and tightening financial regulations. Such efforts were, however, not supported by industry groups or the Reagan administration.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=226–27}}
The damage to S&L operations led Congress to act, passing a bill in September 1981<ref>fact=January 2008</ref> allowing S&Ls to sell their mortgage loans and use the cash generated to seek better returns; the losses created by the sales were to be amortized over the life of the loan, and any losses could also be offset against taxes paid over the preceding 10 years. This all made S&Ls eager to sell their loans. The buyers - major Wall Street firms - were quick to take advantage of the S&Ls' lack of expertise, buying at 60%-90% of value and then transforming the loans by bundling them as, effectively, government-backed bonds (by virtue of [[GNMA|Ginnie Mae]], [[FHLMC|Freddie Mac]], or [[FNMA|Fannie Mae]] guarantees). S&Ls were one group buying these bonds, holding $150 billion by 1986, and being charged substantial fees for the transactions.


=== Forbearance ===
In 1982, the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act was passed and increased the proportion of assets that thrifts could hold in consumer and commercial real estate loans and allowed thrifts to invest 5 percent of their assets in commercial loans until January 1, 1984, when this percentage increased to 10 percent <ref name="multiple2">{{cite book |author=Mishler, Lon; Cole, Robert E. |title=Consumer and business credit management |publisher=Irwin |location=Homewood, Ill |year=1995 |pages=123-124 |isbn=0-256-13948-2 |oclc= |doi=}}</ref>.
[[File:FHLBB building, FHLBB Journal vol 17, 1984.png|thumb|right|FLHBB was headquartered in this building at 1700 G St NW in Washington DC, here depicted in a photograph on the cover of the December 1984 issue of the ''FHLBB Journal''.]]


Attempts to smooth over rough market environments included considerable regulatory forbearance: when a regulator decides not to apply regulations that normally would disrupt the operation of a bank. The FHLBB therefore progressively lowered net worth requirements from five percent in 1980 to three percent in 1982.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=173}} Lax phase-in rules also meant that many newer savings and loan institutions could be required to have net worth requirements lower than three percent; in fact, new institutions could be [[Leverage (finance)|levered]] from two million dollars in capital to $1.3 billion in assets (a multiple of 650) in about a year.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=173}}
A large number of S&L customers' defaults and [[bankruptcy|bankruptcies]] ensued, and the S&Ls that had overextended themselves were forced into insolvency proceedings themselves.


FHLBB also chose to adopt regulatory accounting principles which allowed institutions to defer reporting of losses and treat more instruments as capital. Accounting rules over supervisory [[Goodwill (accounting)|goodwill]] (a type of intangible asset) were also liberalized, making it easier for thrifts to purchase insolvent thrifts. Since this substituted for the normal cash injections from FSLIC due to the insurer's limited financial resources, this utilised such goodwill as essentially an accounting fiction. Such lenient accounting rules, however, also had the effect of preventing the FHLBB from intervening against thinly-capitalised institutions whose balance sheets were supported by intangibles.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|pp=173–77}} Policy responses chosen by the Reagan administration, and adopted by the FHLBB under pressure, also led to demands not to use taxpayer money. Along with political demands not to alarm the public by closing institutions, these constraints forced FHLBB into a policy of "hiding the poor condition of [thrifts] behind accounting gimmicks".{{sfn|Steinreich|Oglesby|2016|p=112}}{{sfn|Moysich|1997|pp=177, 187}}
The U.S. government agency [[Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation]] (FSLIC), which at the time insured S&L accounts in the same way the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]] insures commercial bank accounts, then had to repay all the depositors whose money was lost. From 1986 to 1989, FSLIC closed or otherwise resolved 296 institutions with total assets of $125 billion. An even more traumatic period followed, with the creation of the [[Resolution Trust Corporation]] in 1989 and that agency’s resolution by mid-1995 of an additional 747 thrifts. <ref>http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/banking/2000dec/brv13n2_2.pdf</ref>


By 1983, even though the interest rate environment had substantially eased, a tenth of thrifts were insolvent on a [[US GAAP|GAAP basis]], with those institutions controlling 35 percent of thrift industry assets. Even so, such institutions were allowed to continue operating and thereby exposed taxpayers to eventual losses through their failure and following deposit insurance claims.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|pp=180, 187, noting that this forbearance policy allowed thrifts "to substitute credit risk for interest-rate risk"}}
There also were state-chartered S&Ls that failed. Some state insurance funds failed, requiring state taxpayer bailouts.


=== Fraud ===
===Home State Savings Bank of Cincinnati===
Considerable attention has been placed on fraudulent practices at thrift institutions due to its involvement in high-profile failures. There were various means by which unscrupulous thrift officers could milking their institutions. They could, for example, extract compensation and other benefits from origination fees on low quality loans.{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=184}} Alternatively they could collude with developers to book paper profits that were extracted and eventually placed, when those putative profits were marked down, on the government or simply just pay themselves high compensation until the thrift became bankrupt before placing the responsibility for paying off depositors onto FSLIC.{{sfn|Akerlof|Romer|1993|pp=29–30)}}<ref>{{harvc |last=Mankiw |first=N. Gregory |c=Comments and discussion |page=66 |in1=Akerlof |in2=Romer |year=1993 }}</ref>
In March 1985, it came to public knowledge that the large [[Cincinnati, Ohio]]-based ''[[Home State Savings Bank]]'' was about to collapse. [[Ohio]] Gov. [[Dick Celeste]] declared a bank holiday in the state as ''Home State'' depositors lined up in a "run" on the bank's branches in order to withdraw their deposits. Celeste ordered the closure of all the state's S&Ls. Only those that were able to qualify for membership in the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]] were allowed to reopen.
<ref>[http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1636 Home State Savings Bank's Failure - Ohio History Central - A product of the Ohio Historical Society<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Claims by Ohio S&L depositors drained the state's deposit insurance funds. A similar event also took place in [[Maryland]].


However, such fraud was not the core reason for the crisis.{{sfn|White|1991|p=117, arguing "any treatment of the S&L debacle that focuses largely or exclusively on [fraud] is misguided and misleading" and that "it perpetuates the incorrect notion... that virtually all the thrift insolvencies were caused by 'crooks'... [and] also diverts attention from an understanding of how and why government policies went awry"}}{{sfn|Iden|Manchester|1992|p=xi. "Fraud was also a factor, but it was not a fundamental cause of the disaster"}}{{sfn|Moysich|1997|pp=184–85, noting "although the majority of S&Ls were not fraud-ridden, few had the management expertise necessary for dealing with the new lending opportunities... in many cases, prudent underwriting standards were not observed and the necessary documents and controls were not put in place"}}<ref>{{harvnb|Mason|2004}}:
===Lincoln Savings and Loan===
* p. 241, noting that "significantly, fraud was not a major cause of thrift failures despite its prominence in several high-profile insolvencies";
The [[Lincoln Savings and Loan Association|Lincoln Savings]] led to the [[Keating Five]] political scandal, in which five U.S. senators were implicated in an influence-peddling scheme. It was named for [[Charles Keating]], who headed Lincoln saving and made $300,000 as political contributions to them in the 1980s. Three of those senators - [[Alan Cranston]], [[Don Riegle]], and [[Dennis DeConcini]] - found their political careers cut short as a result. Two others - [[John Glenn]] and [[John McCain]] - were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.<ref name="az-keating">{{cite news |url=http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter7.html |title=John McCain Report: The Keating Five |author=Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller |publisher=[[The Arizona Republic]] |date=[[2007-03-01]] |accessdate=2007-11-23}}</ref>
* p. 258, noting that "many observers have incorrectly portrayed fraud as the leading cause of the S&L crisis".</ref>{{sfn|Bodie|2006|p=326, noting that "the biggest losses to the FSLIC were incurred not as a result of fraud or even of poorly diversified asset portfolios, but rather as a result of failure on the part of regulators to act quickly to stem the losses"}}{{sfn|Steinreich|Oglesby|2016|pp=96–99, passim}} Estimates of the number of failures that involve fraud or insider abuse ranges considerably due to the difficulty in detecting fraud and distinguishing it from bad business judgment. An [[Office of the Comptroller of the Currency]] study in 1988 indicated fraud in 11 percent of failures between 1979–87; a [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]] study in 25 percent of failures in 1989; a [[Resolution Trust Corporation]] study in 1992 found fraud in 33 percent of its cases; and a 1994 [[General Accounting Office]] study reported 26 percent of banks that failed in 1990–91 had issues with fraud.<ref>{{harvnb|Hanc|1997|p=34}}, citing:
* {{cite report |author=Office of the Comptroller of the Currency |title=Bank failure: an evaluation of the factors contributing to the failure of national banks |date=June 1988 |url=https://www.occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/banker-education/files/pub-bank-failure.pdf |ref=none }}
* {{cite report |author=General Accounting Office |title=Bank insider activities: insider problems and violations indicate broader management deficiencies |date=March 1994 |id=GAO/GGD-94-88 |url=https://www.gao.gov/assets/ggd-94-88.pdf |ref=none }}</ref> The most clear cases of fraud both within and without of the thrift system were concentrated in a few large institutions that had grown substantially and were alleged to have conspired to manipulate junk bond markets with thrift directors for personal gain.{{sfn|Akerlof|Romer|1993|pp=51–54}}


