January 13 – We have to say that the pace of dour news slowed a bit this week, a trend that we are hopeful will continue. However, there is still much misery out there, and expectations are that the underlying fundamentals of the U.S. economy will continue to erode as businesses circle the wagons around their cash positions and remaining available credit, which will result in more jobs lost.

Our expectations for this recession are for it to run pretty deep in light of the fact that there is so much consumer infrastructure built in the U.S. which just needs to be shut down as consumers, we hope, begin finding more of a balance and start saving. Savings rates as a percentage of disposable income have fallen in recent years to 0.4% and when consumer credit gets factored in, it turns negative. This was an unsustainable pace. We are hopeful …

Saturday February 14, 2009
Navivest

Four more banks fell victim to the deteriorating economy and were closed by financial regulators in their respective states on Friday.

The banks, Pinnacle Bank, Beaverton, OR, Corn Belt Bank and Trust Company Pittsfield, IL, Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, Cape Coral, FL, Sherman County Bank, Loup City, NE were all relative small banks, with assets under $600 million.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures U.S. banks, was named receiver of the banks and it has entered into purchase and assumption agreements with other banks that will now assume the deposits of the failed banks.

Pinnacle Bank had total assets of approximately $73 million and total deposits of $64 million as of December 31, 2008. Its deposits have been assumed by Washington Trust Bank of Spokane, Washington, which also agreed to purchase about $72 million in assets, at a discount of $7.6 million. The

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