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Another local bank has failed. Integrity bank was closed by the FDIC on Friday and bought out by Regions Bank. The last one in Alpharetta was NetBank last year.

NEW YORK: Integrity Bank of Alpharetta became the 10th US bank to fail so far this year, done in by the very business it was built on - real estate lending.

Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, is assuming all of the Alpharetta, Georgia, banks' $974 million in insured and uninsured deposits in 23,000 accounts, and about $34.4m of the bank's $1.1 billion in assets.

The remainder of Integrity Bank's total assets are being retained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The FDIC said it estimates that Integrity's failure will cost its deposit insurance fund $250m to $350m.

Integrity Bank, which opened for business in November of 2000, specialised in real estate lending in the Atlanta area with a self-described "faith-based culture."

Through the early part of the decade, when the housing market was booming, Integrity Bank grew into a billion-dollar, publicly traded company. But when the real estate market started faltering, the bank found itself in trouble.

The bank fired its chief executive in August last year, nabbed a turnaround expert in September, only to voluntarily delist from the Nasdaq market in March.

FDIC spokesman Rickey McCullough said the bank failed due to its aggressive pursuit of construction loans, coupled with falling real estate values and "inadequate risk management."

Construction loans comprised 76 per cent of the bank's total loan portfolio. During the quarter ending June 30, the bank posted a net loss of $33.56m.

Housing loan crisis hits US bank

Links:
Integrity Bank
Failed Bank Information for Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA
FDIC Failed Bank List
FDIC Press Release
How bank failures happen and what they mean
Why Do Banks Fail on Fridays?

During the summer, I hosted the presentation of The Truth Project at our church. And this past Sunday we completed the 12th session. Between watching it the first time last year, preparing for the discussions, and watching it on Sunday nights, I've watched each episode at least 3 times, sometimes 4 or 5 times. And I get something new everytime I've watched it. It has been one of the most signficant teaching series that I've ever been through. God has blessed Dr Del Tackett with a great ability to teach. And God has blessed the video series in which you can't go through the series unchanged. If you ever get the chance to go through it, I'd recommend to not miss the opportunity.

I recently got laid off from VeriSign. I knew it was coming months ago so it didn't come as a surprise. Actually, I would've been surprised if they did not let me go.

The project that I was hired to work on got unofficially cancelled earlier this year. Then in June it got officially cancelled. The project was a massive rewrite of a Cobol program into a J2EE program. I'm not sure how much they spent on it, but it was in the tens of millions. There was only one major client that we were developing it for. And after years of delays and problems with the software, they said enough and decided to stick with the legacy system. This is just another failed massive Java project that I've worked on. And it's one of the reasons that I've become so frustrated with J2EE development. Out of all the places I've worked at, I've never worked on a successful major J2EE implementation. (And it's not something that I regularly mention to recruiters)

However, this job has probably been one of the best jobs I've ever had. I got to telecommute, so I could work from anywhere. All I had to do was wait for a request on my Treo and then just log in and deploy some code. Sure, it might be in the middle of the night, but the total amount of work rarely ever went over 40 hours. The complete freedom of being able to do anything at anytime was fantastic. As a matter of fact, I'm spoiled now. It would be very difficult for me to go back to an office 9-5 job now. And also to have to put up with Atlanta commuting and high gas prices. The benefits at VeriSign was one of the best I've ever had. No place I've worked at gave such good bonuses, good stock options, and great paid time off benefits. If they didn't cancel the project, I would've been content just staying at VeriSign.

I was blessed to receive a generous severance package. Normally they give people two months advance notice. But since my project got cancelled, I'll be on the payroll with no responsibilities for two months while I find another job. And on top of that, I'll be getting several weeks severance pay.

I'm not too clear on what to do next. I could go back to Java development. The pay is great, but the frustrations are high. And I'd hate to lose the freedom of working from anywhere at anytime.

One option I've been strongly considering is going full-time with my side business, Ecodia. Even though the economy is in the dumps, there is still a strong demand for IT. It's a little scary thinking about jumping off the branch and trying to fly on my own. But I think if there's anytime that I feel things are right for me to do it, it would be now. My business is all set up and my phramework code is mature enough for developing other people's sites.

We're going to be homeschooling Avram this year. I couldn't find the homeschool info for the Fulton County School school system. But got it after I called them.

Fulton Schools Records Management

Sorry to everyone on my Yahoo contact list (which is like hundreds of people). Somehow a worm/virus got sent though Yahoo mail to everyone. I certainly didn't send it. But, how in the world can a virus infect a web application?