Regardless, there was fraud and insider abuse in many cases.{{sfn|White|1991|p=117. "''The bulk of the insolvent thrifts' problems... did not stem from [fraud]... these thrifts failed because of an amalgam of deliberately high-risk strategies, poor business judgments, ... and sloppy and careless underwriting, compounded by deteriorating real estate markets''" (emphasis in original)}}{{sfn|Hanc|1997|p=34, noting "it seems reasonable to infer that fraud and abuse not only were present in a large number of bank and thrift failures in the 1980–94 period but also contributed to some of them"}} The [[Crime Control Act of 1990]], after the crisis, established a [[special counsel]] to investigate and prosecute fraud in financial institutions. Between 1988 and 1992, the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] sent 1,706 bankers to prison and found guilty verdicts in 2,603 cases.<ref>{{cite report |author=General Accounting Office |title=Bank and thrift criminal fraud: the federal commitment could be broadened |id=GAO/GGD-93-48 |url=https://www.gao.gov/assets/ggd-93-48.pdf |date=January 8, 1993 |pages=4, 6, 77 (exact statistics)}}</ref> Expert estimates as of a [[Congressional Budget Office]] report in 1992 as to the proportion of losses due to fraud eventually borne by the government range from three to 25 percent,{{sfn|Iden|Manchester|1992|pp=11–12}} with a more narrow consensus estimate in the range 10–15 percent (corresponding to taxpayer losses of 16–24 billion dollars).{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=258}}
===Silverado Savings and Loan===
Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed in 1988, costing taxpayers $1.6 billion. [[Neil Bush]], son of then [[Vice President of the United States]] [[George H. W. Bush]], was Director of Silverado at the time. Neil Bush was accused of giving himself a loan from Silverado, but he denied all wrongdoing. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D61138F934A1575AC0A966958260]


== Thrift failures ==
The US Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado's failure and determined that Neil Bush had engaged in numerous "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]]; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement, as reported in the ''[[Washington Post]]'' <ref name="WP-12-28-03">Peter Carlson, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35297-2003Dec27?language=printer "The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush: Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother"], ''Washington Post", December 28, 2003</ref>.
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;"
|+Insolvent thrift institutions (1980–89){{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=168 (Table 4.1)}}
! Year
! # of thrifts
! # insolvent{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=168, noting that the number of insolvent thrifts is determined on a tangible capital to assets basis; this is not based on the FHLBB regulatory capital rules }}
! % insolvent<!-- WP:CALC -->
|-
|1980
|3,993
|43
|1.1%
|-
|1981
|3,751
|112
|3.0%
|-
|1982
|3,287
|415
|12.6%
|-
|1983
|3,146
|515
|16.4%
|-
|1984
|3,136
|695
|22.2%
|-
|1985
|3,246
|705
|21.7%
|-
|1986
|3,220
|672
|20.9%
|-
|1987
|3,147
|672
|21.4%
|-
|1988
|2,949
|508
|17.2%
|-
|1989
|2,878
|516
|17.9%
|}


Realisation of interest-rate risk in the early 1980s led to a short series of failures that impelled a deregulatory episode from 1980–81. The failure of Empire Savings and Loan in 1984 also drove the FHLBB to reverse course and tighten regulations on thrifts.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=226–27}} Such actions were too late, however, since the poor loans had already been made and were already on thrift balance sheets.{{sfn|White|1991|pp=125–26}}
As a director of a failing thrift, Bush voted to approve $100 million in what were ultimately bad loans to two of his business partners. And in voting for the loans, he failed to inform fellow board members at Silverado Savings & Loan that the loan applicants were his business partners. {{Fact|date=April 2008}}


The condition of the banking system as a whole was also not entirely solid. The rapidly changing legal environment, along with new financial technologies, also destabilised commercial banks.{{sfn|White|1991|p=107}} 1984 saw the largest commercial bank failure to date, that of [[Continental Illinois]], which was infamously branded "too big to fail".{{sfn|Davison|1997b|p=236}} The bank failed amid a rise in foreign non-performing loans (mostly in Latin America) and an electronic [[bank run]]. The FDIC stepped in to prevent the failure of almost 2,300 smaller banks which had their money in Continental and a general panic.{{sfn|Davison|1997b|pp=250–51}}
Silverado's collapse cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.


Moreover, even by 1983, FSLIC's reserves were clearly inadequate for the thrifts that had already by that time failed: with just a bit more than six billion dollars in reserve, outstanding claims by that point already totalled $25 billion.{{sfn|Robinson|2013}}
Neil Bush paid a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities for his role in taking down Silverado, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. A Resolution Trust Corporation Suit against Bush and other officers of Silverado was settled in 1991 for $26.5 million.


=== Intensification ===
A Republican fundraiser set up a fund to help defer costs Neil Bush incurred in his S&L dealings.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}
[[File:Total Savings & Loans Institutions in the United States.webp|thumb|Total Savings & Loans Institutions in the United States<ref>https://banks.data.fdic.gov/explore/historical/?displayFields=STNAME%2CCOUNT%2CASSET%2CDEP%2CEQNM%2CNETINC&selectedEndDate=2023&selectedReport=SIF&selectedStartDate=1934&selectedStates=0&sortField=YEAR&sortOrder=desc</ref>]]
Losses reported by thrifts through to 1985 were mostly deferred due to the lax accounting rules in place and covered by positive real estate values in the southwestern United States.{{sfn|White|1991|p=99}} The first major thrifts to go were in Ohio and Maryland in 1985. That March, [[Home State Savings Bank]] of [[Cincinnati]], Ohio collapsed after a depositor run triggered by news that it had lost $540 million in a securities scam. Not insured by the federal government via FSLIC, it was instead insured by a [[Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund|private state insurance program]]. This program became promptly insolvent and the governor, [[Richard F. Celeste]], ordered the first bank holiday since the [[Great Depression]].{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=227–28}} In Maryland, that May, [[Old Court Savings and Loans]] similarly failed. The panic also spread across Maryland thrifts, which also insured by their state and not the federal government. The governor, [[Harry R. Hughes]], capped deposit withdrawals; by June, the Maryland legislature ordered all state-insured thrifts either to become FSLIC members or liquidate in six months. The thrift failures in Ohio and Maryland cost those states' taxpayers some 250 million dollars.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=228}}


A sharp regional recession in the southwestern United States and Texas, caused by a drop in oil prices, caused a fall in the value of commercial real estate in those areas. Thrifts in those states, highly exposed to local commercial real estate prices through their heavy aggressive lending activities, quickly became insolvent.{{sfnm|Sharma|2022|1p=40|Mason|2004|2pp=228–29}} Pressure compounded on banks due to follow-on real estate effects and an [[1980s farm crisisagricultural recession]] in Great Plains states.{{sfn|Hanc|1997|p=16}} The elimination of favorable tax treatment for real estate construction in the [[Tax Reform Act of 1986]] also contributed to a slowdown in constructing lending and lowered real estate values.{{sfnm|Mason|2004|1p=229|White|1991|2p=109}}
== Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989==
As a result, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 ([[FIRREA]]) dramatically changed the savings and loan industry and its federal regulation. Here are the highlights of this legislation, signed into law [[August 9]], [[1989]] <ref name="FIRREA">{{cite book |author= |title= FIRREA — It's Not a New Sports Car|publisher= The Credit World |location=|year= September-October 1989 |pages=20 |isbn= |oclc= |doi=}}</ref>:


=== FSLIC recapitalization ===
# The [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] (FHLBB) and the [[Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation]] (FSLIC) were abolished.
{| class="wikitable floatright"
# The [[Office of Thrift Supervision]] (OTS), a bureau of the [[Treasury Department]], was created to charter, regulate, examine, and supervise savings institutions.
|+FSLIC reserves (1980–89){{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=168 (Table 4.1)}}
# The [[Federal Housing Finance Board]] (FHFB) was created as an independent agency to oversee the 12 federal home loan banks (also called district banks).
! Year
# The [[Savings Association Insurance Fund]] (SAIF) replaced the FSLIC as an ongoing insurance fund for thrift institutions (like the FDIC, the FSLIC was a permanent corporation that insured savings and loan accounts up to $100,000). SAIF is administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
! Reserves{{br}}(billions $)
# The [[Resolution Trust Corporation]] (RTC) was established to dispose of failed thrift institutions taken over by regulators after [[January 1]], [[1989]]. The RTC will make insured deposits at those institutions available to their customers.
|-
# FIRREA gives both [[Freddie Mac]] and [[Fannie Mae]] additional responsibility to support mortgages for low- and moderate-income families.
| 1980
| 6.5
|-
| 1981
| 6.2
|-
| 1982
| 6.3
|-
| 1983
| 6.4
|-
| 1984
| 5.6
|-
| 1985
| 4.6
|-
| 1986
| –6.3
|-
| 1987
| –13.7
|-
| 1988
| –75.0
|-
| 1989
| Dissolved
|}
[[File:Edwin J Gray, House Banking Committee (1989-11-07).jpg|thumb|left|Edwin J. Gray, shown in CSPAN footage from November 1989, was FHLBB chairman until July 1987.]]
[[File:M Danny Wall, Senate Appropriations Subcmte, 1988-04-25.jpg|thumb|left|Gray was succeeded by M. Danny Wall, shown in CSPAN footage from April 1988.]]


