How big the banking crisis has become?

Here are some details on the bank failure;

1. The 10 banks taken over by the FDIC had just under $40 billion of assets in total.
2. The total assets of the 10 largest banks in the U.S. is a combined $6 trillion.
3. Total assets of all 8,451 FDIC insured institutions is $13.3 trillion.
4. Percentage of failed assets, year to date, of total: 0.3%. Or written as a decimal: 0.003 of all banking assets were in failed banks so far this year.

In comparison, during the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980’s and early 1990’s there were over 1,000 federally insured S&L’s dissolved.

The Resolution Trust Corp. took down 747 institutions over 6 years, or a rate of 125 per year.

The current situation is showing no signs of getting anywhere near those levels.

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Physical gold jewellery sales going UP.

Gold jewellery sales in Abu Dhabi soared 300 percent in volume and almost 250 percent in value in August from a year earlier after the metal dropped to nine-month lows, the emirate's industry group said on Monday 1 Sept 2008.

The Gulf Arab emirate's gold demand was steady in July, as many physical buyers, mainly from the Indian sub-continent, headed home for the summer holidays.

Many people took advantage of lower gold prices to buy all the jewellery they wanted for Ramadan because they want to keep it until prices rise again to make profit.

The lunar month of Ramadan, which this year 2008 coincides with September, is a time when devout Muslims refrain from all food, drink and sex during daylight hours. It ends with a feast, during which many couples marry.

Many Indian buyers followed the same logic and bought gold for Diwali in August.

Hindu weddings normally are held between September and November, and Diwali, the important Hindu festival of lights, is in October.

Tax-free jewellery shopping in the United Arab Emirates, a seven-member federation that includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai, known as the "City of Gold" lures many Gulf and Western tourists.

The physical demand for gold that is supporting it for now at $800 per-ounce.

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US energy hub

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest energy production hubs in the Americas, producing some 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil which is about one quarter of total US production of 5 million bpd and 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day, according to US Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) .


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