Author: John Mason

This is the age of the “New” liquidity.  This new liquidity is driven by two things: first, information technology; and second, by the free flow of capital throughout the world.  Finance is nothing more than information.  A...

There were 40 fewer banks at the end of the second quarter than there were at the end of the first quarter according to data just released by the FDIC.  On June 30, 2011, there were 117 fewer banks in the banking system than at...

Seems like the Fed is interested in something I have been writing on for at least four months: the cash assets that “foreign-related (financial) institutions have been accumulating during the period referred to as QE2. (See...

Let’s start with another interesting fact from the commercial banking industry: 92 percent of the banks in the country hold 10 percent of the total banking assets in the country as of March 31, 2011 (FDIC banking statistics) but...

For your information, 0.4 percent of the banks in the United States, the largest 25 commercial banks, control 56 percent of the banking assets in the country.  The smallest banks, banks less than $100 million in total assets,...

In response to two comments on my recent “Future of Banking” post (http://seekingalpha.com/article/287037-the-future-of-banking-looks-grim-again) I would like to make the following additions. First, in terms of the number of...

Two recent newspaper articles, I believe, put into perspective the dilemma faced by commercial banks these days.  The first article is “Banks Face 2 More Years of Famine” in the Wall Street Journal....

It seems as if our policy choices have been reduced to two.  First, our basic problem is that there is too much debt outstanding, debt of consumers, debt of businesses, and debt of governments…state, local, and national. ...