The failures in 1985–86 were extremely expensive for FSLIC. Resolving those failures cost $7.4 billion in 1985 and $9.1 billion in 1986. This brought the FSLIC reserve fund to less than $2 billion on the eve of 1987. Compounding this, the size of the thrift industry had expanded considerably, meaning that the money in that reserve fund was spread thin.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=230}}{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=168 (Table 4.1), instead reporting that on the eve of 1987, FSLIC had reserves of –6.3 billion dollars}} FSLIC's immediate response to raise revenue by increasing deposit insurance premia.{{sfn|White|1991|p=126, noting that FSLIC increased premia by 150 percent}} It also sought to restrict thrift taking of brokered deposits, which it viewed as fuelling thrift growth. However, those regulations were stuck down by a federal court and may regardless have done little to enforce asset quality.<ref>{{harvnb|White|1991|pp=126–28}}, rejecting the argument that brokered deposits cause risk taking as a reversal of causality and, for the court, citing {{cite court |vol=595 |reporter=F. Supp. |pinpoint=73 |year=1984 |court=D.D.C. |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/595/73/1682898/ }}</ref> Further regulations in 1984–85 attempted to slow the growth of thrift institutions and change the calculation of regulatory capital to better match current conditions; regulatory personnel were also taken on to examine banks for compliance with these regulations.{{sfn|White|1991|p=129}}
==Consequences==


Credit losses, however, came too quickly for this re-regulatory push to have much impact.{{sfn|White|1991|p=133}} With insufficient resources to handle those losses, FSLIC's sought to defer sale of institutions and assets so that they could be handled with the limited resources on hand.{{sfnm|Mason|2004|1p=230|White|1991|2p=134}} The Reagan administration recognized by April 1986 that FSLIC was itself approaching insolvency; it asked Congress for $15 billion to pay for FSLIC costs through bonds sold against future FSLIC premia. Little was done on the matter and the issue of insolvency was played down to avoid alarm and unfavorable press.{{sfn|White|1991|pp=137–38, 140 ("officials were in a bind[:] excessively loud entreaties to the Congress that the FSLIC was broke might cause depository nervousness and runs, while still not springing loose the bill – the worst of all possible worlds")}} By January 1987, the problems were of such magnitude that it was the first piece of business in the new session. However, specifics of the funding bill were harshly debated. The thrift industry group, supported by [[Speaker of the House of Representatives (United States)|House Speaker]] [[Jim Wright]], insisted on less than $7.5 billion and compulsory regulatory forbearance. While the administration resented the inclusion of regulatory forbearance, public news of FSLIC's impending (or already actual) insolvency in a GAO report led the administration to accept regulatory forbearance for more money. The resulting Competitive Equality Banking Act was signed on August 11, 1987, giving FSLIC $10.8 billion through sale of bonds via an [[Financing Corporation|off-balance sheet government entity]].{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=232–33}}{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=186, noting the amount in the Competitive Equality Banking Act was "clearly inadequate"}} It also required thrift supervisors not to close thrifts that had equity ratios of more than 0.5 percent which met rather lax business viability criteria.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=233}}
While not part of the Savings and Loan Crisis, many other banks failed. Between 1980 and 1994 more than 1,600 banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were closed or received FDIC financial assistance. <ref>http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/3_85.pdf</ref>


The effect of the 1987 act was that risky institutions were unrestrained in their risk-taking behaviors. They then attempted to "gamble for resurrection",<ref>E.g. {{Cite speech |last=Bernanke |first=Ben |title=Financial Regulation and the Invisible Hand |date=April 11, 2007 |location=New York University Law School |url=https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20070411a.htm |quote=Equity holders may 'gamble for resurrection' by encouraging rather than discouraging excessive risk-taking. Thus, as was evident in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, market discipline by equity holders may break down when it is most needed. }}</ref> hoping that even riskier lending would allow them to get sufficient profits to stave off bankruptcy. The effect of assistance also engendered moral hazard, where owners could accrue profits from risky loans but place losses at the feet of taxpayers.{{sfn|Sharma|2022|p=41}}
During the [[Savings and Loan Crisis]], from 1986 to 1995, the number of US federally insured savings and loans in the United States declined from 3,234 to 1,645. <ref>http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/banking/2000dec/brv13n2_2.pdf</ref>
This was primarily, but not exclusively, due to unsound real estate lending.<ref>http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/vol2/panel3.pdf</ref>


At the end of 1988, 2,969 thrifts remained active. This was over three hundred less than in 1985 and over a thousand less than in 1980. These failures were highly geographically concentrated: a third of the failures from 1985 forward occurred in just three states: California, Texas, and Florida;{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=239–40}} Texas accounted for 40 percent of thrift failures in the worst year of the crisis, 1988.{{sfn|Robinson|2013}} Faced with so man institutions, FHLBB, under its new chairman [[M. Danny Wall]], attempted to sell off hundreds of insolvent thrifts in receivership. These sales could only be accomplished with substantial government support and although it allowed FSLIC to dispose of almost 200 thrifts by the end of 1988, some 250 insolvent institutions with $81 billion in assets remained.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=235–36}}<ref>See {{harvnb|White|1991|pp=152–60}}, for description of the Texan thrift sale strategy and structure of thrift sales.</ref>
The market share of S&Ls for single family mortgage loans went from 53% in 1975 to 30% in 1990.<ref>{{cite news |title= Housing Finance in Developed Countries An International Comparison of Efficiency, United States|url=http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/jhr/pdf/jhr_0301_ch6_USA.pdf | date=1992 |publisher= Fannie Mae}}</ref> U.S. General Accounting Office estimated cost of the crisis to around USD $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government from 1986 to 1996. <ref>{{cite news | title= Financial Audit: Resolution Trust Corporation's 1995 and 1994 Financial Statements |
url=http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/ai96123.pdf | date=July 1996 |
|publisher = U.S. General Accounting Office}}</ref> That figure does not include thrift insurance funds used before 1986 or after 1996. It also does not include state run thrift insurance funds or state bailouts.


=== FIRREA and the RTC ===
The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic recession. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of new homes constructed dropped from 1.8 to 1 million, the lowest rate since World War II.
[[File:Federal Home Loan Bank Board members, 1988.png|thumb|right|The final members of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, pictured in its 1988 annual report. The chairman M. Danny Wall, in center, became the first director of the Office of Thrift Supervision pursuant to FIRREA.]]
<ref>{{cite news |title= Housing Finance in Developed Countries An International Comparison of Efficiency, United States|url=http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/jhr/pdf/jhr_0301_ch6_USA.pdf | date=1992 |publisher= Fannie Mae}}</ref>
{{see|Resolution Trust Corporation}}


The number of banks that were formally insolvent under FHLBB regulatory guidelines at the end of 1988 was 250, however, the number insolvent after excluding intangible assets more than doubled to 508. These insolvent thrifts continued to lose money rapidly. Moreover, FSLIC at the same time was itself insolvent.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=241–42}} The new president, [[George H. W. Bush]], announced a proposal on February 6, 1989, to resolve the thrift failures.{{sfnm|Mason|2004|1p=242|Moysich|1997|2p=186}} The plan included three major elements: a temporary agency would be created with 50 billion dollars in funding to liquidate the insolvent thrift institutions with that money being raised via [[Resolution Funding Corporation|another off-balance sheet vehicle]] paid for by higher insurance premia on the thrift industry; the FHLBB and FSLIC would be dissolved, with supervisory powers devolving to the incipient [[Office of Thrift Supervision]] within the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]] and the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation|FDIC]]; regulations would be tightened as well, with regulatory capital no longer including intangibles such as goodwill and doubled to six percent within two years.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=242}} On August 9, 1989, the proposals brought by Bush were passed essentially unchanged as the [[Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989]] into law.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=244}} Many other regulatory provisions were also included, such as risk-based capital applied to thrifts, re-imposition of restrictions on thrifts' non-residential mortgage portfolios, and funding for financial crimes prosecutions.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=246–47}}
A taxpayer funded government bailout related to mortgages during the Savings and Loan crisis may have created a [[moral hazard]] and acted as encouragement to lenders to make similar higher risk loans during the [[2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis]]. <ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16734629| title=Subprime Bailout: Good Idea or 'Moral Hazard|first=Eric |last=Weiner|date=November 29, 2007 |publisher=NPR.org}}</ref>

The [[Resolution Trust Corporation]], created by the act, sold or liquidated all remaining thrifts. Those institutions remained for the time being in operation under [[conservatorship]]. The RTC was also given generous amounts of time to sell assets in small tranches: buyers were more willing to purchase smaller portions and the RTC was also able to assess and market its assets.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=248}} The closure of FSLIC and the creation of RTC only to sell or liquidate insolvent institutions also forced thrift owners to take fewer risks since they knew that assistance would no longer be forthcoming.{{sfn|Sharma|2022|pp=45–46}} In 1989 the RTC disposed of 37 thrifts at a cost of $51 billion, which came under fire from congressional leadership. The next year, 1990, saw the sale of 315 institutions at a cost of $20 billion. Congress, although criticizing the RTC for its ballooning staff, appropriated an additional $30 billion in March 1991.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=251–52, noting the RTC Funding Act, {{uspl|102|18}}}} Late in that year, many of the assets bundled into mortgage-backed and commercial-paper backed securities.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=252–53}} Amid a funding deficiency, the RTC was forced to shut down operations in 1991, but after new appropriations in 1993, the RTC was wound down by year-end 1996. Overall, it recovered 78 percent of the book value of all assets and disposed of 747 thrift institutions with $402.6 billion in assets.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=253–54}}

== Scandals ==
[[File:Charles Keating, House Banking Committee, 25 Nov 1989.jpg|thumb|[[Charles Keating]], director of the [[Lincoln Savings and Loan Association]], being sworn in before the [[House Banking Committee]] to testify on the failure of that institution. CSPAN, November 25, 1989.]]

