As a testiment to Delaware's secrecy, I barely knew it existed.

Reuters:

Move over Switzerland. The tiny state of Delaware beats the Alpine country in a contest for the most secretive financial jurisdiction, a tax justice rights group said on Saturday.

The United States, led by the eastern seaboard state, took in $2.6 trillion in deposits from non-resident corporations and individuals in 2007, according to a survey of financial jurisdictions analyzed by the Tax Justice Network.

I agree with PW. In all this 'confusion' about what can and should be done to save those poor, helpless bankers, too often is left out discussion about banks that still have money to lend, are solvent, and who are looking forward to a bright future.

The financial downturn has affected but not badly hurt Northeast, Kavalauskas said, because the credit union did not get involved with sub-prime mortgages or embark on “toxic” investments such as mortgage securities or credit default swaps that have crippled the financial system.

He said while locally chartered banks are doing well, “a lot of the big banks are getting out of the lending area.” This could provide a market opening for credit unions, which offer auto and home loans along with money market, certificate of deposit and retirement investment programs.

“We are aggressively adding funds to lend,” Kavalauskas said. Northeast is beefing up its member relations staffing to handle increased customer needs.

I'm getting really sick and tired of hearing about how "no one knows the solution" to the mess for-profit bankers have gotten us into. The success of many credit unions demonstrates that the solution is right there in front of our eyes. There are likely thousands of competent credit union fund managers and investors who could be called upon to reorganize the "bad" banks, but of course the TARP-loving Democrats won't appoint or elevate any of those people, as they aren't proper Villagers. The solution to the banking crisis is simple: regulation, nationalization of insolvent banks, and removing those who mismanged us to economic meltdown from their positions. This won't happen any time soon, mainly because for some time now, the new administration has been taking its financial cues, and checks, from the very people who've proven least able to do their jobs.

Well it seems Citigroup has decided that even with the help of F.D.I.C. that it just did not want to take on even part of the bad loans/debt Wachovia had from its' earlier mergers. According to the NYTimes , Wells Fargo gets to have it all and create a $1.42 Trillion company stretching coast to coast.
Citigroup wants to sue Wells Fargo for $60 Billion for interfering, but may not be able to because:

We're almost relaxed, as a nation, as we're told that civil liberty after civil liberty is eliminated, made irrelevant, etc. So I wasn't surprised at the collective shrug that occured as we learned that we're being surveilled in our financial transactions as well as our emails and phone calls. But here's an interesting take on that former matter, from some people who have been looking into money matters far longer than I:

Bankers, Blum explained, "have fended off every conceivable rule that would really be effective. Why are we pandering to them if we say we are in such a desperate situation?"

The political influence of bankers tops all other sectors, I learned as a young reporter. Regardless of party or ideology, politicians seek their friendship. So the United States has created a truly bizarre banking code that legalizes--and keeps secret--vast flows of ill-gotten gains. For what purpose? Terrorist financing, yes, but that business is dwarfed by the drug trade profits, insider looting of corporations, offshore tax evasion, securities fraud, plain-vanilla fraud and other uses.

The American dollar is lingua fria for illegal commerce and Congress protects the sanctity of its privacy, even allows it the criminal proceeds to flow freely through government-chartered and regulated financial institutions. This shady business is not an inconsequential profit center for banks (a bit like pornography for Microsoft).

The monitoring system described by the Times seems unexceptional to Blum. Indeed, his complaint is that it's so narrowly focused that it mostly harvests empty information. "Meanwhile, the biggest purveyor of terrorist money, as everyone knows, are accounts in Saudi Arabia," Blum observes. "Nobody will deal with it because the Saudis own half of America." An exaggeration, but you get his point.