Looking in my sent folder, 5 emails were sent one minute apart. Each one contained a virus attachment and the email recipients were not characteristic of Yahoo mail. It only included the email addresses and did not have the angle brackets and full names in them. The subject was in chinese with something like "quick reply back to me". It was not a forwarded message, so it was sent directly. And the Yahoo mail allowed the virus attachment to go through.

I contacted Yahoo about this, and they weren't really any help. Basically they said I should report it as a phishing incident.

My guess is that a remote system has accessed my Yahoo account. I have allowed other sites to access my Yahoo contact list. But they were sites that I felt should be pretty safe. I probably assumed wrong.

I've since changed my Yahoo password. Hopefully that should fix it. For now.

Incredible, 2.2 million percent inflation rate in Zimbabwe. According to XE, 1.00 USD = 18,681,527,512.36 ZWD.

recounts a weekly shop costing $514billion, which she paid for by debit card. The shop till could only ring up $9 billion, so the card had to be swiped 57 times.

A simple pasta lunch for three yesterday cost $1.3 trillion - for cash.

'We are all billionaires who can afford nothing.That is why I hate that old man'

One major commercial bank said its automated teller machines are not configured to dispense multi-zero withdrawals and freeze in what it called a "data overflow error." Software writers are busy writing programs to try to overcome the problem.

Zimbabweans battle money shortages as collectors buy hundred billion dollar notes on eBay

Unemployment is at 80%. 1.2 trillion Zimbabwe dollars for £1.
1.2 trillion Zimbabwe dollars for £1

Links:
Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe
Reserve bank of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe introduces $100 billion banknotes

Many stocks went up significantly during this week for seemingly no reason. I think I know the real reason. This week, the SEC said they are cracking down on naked shorts. So, brokerages frantically tried to cover themselves and made sure they had stocks to cover their clients short sales. This caused massive buy orders on the shorted stocks. And what stocks rose during this week? Those with high short ratios. FNM, FRE, LEH, GM, DAL, CTX are some that come to mind. If my theory is true, then expect these stocks to resume to fall starting next week or so.

The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we'll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?

Statement: "Something Big is Happening"

The F.D.I.C. has $53 billion set aside to reimburse consumers for deposits lost at failed banks. IndyMac will eat up $4 billion to $8 billion of that fund, the agency estimates, and that could force it to raise more money from the banks that it insures.

Analysts Say More Banks Will Fail

However this estimate may still be just the tip of the banking crisis iceberg as the Savings and Loans crisis of the early 1990's witnessed the number of bank failures explode that eventually saw more than 1000 financial institutions go bust, which given that today the US is experiencing the worst housing market crisis since the Great Depression may be in for an even worse fate.

US Banking Crisis Goes from Bad to Worse

The United States economy is in the early phase of its worst housing price collapse since the 1930’s. No end is in sight.

The Financial Tsunami: The Next Big Wave is Breaking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and US Mortgage Debt

"You see a massive potential for financial meltdown on a global scale," said T.J. Marta, fixed-income strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

Losses Set to Worsen as Faith in Bank Bailouts Dims

Jim Cramer, the often loud and always bullish host of a popular CNBC show, is now bearish.
“But this time is different; it’s doom itself,” Cramer recently wrote in New York magazine. “In 25 years on Wall Street, I have never seen things this bad.” “Sell everything. Nothing’s working,” he writes.

Cramer: Stocks are Doomed, Sell Now

“We're in a nasty environment,” said Tim Bond, Barclays Capital's chief equity strategist. “There is an inflation shock under way. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth. There is going to be a deep global recession over the next three years as policymakers try to get inflation back in the box.”

Financial Markets Hit by Credit Market Stresses and Deteriorating Corporate Earnings

During the general election, will I be voting for Obama or McCain? Well, contrary to what the mass media would like you to believe, there are other candidates to choose from. And just like the previous years, I'll be voting for the Constitution Party (Chuck Baldwin). Their principles align the most with what I believe. And though of course they have no chance of winning, I will be voting with what I believe is the best choice.

I tried to post a message to one of my Yahoo groups and the message kept on bouncing back with:

Remote host said: 554 we cannot accept this message because it appears to contain virus (#5.7.1)

Didn't make any sense to me since I wasn't attaching anything to it. Well, it turns out that having a subject of "Photos" flags it as a virus. I think that's getting a bit ridiculous. Well, I just changed the subject to something else and it then got posted.