A number of high-profile thrift failures and scandals also emerged from the crisis. Notable institutions included:
* Lamar Savings and Loan (Austin, TX), led by Stanley Adams, which cost $2 billion to resolve;
* Vernon Savings and Loan (Dallas, TX), led by Don Dixon, which on resolution had 94 percent of loans non-performing; and
* Columbia Savings and Loan (Beverly Hills, CA), led by Thomas Spiegel, was closed in January 1991 at the cost of $3.25 billion.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=237}}

Especially publicized was the insolvency of [[Lincoln Savings and Loan Association]], led by influential Republican donor and political figure [[Charles Keating]]. Between 1984 and 1989 it grew five-fold, investing mainly in commercial property and equities. After supervisors recommended the thrift be seized for criminal fraud in 1987, Keating leaned on senators [[Dennis DeConcini]] (D-AZ), [[John McCain]] (R-AZ), [[Alan Cranston]] (D-CA), [[John Glenn]] (D-OH), and [[Donald Riegle]] (D-MI) to curtail the investigation. When it became known that the five men, later dubbed the [[Keating Five]], had received $1.3 million in campaign contributions, they became embroiled in a congressional ethics investigation. Eventually, the matter was dropped by the new FHLBB chairman, Danny Wall, who later resigned in December 1989 for failure to take action against Lincoln, which failed that year at a cost of $2.6 billion.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=238}} Keating was eventually prosecuted and convicted, but the convictions were overturned due to incorrect jury instructions and, later, a poisoned jury. Eventually, in 1999, he pled guilty and was sentenced to time served.<ref>{{cite book |last=McCarthy |first=Donald |chapter=Lincoln Savings: a Coda |date=2004 |title=The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regulatory Failure |series=The Milken Institute Series on Financial Innovation and Economic Growth |volume=5 |pages=173–178 |editor-last=Barth |editor-first=James R |editor2-last=Trimbath |editor2-first=Susanne |editor3-last=Yago |editor3-first=Glenn |doi=10.1007/1-4020-7898-6_10 |isbn=978-1-4020-7871-2 |publisher=Milken Institute }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=McFadden |first=Robert D |title=Charles Keating, 90, Key Figure in '80s Savings and Loan Crisis, Dies |work=New York Times |date=April 2, 2014 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/business/charles-keating-key-figure-in-the-1980s-savings-and-loan-crisis-dies-at-90.html }}</ref>

Other figures were similarly drawn in to allegations of fraud and corruption. [[Neil Bush]], the son of then-vice president George H. W. Bush, was hauled before Congress and sued by the FDIC for his involvement in Silverado Savings and Loan (Denver, CO), which failed in December 1989.<ref>See eg:
* {{cite news |last=Labaton |first=Stephen |date=September 22, 1990 |title=F.D.I.C. Sues Neil Bush And Others at Silverado |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/22/business/fdic-sues-neil-bush-and-others-at-silverado.html |newspaper=New York Times |ref=none }}
* {{cite news |last=Larosa |first=Michael |title=A tale of two presidential sons |date=August 25, 2023 |newspaper=The Hill |url=https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4170213-a-tale-of-two-presidential-sons/ |ref=none }}</ref>

== Consequences ==

Thrifts were not the only financial institutions adversely affected in the 1980s. Many banks failed as well. Between 1980 and 1994, 1,617 commercial banks failed (9.14 percent of all banks) with total assets of $206 billion.{{sfn|Hanc|1997|pp=3, 14–15 (Table 1.1)}} However, the overlapping regional banking crises in the 1980s were far less severe on the commercial banking side because the FDIC remained solvent. Moreover, the federal commercial bank regulators were more proactive in their approaches to limit growth and enforce capital requirements;{{sfn|Moysich|1997|p=187}} the FDIC's financial solvency meant, unlike FSLIC, a policy of regulatory forbearance was not forced on it by circumstance.{{sfn|Hanc|1997|p=47}}

In just the years 1986 to 1995, the number of federally insured thrifts about halved from 3,234 to 1,645.{{sfn|Curry|Shibut|2000|p=26}} 1,043 thrifts failed with total assets of over $519 billion.{{sfn|Curry|Shibut|2000|pp=26, 27 (Table 1)<!-- WP:CALC -->}} Congress ultimately appropriated $105 billion to the Resolution Trust Corporation, though only $91.3 billion were ever used. After banks repaid loans through various procedures, by the end of 1999, taxpayers suffered combined FSLIC and RTC expenses of $123.8 billion with an additional $29.1 billion (approximately 19 percent) of losses imposed onto the thrift industry.{{sfn|Curry|Shibut|2000|pp=29, 33}} Approximately $60 billion of those losses were attributable to regulatory forbearance as required by the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=260}}

The higher insurance premia along with regulatory burdens, without concomitant legal powers, that were enacted by FIRREA led to progressive exits from the thrift industry over the 1990s as thrifts re-chartered themselves as commercial banks.{{sfn|Mason|2004|pp=261–62}}{{sfn|Davison|1997a|pp=133–34}} Changes in thrift powers also meant that they lost their distinctiveness vis-à-vis commercial banks: between 1980 and 1995 the share of 1–4 family mortgages originated by thrift institutions fell from 47 percent to 15.{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=263}} In the aftermath of the crisis, even the words "savings and loan" became less common as thrift institutions renamed themselves merely as "bank" or "savings bank".{{sfn|Mason|2004|p=264}}

Bank regulators' powers were also strengthened. The [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991|FDIC Improvement Act of 1991]] expanded federal banking agencies' examination authority, requiring annual inspections and sufficient examination staff for those inspections. Moreover, the agencies received [[Prompt Corrective Action|prompt corrective action]] powers to compel banks to recapitalize when falling below certain capital thresholds. Such orders were also backed up by further powers to suspend banks' legal authority to do certain types of business, to ban fragile banks from paying out dividends, or to replace bank directors.{{sfn|FDIC|2017|pp=103, 127}} Furthermore, restrictions were also imposed on how long banks could stay open while below minimum regulatory capital requirements, putting a "hard stop" of 90 days after which a bank must be placed into receivership.{{sfn|FDIC|2017|p=186}} Public awareness of the problems of a lack of geographic diversification enforced by law also may have played a role in the passage of the [[Riegle–Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994]], which lifted historical restrictions on banks operating across state lines.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kroszner |first=Randall S |year=2001 |title=The motivations behind banking reform |journal=Regulation |publisher=Cato Institute |volume=24 |pages=41 |url=https://ssrn.com/abstract=272796 |ref=none }} See also {{cite journal |last=Kane |first=Edward J. |year=1996 |title=De jure interstate banking: Why only now? |journal=Journal of Money, Credit and Banking |volume=28 |issue=2 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=7304 |jstor=2078020 |page=142 |doi=10.2307/2078020 |ref=none }}</ref>


==See also==
==See also==
{{Portal|1980s|1990s|Money}}
*[[Fractional-reserve banking]]
* [[Financial crisis]]
*[[Resolution Trust Corporation]]
* [[List of largest bank failures in the United States]]
*[[Tax Reform Act of 1986]]
* [[Subprime mortgage crisis]]
*''[[Cottage Savings Association v. Commissioner]]'', a [[United States Supreme Court]] case dealing with the [[tax]] consequences of the S&L crisis
* ''[[Cottage Savings Ass'n v. Commissioner]]'', a [[United States Supreme Court]] case dealing with the [[tax]] consequences of the S&L crisis
* ''[[United States v. Winstar Corp.]]'', a U.S. Supreme Court case that gives a concise but useful history of the crisis and the accounting practices that aggravated that crisis

== Citations ==
{{Reflist|20em}}


==Notes==
== References ==
=== Books ===
{{reflist|2}}
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |author=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |title=An Examination of the Banking Crises of the 1980s and Early 1990s |series=History of the Eighties |volume=1 |year=1997 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |isbn=0-9661808-0-1 |lccn=97-77644 |url=https://www.fdic.gov/publications/history-eighties-lessons-future-volume-1 }}
* {{cite book |author=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |title=Crisis and response: an FDIC history, 2008–2013 |url=https://www.fdic.gov/publications/crisis-and-response-fdic-history-2008-2013 |isbn=978-0-9661808-1-7 |year=2017 |publisher=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |ref={{harvid|FDIC|2017}} }}
* {{cite book |last=Mason |first=David L. |year=2004 |title=From buildings and loans to bail-outs: a history of the American savings and loan industry, 1831–1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-82754-X |lccn=2003069691 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511511714 }}
* {{cite book |last=White |first=Lawrence J. |title=The S&L Debacle: Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Regulation |year=1991 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-19-506733-9 }}
{{refend}}


