A consolation of failure should be lessons learnt from the experience. So it is troubling that bank collapses in this cycle are proving more expensive than in the past. Big bank busts, as a rule, cost relatively less than small ones. Estimated losses, say, from last week's failure of Colonial, the Alabama-based lender with $25bn in assets, were unusually low at 11 per cent of assets. Its sale also included the first “clawback” allowing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to share in a buyer's potential gains. Yet analysis from Ely & Company, industry consultants, shows that across all failures in the past two years, the FDIC estimated its losses at a quarter of failed banks' assets. That is much higher than between 1980 and 1995, when failures cost an average of 11 per cent.
对于失败的一个慰藉，应该是人们从中所汲取的教训。因此，本轮危机中银行倒闭的代价要高于以往的事实，令人深感忧虑。一般说来，与小银行相比，大型银行的破产成本相对较小。例如，上周倒闭的Colonial银行的估计损失就异常低，仅占资产的11%。该行总部位于阿拉巴马州，拥有资产250亿美元。其资产出售还首度启用了“追回”条款，使联邦存款保险公司(FDIC)能够分享买家的潜在收益。然而，行业咨询公司Ely & Company的分析显示，FDIC估计，过去2年内所有银行倒闭案给其造成的损失，高达倒闭银行资产总额的四分之一。这一比例远远高于1980年至1995年间11%的倒闭成本平均水平。