=== Articles and chapters ===
==References==
{{refbegin|30em}}
*"The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One," by William K. Black (University of Texas Press, 2005)
* {{cite journal |last1=Akerlof |first1=G. A |author-link=George Akerlof |last2=Romer |first2=P. M. |author-link2=Paul Romer |year=1993 |title=Looting: the economic underworld of bankruptcy for profit |journal=Brookings Papers on Economic Activity |volume=1993 |issue=2 |url=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/1993/06/1993b_bpea_akerlof_romer_hall_mankiw.pdf |pages=1–73 |doi=10.2307/2534564 |jstor=2534564 }}
*''Inside Job'', by Steven Pizzo, Mary Fricker, and Paul Muolo. ISBN 0-07-050230-7
* {{cite journal |last=Bodie |first=Zvi |title=On asset-liability matching and federal deposit and pension insurance |journal=Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review |issue=4 |volume=88 |year=2006 |pages=323–29 |url=https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbslreview/rev_stls_2006_v88_no4.pdf}}
*"The S&L Debacle: Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Regulation," by Lawrence White(1991)
* {{cite journal |last1=Curry |first1=Timothy |last2=Shibut |first2=Lynn |title=The cost of the Savings and Loan Crisis: truth and consequences |journal=FDIC Banking Review |volume=13 |issue=2 |year=2000 |pages=26–35 |url=https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/archived-research/banking-review/br2000v13n2.pdf }}
*"High Rollers: Inside the Savings and Loan Debacle" by Michael Lowy(1991)
* {{harvc |last=Davison |first=Lee |c=Banking legislation and regulation |in=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |year=1997 |anchor-year=1997a |pages=87–135 }}
*United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U.S. 839(1996), a US Supreme Court case to be found on FindLaw.com that gives a concise but useful history of the crisis and the accounting practices that aggravated that crisis.
* {{harvc |last=Davison |first=Lee |c=Continental Illinois and "too big to fail" |in=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |year=1997 |anchor-year=1997b |pages=235–57 }}
*"Legal Scholars Clash Over Neil Bush Actions" by Martin Tolchin. The New York Times, September 27, 1990.
* {{cite web |author=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |title=The S&L crisis: a chrono-bibliography |url=https://www.fdic.gov/publications/sl-crisis-chrono-bibliography |website=FDIC.gov |access-date=November 5, 2024 |date=June 12, 2023<!-- last updated date at bottom, as of 2024-11-05 --> }}
*"The Greatest Ever Bank Robbery : The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry", by Martin Mayer(1992)
* {{harvc |last1=Freund |first1=James |last2=Curry |first2=Timothy |last3=Hirsch |first3=Peter |last4=Kelley |first4=Theodore |c= Commercial real estate and the banking crises of the 1980s and early 1990s |in=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |year=1997 |pages=137–65 |id={{harvid|Freund et al.|1997}} }}
*"Overdrawn: The Bailout of American Savings", by Michael A. Robinson(1990)
* {{harvc |last=Hanc |first=George |c=The banking crises of the 1980s and early 1990s: summary and implications |in=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |year=1997 |pages=3–86 }}
* {{cite web |last1=Iden |first1=George |last2=Manchester |first2=Joyce |title=The Economic Effects of the Savings & Loan Crisis |date=January 1992 |url=https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/102nd-congress-1991-1992/reports/1992_01_theeconeffectsofthesavings.pdf |publisher=Congressional Budget Office }}
* {{harvc |last=Moysich |first=Alane |c=The Savings and Loan Crisis and its relationship to banking |in=Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation |year=1997 |pages=167–188 }}
* {{cite web |last=Robinson |first=Kenneth |title=Savings and Loan Crisis |url=https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/savings-and-loan-crisis |website=Federal Reserve History |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis |date=November 22, 2013 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Sharma |first=Padma |title=Government assistance and moral hazard: evidence from the Savings and Loan Crisis |journal=Economic Review |volume=107 |issue=3 |year=2022 |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City |url=https://www.kansascityfed.org/Economic%20Review/documents/8961/EconomicReviewV107N3Sharma.pdf |pages=37–53 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Steinreich |first1=Dale |last2=Oglesby |first2=Rodney A. |year=2016 |title=The savings and loan debacle twenty-five years later: a critical appraisal, interest-group theory re-examination, and final closing of the book |url=https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JAF/article/view/1023 |journal=Journal of Accounting & Finance |issue=3 |pages=96–115 }}
{{refend}}


==External links==
==External links==
{{External media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?15114-1/greatestever-bank-robbery ''Booknotes'' interview with Martin Mayer on ''The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery: The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry'', November 25, 1990], [[C-SPAN]]}}
*[http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/s&l/ FDIC: The S&L Crisis: A Chrono-Bibliography]
* [http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/scandals/classic2.html#thrifts Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals]
*[http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/banking/2000dec/brv13n2_2.pdf The Cost of Savings & Loan Crisis: Truth & Consequences]
* [http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2007/1107black.html (Mis)Understanding a Banking Industry in Transition] by [[William K. Black]], from [[Dollars & Sense]] Nov/Dec 2007
*[http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/scandals/classic2.html#thrifts Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals]


[[Category:Savings and Loan Crisis| ]]
{{Savings and loan crisis}}
{{Financial crises}}
[[Category:Economic disasters in the United States]]
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Financial crises]]
[[Category:Financial services]]
[[Category:Financial institutions]]
[[Category:Mutual organizations]]


{{DEFAULTSORT:Savings And Loan Crisis}}
[[de:Sparkassenkrise]]
[[Category:Savings and loan crisis| ]]
[[Category:Economic crises in the United States]]
[[Category:Financial services in the United States]]
[[Category:Mutual savings banks in the United States|*]]
[[Category:Presidency of Ronald Reagan]]
[[Category:Presidency of George H. W. Bush]]
[[Category:Reagan administration controversies]]
[[Category:George H. W. Bush administration controversies]]
[[Category:1980s in economic history]]
[[Category:1990s in economic history]]

Latest revision as of 20:27, 3 December 2024

This building at 1700 G St NW in Washington, DC, now occupied by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, housed the Federal Home Loan Bank Board from the 1970s onward. It was built in 1976.
Mortgages and interest rates
  30 year fixed rate mortgage
  15 year fixed rate mortgage
  5/1 adjustable rate mortgage
  10 year treasury yield
  Inflation Consumer price index

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly dubbed the S&L crisis) was the failure of approximately a third of the savings and loan associations (S&Ls or thrifts) in the United States between 1986 and 1995. These thrifts were banks that historically specialized in fixed-rate mortgage lending.[1] The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) closed or otherwise resolved 296 thrifts from 1986 to 1989, whereupon the newly established Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) took up these responsibilities. The two agencies closed 1,043 banks that held $519 billion in assets. The total cost of taxpayers by the end of 1999 was $123.8 billion with an additional $29.1 billion of losses imposed onto the thrift industry.[2]

Starting in 1979 and through the early 1980s, the Federal Reserve sharply increased interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation. At that time, thrifts had issued long-term loans at fixed interest rates that were lower than prevailing deposit rates. Attempts to attract more deposits by offering higher interest rates led to liabilities that could not be paid-for by the lower interest rates at which they had loaned money. Nor could outflowing deposits simply be paid out by sale of now less-valuable assets. The end result was that about one third of S&Ls became insolvent, causing a first wave of failures in 1981–83.

When the problem became apparent, Congress acted to permit thrifts to engage in new lending activities with the hope that they would diversify and become more profitable. This included issuance of adjustable-rate mortgages and permission to enter into commercial real estate lending. Lower capital requirements and permissive accounting standards also allowed weaker thrifts to continue operating even though under the old rules or US GAAP they would have been insolvent. These changes allowed for substantial risk-taking and thrift industry growth. Many new thrifts were formed in the American southwest and levered themselves to substantial size rapidly. The regional concentration of thrift investments there, along with thrifts' inexperience in the new types of lending they had entered, proved highly fragile. When property prices in those regions dropped in 1986, a second and larger wave of failures started.

The thrift deposit insurer, FSLIC, was unable to pay for all these failures and became insolvent. FSLIC's financial weakness, along with congressional pressure, also forced regulators to engage in regulatory forbearance. This allowed insolvent thrifts to remain open and tied FSLIC to capital injections. Attempts to recapitalize FSLIC arrived both too late and in insufficient amounts. Failures continued to mount through 1988 and by February 1989, congressional legislation – the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 – was brought to establish the Resolution Trust Corporation to wind down all remaining insolvent thrifts. The law also brought more stringent capital regulations for thrifts and an increase in supervisory resources. Responsibility for thrift supervision and thrift deposit insurance were also transferred, respectively, to the then-new Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Causes

[edit]

Thrift institutions originated in the 19th century with the goal of pooling resources among members to make loans with which to purchase residential properties.[1] The industry grew rapidly at over 10% annually in the postwar period amid government support for home financing.[3] At the time, thrifts were regulated by two – or three, if state regulators are included, – institutions. Examinations were conducted by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB); but supervisory authority was separate and resided in regional Federal Home Loan Banks.[4] Conflict of interest concerns also existed in the privately-owned home loan banks, leading to poor working relationships between federal employee examiners and the private supervisors. Delays between examinations and their reports arriving to supervisors also meant that supervisory action, if it were to be taken, would be months late.[5] Weak enforcement powers, along with thrifts' rights to contest unfavourable reports, meant the Federal Home Loan Bank Board was highly deferential to bank management.[6]

Interest rate increases

[edit]

The early 1980s saw a recession along with high interest rates, which stressed both thrift and other banking institutions considerably.[7] Negative net interest margins, due to the low interest earned on assets with high deposit interest expenses needed to retain deposits, caused a wave of thrift failures between 1981 and 1983.[1] Federal regulations, especially Regulation Q, placed caps on deposit interest rates. Depositors responded by withdrawing their cash and depositing them in money market mutual funds. In response to these outflows, Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 which phased out Regulation Q interest rate caps and expanded thrift lending powers to include construction loans. The deposit insurance limit was also raised from 40,000 to 100,000 dollars per account.[8] The phase-out of deposit interest rate caps, however, caused thrifts' deposit interest expenses to increase substantially as they scrambled to retain depositors. The resulting decline in profitability led to a wave of thrift failures in 1981–83.[9]

Many of these failures were outside of their managers' control. The high and volatile interest rates in the early 1980s meant that even thrifts with diversified residential mortgage portfolios, constrained by existing price caps, became unable to meet their obligations.[10] The historical institutional characteristics of thrift institutions – low loss rates accompanied by low earnings and capital – were stable but severely challenged by these market conditions.[11]

Deregulation and commercial lending

[edit]
Thrift examination activities[12]
Year Exams per thrift Exams per asset (billions)
1980 0.80 5.41
1981 0.85 4.96
1982 0.85 4.08
1983 0.68 2.62
1984 0.75 2.40
Federal Home Loan Bank Board members, pictured in the Board's 1985 annual report. From left to right, Donald I. Hovde, Edwin J. Gray (chairman), and Mary A. Grigsby.

The 1981 Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act completed a process of deregulation that provided relief to weak thrifts by allowing their deposit insurer, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), to provide direct capital injections through "net worth certificates".[13] The Garn–St. Germain Act also hugely expanded thrift lending powers, allowing them to engage in commercial real estate and line-of-credit lending, which many thrifts eagerly exploited.[14] Between 1980 and 1986, thrifts' residential mortgage holdings as a proportion of assets fell from over 80 percent to less than 60.[15]

These new lending powers were not accompanied by any increase in supervisory resources or powers.[16][17] The view at the time was that the interest rate environment would quickly ease, allowing for thrifts to restructure their asset portfolios,[18] and that expanded lending powers would allow for thrifts to diversify their portfolios and engage in more profitable lending activities.[13] It was expected that thrifts would continue being the relatively docile institutions they had then always been and diversify their portfolios prudently; few believed at the time that these deregulatory episodes would allow thrifts engage in excessively risky lending.[19]

Many of the loans made under expanded lending powers were concentrated in rapidly-growing states such as California, Florida, and Texas.[20] Lax state supervision and highly permissive leverage restraints allowed thrifts in these states to expand rapidly, taking on considerable risk concentrated in these business lines and geographic regions.[21] The highly-sensitive nature of commercial real estate values to local economic conditions made these thrifts highly sensitive to those local economic conditions.[22] These issues were compounded by the relative inexperience of thrift staff in evaluating risks of commercial lending and equity investments.[23]

The deregulatory policy of the Reagan administration, enforced by its appointment of thrift executive Edwin J. Gray, reduced thrift examinations between 1981 and 1984 by 26 percent.[24] Normalized per institution or by assets held, FSLIC-insured institutions' supervisory resources were stretched.[25] However, Gray's position reversed after the fraud-induced failure of Texas-based Empire Savings and Loan: he spent the next two years increasing examination resources and tightening financial regulations. Such efforts were, however, not supported by industry groups or the Reagan administration.[26]

Forbearance

[edit]
FLHBB was headquartered in this building at 1700 G St NW in Washington DC, here depicted in a photograph on the cover of the December 1984 issue of the FHLBB Journal.

Attempts to smooth over rough market environments included considerable regulatory forbearance: when a regulator decides not to apply regulations that normally would disrupt the operation of a bank. The FHLBB therefore progressively lowered net worth requirements from five percent in 1980 to three percent in 1982.[18] Lax phase-in rules also meant that many newer savings and loan institutions could be required to have net worth requirements lower than three percent; in fact, new institutions could be levered from two million dollars in capital to $1.3 billion in assets (a multiple of 650) in about a year.[18]

FHLBB also chose to adopt regulatory accounting principles which allowed institutions to defer reporting of losses and treat more instruments as capital. Accounting rules over supervisory goodwill (a type of intangible asset) were also liberalized, making it easier for thrifts to purchase insolvent thrifts. Since this substituted for the normal cash injections from FSLIC due to the insurer's limited financial resources, this utilised such goodwill as essentially an accounting fiction. Such lenient accounting rules, however, also had the effect of preventing the FHLBB from intervening against thinly-capitalised institutions whose balance sheets were supported by intangibles.[27] Policy responses chosen by the Reagan administration, and adopted by the FHLBB under pressure, also led to demands not to use taxpayer money. Along with political demands not to alarm the public by closing institutions, these constraints forced FHLBB into a policy of "hiding the poor condition of [thrifts] behind accounting gimmicks".[28][29]

By 1983, even though the interest rate environment had substantially eased, a tenth of thrifts were insolvent on a GAAP basis, with those institutions controlling 35 percent of thrift industry assets. Even so, such institutions were allowed to continue operating and thereby exposed taxpayers to eventual losses through their failure and following deposit insurance claims.[30]

Fraud

[edit]

Considerable attention has been placed on fraudulent practices at thrift institutions due to its involvement in high-profile failures. There were various means by which unscrupulous thrift officers could milking their institutions. They could, for example, extract compensation and other benefits from origination fees on low quality loans.[31] Alternatively they could collude with developers to book paper profits that were extracted and eventually placed, when those putative profits were marked down, on the government or simply just pay themselves high compensation until the thrift became bankrupt before placing the responsibility for paying off depositors onto FSLIC.[32][33]

However, such fraud was not the core reason for the crisis.[34][35][36][37][38][39] Estimates of the number of failures that involve fraud or insider abuse ranges considerably due to the difficulty in detecting fraud and distinguishing it from bad business judgment. An Office of the Comptroller of the Currency study in 1988 indicated fraud in 11 percent of failures between 1979–87; a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation study in 25 percent of failures in 1989; a Resolution Trust Corporation study in 1992 found fraud in 33 percent of its cases; and a 1994 General Accounting Office study reported 26 percent of banks that failed in 1990–91 had issues with fraud.[40] The most clear cases of fraud both within and without of the thrift system were concentrated in a few large institutions that had grown substantially and were alleged to have conspired to manipulate junk bond markets with thrift directors for personal gain.[41]

Regardless, there was fraud and insider abuse in many cases.[42][43] The Crime Control Act of 1990, after the crisis, established a special counsel to investigate and prosecute fraud in financial institutions. Between 1988 and 1992, the Department of Justice sent 1,706 bankers to prison and found guilty verdicts in 2,603 cases.[44] Expert estimates as of a Congressional Budget Office report in 1992 as to the proportion of losses due to fraud eventually borne by the government range from three to 25 percent,[45] with a more narrow consensus estimate in the range 10–15 percent (corresponding to taxpayer losses of 16–24 billion dollars).[46]

Thrift failures

[edit]
Insolvent thrift institutions (1980–89)[47]
Year # of thrifts # insolvent[48] % insolvent
1980 3,993 43 1.1%
1981 3,751 112 3.0%
1982 3,287 415 12.6%
1983 3,146 515 16.4%
1984 3,136 695 22.2%
1985 3,246 705 21.7%
1986 3,220 672 20.9%
1987 3,147 672 21.4%
1988 2,949 508 17.2%
1989 2,878 516 17.9%

Realisation of interest-rate risk in the early 1980s led to a short series of failures that impelled a deregulatory episode from 1980–81. The failure of Empire Savings and Loan in 1984 also drove the FHLBB to reverse course and tighten regulations on thrifts.[26] Such actions were too late, however, since the poor loans had already been made and were already on thrift balance sheets.[49]

The condition of the banking system as a whole was also not entirely solid. The rapidly changing legal environment, along with new financial technologies, also destabilised commercial banks.[50] 1984 saw the largest commercial bank failure to date, that of Continental Illinois, which was infamously branded "too big to fail".[51] The bank failed amid a rise in foreign non-performing loans (mostly in Latin America) and an electronic bank run. The FDIC stepped in to prevent the failure of almost 2,300 smaller banks which had their money in Continental and a general panic.[52]

Moreover, even by 1983, FSLIC's reserves were clearly inadequate for the thrifts that had already by that time failed: with just a bit more than six billion dollars in reserve, outstanding claims by that point already totalled $25 billion.[53]

Intensification

[edit]
Total Savings & Loans Institutions in the United States[54]

Losses reported by thrifts through to 1985 were mostly deferred due to the lax accounting rules in place and covered by positive real estate values in the southwestern United States.[55] The first major thrifts to go were in Ohio and Maryland in 1985. That March, Home State Savings Bank of Cincinnati, Ohio collapsed after a depositor run triggered by news that it had lost $540 million in a securities scam. Not insured by the federal government via FSLIC, it was instead insured by a private state insurance program. This program became promptly insolvent and the governor, Richard F. Celeste, ordered the first bank holiday since the Great Depression.[56] In Maryland, that May, Old Court Savings and Loans similarly failed. The panic also spread across Maryland thrifts, which also insured by their state and not the federal government. The governor, Harry R. Hughes, capped deposit withdrawals; by June, the Maryland legislature ordered all state-insured thrifts either to become FSLIC members or liquidate in six months. The thrift failures in Ohio and Maryland cost those states' taxpayers some 250 million dollars.[57]

A sharp regional recession in the southwestern United States and Texas, caused by a drop in oil prices, caused a fall in the value of commercial real estate in those areas. Thrifts in those states, highly exposed to local commercial real estate prices through their heavy aggressive lending activities, quickly became insolvent.[58] Pressure compounded on banks due to follow-on real estate effects and an 1980s farm crisisagricultural recession in Great Plains states.[59] The elimination of favorable tax treatment for real estate construction in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 also contributed to a slowdown in constructing lending and lowered real estate values.[60]

FSLIC recapitalization

[edit]
FSLIC reserves (1980–89)[47]
Year Reserves
(billions $)
1980 6.5
1981 6.2
1982 6.3
1983 6.4
1984 5.6
1985 4.6
1986 –6.3
1987 –13.7
1988 –75.0
1989 Dissolved
Edwin J. Gray, shown in CSPAN footage from November 1989, was FHLBB chairman until July 1987.
Gray was succeeded by M. Danny Wall, shown in CSPAN footage from April 1988.

The failures in 1985–86 were extremely expensive for FSLIC. Resolving those failures cost $7.4 billion in 1985 and $9.1 billion in 1986. This brought the FSLIC reserve fund to less than $2 billion on the eve of 1987. Compounding this, the size of the thrift industry had expanded considerably, meaning that the money in that reserve fund was spread thin.[61][62] FSLIC's immediate response to raise revenue by increasing deposit insurance premia.[63] It also sought to restrict thrift taking of brokered deposits, which it viewed as fuelling thrift growth. However, those regulations were stuck down by a federal court and may regardless have done little to enforce asset quality.[64] Further regulations in 1984–85 attempted to slow the growth of thrift institutions and change the calculation of regulatory capital to better match current conditions; regulatory personnel were also taken on to examine banks for compliance with these regulations.[65]

Credit losses, however, came too quickly for this re-regulatory push to have much impact.[66] With insufficient resources to handle those losses, FSLIC's sought to defer sale of institutions and assets so that they could be handled with the limited resources on hand.[67] The Reagan administration recognized by April 1986 that FSLIC was itself approaching insolvency; it asked Congress for $15 billion to pay for FSLIC costs through bonds sold against future FSLIC premia. Little was done on the matter and the issue of insolvency was played down to avoid alarm and unfavorable press.[68] By January 1987, the problems were of such magnitude that it was the first piece of business in the new session. However, specifics of the funding bill were harshly debated. The thrift industry group, supported by House Speaker Jim Wright, insisted on less than $7.5 billion and compulsory regulatory forbearance. While the administration resented the inclusion of regulatory forbearance, public news of FSLIC's impending (or already actual) insolvency in a GAO report led the administration to accept regulatory forbearance for more money. The resulting Competitive Equality Banking Act was signed on August 11, 1987, giving FSLIC $10.8 billion through sale of bonds via an off-balance sheet government entity.[69][70] It also required thrift supervisors not to close thrifts that had equity ratios of more than 0.5 percent which met rather lax business viability criteria.[71]

The effect of the 1987 act was that risky institutions were unrestrained in their risk-taking behaviors. They then attempted to "gamble for resurrection",[72] hoping that even riskier lending would allow them to get sufficient profits to stave off bankruptcy. The effect of assistance also engendered moral hazard, where owners could accrue profits from risky loans but place losses at the feet of taxpayers.[73]

At the end of 1988, 2,969 thrifts remained active. This was over three hundred less than in 1985 and over a thousand less than in 1980. These failures were highly geographically concentrated: a third of the failures from 1985 forward occurred in just three states: California, Texas, and Florida;[74] Texas accounted for 40 percent of thrift failures in the worst year of the crisis, 1988.[53] Faced with so man institutions, FHLBB, under its new chairman M. Danny Wall, attempted to sell off hundreds of insolvent thrifts in receivership. These sales could only be accomplished with substantial government support and although it allowed FSLIC to dispose of almost 200 thrifts by the end of 1988, some 250 insolvent institutions with $81 billion in assets remained.[75][76]

FIRREA and the RTC

[edit]
The final members of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, pictured in its 1988 annual report. The chairman M. Danny Wall, in center, became the first director of the Office of Thrift Supervision pursuant to FIRREA.

The number of banks that were formally insolvent under FHLBB regulatory guidelines at the end of 1988 was 250, however, the number insolvent after excluding intangible assets more than doubled to 508. These insolvent thrifts continued to lose money rapidly. Moreover, FSLIC at the same time was itself insolvent.[77] The new president, George H. W. Bush, announced a proposal on February 6, 1989, to resolve the thrift failures.[78] The plan included three major elements: a temporary agency would be created with 50 billion dollars in funding to liquidate the insolvent thrift institutions with that money being raised via another off-balance sheet vehicle paid for by higher insurance premia on the thrift industry; the FHLBB and FSLIC would be dissolved, with supervisory powers devolving to the incipient Office of Thrift Supervision within the Treasury Department and the FDIC; regulations would be tightened as well, with regulatory capital no longer including intangibles such as goodwill and doubled to six percent within two years.[79] On August 9, 1989, the proposals brought by Bush were passed essentially unchanged as the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 into law.[80] Many other regulatory provisions were also included, such as risk-based capital applied to thrifts, re-imposition of restrictions on thrifts' non-residential mortgage portfolios, and funding for financial crimes prosecutions.[81]

The Resolution Trust Corporation, created by the act, sold or liquidated all remaining thrifts. Those institutions remained for the time being in operation under conservatorship. The RTC was also given generous amounts of time to sell assets in small tranches: buyers were more willing to purchase smaller portions and the RTC was also able to assess and market its assets.[82] The closure of FSLIC and the creation of RTC only to sell or liquidate insolvent institutions also forced thrift owners to take fewer risks since they knew that assistance would no longer be forthcoming.[83] In 1989 the RTC disposed of 37 thrifts at a cost of $51 billion, which came under fire from congressional leadership. The next year, 1990, saw the sale of 315 institutions at a cost of $20 billion. Congress, although criticizing the RTC for its ballooning staff, appropriated an additional $30 billion in March 1991.[84] Late in that year, many of the assets bundled into mortgage-backed and commercial-paper backed securities.[85] Amid a funding deficiency, the RTC was forced to shut down operations in 1991, but after new appropriations in 1993, the RTC was wound down by year-end 1996. Overall, it recovered 78 percent of the book value of all assets and disposed of 747 thrift institutions with $402.6 billion in assets.[86]

Scandals

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Charles Keating, director of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, being sworn in before the House Banking Committee to testify on the failure of that institution. CSPAN, November 25, 1989.

A number of high-profile thrift failures and scandals also emerged from the crisis. Notable institutions included:

  • Lamar Savings and Loan (Austin, TX), led by Stanley Adams, which cost $2 billion to resolve;
  • Vernon Savings and Loan (Dallas, TX), led by Don Dixon, which on resolution had 94 percent of loans non-performing; and
  • Columbia Savings and Loan (Beverly Hills, CA), led by Thomas Spiegel, was closed in January 1991 at the cost of $3.25 billion.[87]

Especially publicized was the insolvency of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, led by influential Republican donor and political figure Charles Keating. Between 1984 and 1989 it grew five-fold, investing mainly in commercial property and equities. After supervisors recommended the thrift be seized for criminal fraud in 1987, Keating leaned on senators Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), Alan Cranston (D-CA), John Glenn (D-OH), and Donald Riegle (D-MI) to curtail the investigation. When it became known that the five men, later dubbed the Keating Five, had received $1.3 million in campaign contributions, they became embroiled in a congressional ethics investigation. Eventually, the matter was dropped by the new FHLBB chairman, Danny Wall, who later resigned in December 1989 for failure to take action against Lincoln, which failed that year at a cost of $2.6 billion.[88] Keating was eventually prosecuted and convicted, but the convictions were overturned due to incorrect jury instructions and, later, a poisoned jury. Eventually, in 1999, he pled guilty and was sentenced to time served.[89][90]

Other figures were similarly drawn in to allegations of fraud and corruption. Neil Bush, the son of then-vice president George H. W. Bush, was hauled before Congress and sued by the FDIC for his involvement in Silverado Savings and Loan (Denver, CO), which failed in December 1989.[91]

Consequences

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Thrifts were not the only financial institutions adversely affected in the 1980s. Many banks failed as well. Between 1980 and 1994, 1,617 commercial banks failed (9.14 percent of all banks) with total assets of $206 billion.[92] However, the overlapping regional banking crises in the 1980s were far less severe on the commercial banking side because the FDIC remained solvent. Moreover, the federal commercial bank regulators were more proactive in their approaches to limit growth and enforce capital requirements;[93] the FDIC's financial solvency meant, unlike FSLIC, a policy of regulatory forbearance was not forced on it by circumstance.[94]

In just the years 1986 to 1995, the number of federally insured thrifts about halved from 3,234 to 1,645.[95] 1,043 thrifts failed with total assets of over $519 billion.[96] Congress ultimately appropriated $105 billion to the Resolution Trust Corporation, though only $91.3 billion were ever used. After banks repaid loans through various procedures, by the end of 1999, taxpayers suffered combined FSLIC and RTC expenses of $123.8 billion with an additional $29.1 billion (approximately 19 percent) of losses imposed onto the thrift industry.[97] Approximately $60 billion of those losses were attributable to regulatory forbearance as required by the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987.[98]

The higher insurance premia along with regulatory burdens, without concomitant legal powers, that were enacted by FIRREA led to progressive exits from the thrift industry over the 1990s as thrifts re-chartered themselves as commercial banks.[99][100] Changes in thrift powers also meant that they lost their distinctiveness vis-à-vis commercial banks: between 1980 and 1995 the share of 1–4 family mortgages originated by thrift institutions fell from 47 percent to 15.[101] In the aftermath of the crisis, even the words "savings and loan" became less common as thrift institutions renamed themselves merely as "bank" or "savings bank".[102]

Bank regulators' powers were also strengthened. The FDIC Improvement Act of 1991 expanded federal banking agencies' examination authority, requiring annual inspections and sufficient examination staff for those inspections. Moreover, the agencies received prompt corrective action powers to compel banks to recapitalize when falling below certain capital thresholds. Such orders were also backed up by further powers to suspend banks' legal authority to do certain types of business, to ban fragile banks from paying out dividends, or to replace bank directors.[103] Furthermore, restrictions were also imposed on how long banks could stay open while below minimum regulatory capital requirements, putting a "hard stop" of 90 days after which a bank must be placed into receivership.[104] Public awareness of the problems of a lack of geographic diversification enforced by law also may have played a role in the passage of the Riegle–Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which lifted historical restrictions on banks operating across state lines.[105]

See also

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Sharma 2022, p. 39.
  2. ^ Curry & Shibut 2000, p. 26 (total assets of closed institutions), 33 (cost to the public, broken down by taxpayers and industry also noting that liquidation of RTC assets would not materially affect losses); see also p. 29 noting confusion among previous estimates.
  3. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 129, 139 (Table 5.1).
  4. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 171.
  5. ^ Moysich 1997, pp. 171–72.
  6. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 172.
  7. ^ Sharma 2022, p. 39; Mason 2004, p. 213.
  8. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 215–16.
  9. ^ Sharma 2022, p. 39; Mason 2004, p. 218.
  10. ^ Bodie 2006, p. 326.
  11. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 255–56.
  12. ^ White 1991, p. 89 (Table 5-13).
  13. ^ a b Mason 2004, p. 219.
  14. ^ Mason 2004, p. 219; Hanc 1997, p. 10.
  15. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 179 (Figure 4.1).
  16. ^ Hanc 1997, p. 26, noting that underwriting standards fell without controls by property.
  17. ^ Curry & Shibut 2000, p. 27, noting "the deregulation of the thrift industry without an accompanying increase in examination resources".
  18. ^ a b c Moysich 1997, p. 173.
  19. ^ White 1991, pp. 90–92, remarking at length on "silence on the safety risks" and that a thrift crisis "seemed too remote".
  20. ^ Mason 2004, p. 224.
  21. ^ Sharma 2022, p. 40; Mason 2004, p. 224.
  22. ^ Freund et al. 1997, p. 158.
  23. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 258–59.
  24. ^ Mason 2004, p. 226.
  25. ^ White 1991, pp. 88–89.
  26. ^ a b Mason 2004, pp. 226–27.
  27. ^ Moysich 1997, pp. 173–77.
  28. ^ Steinreich & Oglesby 2016, p. 112.
  29. ^ Moysich 1997, pp. 177, 187.
  30. ^ Moysich 1997, pp. 180, 187, noting that this forbearance policy allowed thrifts "to substitute credit risk for interest-rate risk".
  31. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 184.
  32. ^ Akerlof & Romer 1993, pp. 29–30).
  33. ^ Mankiw, N. Gregory. "Comments and discussion". In Akerlof & Romer (1993), p. 66.
  34. ^ White 1991, p. 117, arguing "any treatment of the S&L debacle that focuses largely or exclusively on [fraud] is misguided and misleading" and that "it perpetuates the incorrect notion... that virtually all the thrift insolvencies were caused by 'crooks'... [and] also diverts attention from an understanding of how and why government policies went awry".
  35. ^ Iden & Manchester 1992, p. xi. "Fraud was also a factor, but it was not a fundamental cause of the disaster".
  36. ^ Moysich 1997, pp. 184–85, noting "although the majority of S&Ls were not fraud-ridden, few had the management expertise necessary for dealing with the new lending opportunities... in many cases, prudent underwriting standards were not observed and the necessary documents and controls were not put in place".
  37. ^ Mason 2004:
    • p. 241, noting that "significantly, fraud was not a major cause of thrift failures despite its prominence in several high-profile insolvencies";
    • p. 258, noting that "many observers have incorrectly portrayed fraud as the leading cause of the S&L crisis".
  38. ^ Bodie 2006, p. 326, noting that "the biggest losses to the FSLIC were incurred not as a result of fraud or even of poorly diversified asset portfolios, but rather as a result of failure on the part of regulators to act quickly to stem the losses".
  39. ^ Steinreich & Oglesby 2016, pp. 96–99, passim.
  40. ^ Hanc 1997, p. 34, citing:
  41. ^ Akerlof & Romer 1993, pp. 51–54.
  42. ^ White 1991, p. 117. "The bulk of the insolvent thrifts' problems... did not stem from [fraud]... these thrifts failed because of an amalgam of deliberately high-risk strategies, poor business judgments, ... and sloppy and careless underwriting, compounded by deteriorating real estate markets" (emphasis in original).
  43. ^ Hanc 1997, p. 34, noting "it seems reasonable to infer that fraud and abuse not only were present in a large number of bank and thrift failures in the 1980–94 period but also contributed to some of them".
  44. ^ General Accounting Office (January 8, 1993). Bank and thrift criminal fraud: the federal commitment could be broadened (PDF) (Report). pp. 4, 6, 77 (exact statistics). GAO/GGD-93-48.
  45. ^ Iden & Manchester 1992, pp. 11–12.
  46. ^ Mason 2004, p. 258.
  47. ^ a b Moysich 1997, p. 168 (Table 4.1).
  48. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 168, noting that the number of insolvent thrifts is determined on a tangible capital to assets basis; this is not based on the FHLBB regulatory capital rules.
  49. ^ White 1991, pp. 125–26.
  50. ^ White 1991, p. 107.
  51. ^ Davison 1997b, p. 236.
  52. ^ Davison 1997b, pp. 250–51.
  53. ^ a b Robinson 2013.
  54. ^ https://banks.data.fdic.gov/explore/historical/?displayFields=STNAME%2CCOUNT%2CASSET%2CDEP%2CEQNM%2CNETINC&selectedEndDate=2023&selectedReport=SIF&selectedStartDate=1934&selectedStates=0&sortField=YEAR&sortOrder=desc
  55. ^ White 1991, p. 99.
  56. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 227–28.
  57. ^ Mason 2004, p. 228.
  58. ^ Sharma 2022, p. 40; Mason 2004, pp. 228–29.
  59. ^ Hanc 1997, p. 16.
  60. ^ Mason 2004, p. 229; White 1991, p. 109.
  61. ^ Mason 2004, p. 230.
  62. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 168 (Table 4.1), instead reporting that on the eve of 1987, FSLIC had reserves of –6.3 billion dollars.
  63. ^ White 1991, p. 126, noting that FSLIC increased premia by 150 percent.
  64. ^ White 1991, pp. 126–28, rejecting the argument that brokered deposits cause risk taking as a reversal of causality and, for the court, citing 595 F. Supp., 73 (D.D.C. 1984).
  65. ^ White 1991, p. 129.
  66. ^ White 1991, p. 133.
  67. ^ Mason 2004, p. 230; White 1991, p. 134.
  68. ^ White 1991, pp. 137–38, 140 ("officials were in a bind[:] excessively loud entreaties to the Congress that the FSLIC was broke might cause depository nervousness and runs, while still not springing loose the bill – the worst of all possible worlds").
  69. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 232–33.
  70. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 186, noting the amount in the Competitive Equality Banking Act was "clearly inadequate".
  71. ^ Mason 2004, p. 233.
  72. ^ E.g. Bernanke, Ben (April 11, 2007). Financial Regulation and the Invisible Hand (Speech). New York University Law School. Equity holders may 'gamble for resurrection' by encouraging rather than discouraging excessive risk-taking. Thus, as was evident in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, market discipline by equity holders may break down when it is most needed.
  73. ^ Sharma 2022, p. 41.
  74. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 239–40.
  75. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 235–36.
  76. ^ See White 1991, pp. 152–60, for description of the Texan thrift sale strategy and structure of thrift sales.
  77. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 241–42.
  78. ^ Mason 2004, p. 242; Moysich 1997, p. 186.
  79. ^ Mason 2004, p. 242.
  80. ^ Mason 2004, p. 244.
  81. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 246–47.
  82. ^ Mason 2004, p. 248.
  83. ^ Sharma 2022, pp. 45–46.
  84. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 251–52, noting the RTC Funding Act, Pub. L. 102–18.
  85. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 252–53.
  86. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 253–54.
  87. ^ Mason 2004, p. 237.
  88. ^ Mason 2004, p. 238.
  89. ^ McCarthy, Donald (2004). "Lincoln Savings: a Coda". In Barth, James R; Trimbath, Susanne; Yago, Glenn (eds.). The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regulatory Failure. The Milken Institute Series on Financial Innovation and Economic Growth. Vol. 5. Milken Institute. pp. 173–178. doi:10.1007/1-4020-7898-6_10. ISBN 978-1-4020-7871-2.
  90. ^ McFadden, Robert D (April 2, 2014). "Charles Keating, 90, Key Figure in '80s Savings and Loan Crisis, Dies". New York Times.
  91. ^ See eg:
  92. ^ Hanc 1997, pp. 3, 14–15 (Table 1.1).
  93. ^ Moysich 1997, p. 187.
  94. ^ Hanc 1997, p. 47.
  95. ^ Curry & Shibut 2000, p. 26.
  96. ^ Curry & Shibut 2000, pp. 26, 27 (Table 1).
  97. ^ Curry & Shibut 2000, pp. 29, 33.
  98. ^ Mason 2004, p. 260.
  99. ^ Mason 2004, pp. 261–62.
  100. ^ Davison 1997a, pp. 133–34.
  101. ^ Mason 2004, p. 263.
  102. ^ Mason 2004, p. 264.
  103. ^ FDIC 2017, pp. 103, 127.
  104. ^ FDIC 2017, p. 186.
  105. ^ Kroszner, Randall S (2001). "The motivations behind banking reform". Regulation. 24. Cato Institute: 41. See also Kane, Edward J. (1996). "De jure interstate banking: Why only now?". Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. 28 (2): 142. doi:10.2307/2078020. JSTOR 2078020.

References

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Books

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Articles and chapters

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External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Martin Mayer on The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery: The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry, November 25, 1990, C-SPAN