Weiss Ratings rates banks, stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies daily, closely monitoring the movements that happen within each sector. And they’re GOOD at it. In fact, of the 539 banks that have failed since 2009, they’ve given prior notice about 535 of them. Dallas Brown, a Weiss Ratings Publisher, joins Glenn to discuss which of today’s banks currently are facing possibly failure or crisis. Should Americans be concerned about our nation’s big banks, or is it only smaller ones and credit unions facing trouble? Plus, what should YOU do if your bank is at risk…? Listen to this clip to find out why you should NOT panic about today’s uncertain banking situation…
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: All right. Welcome to the program, Dallas Brown. How are you?
DALLAS: Hey, Glenn how are you doing?
GLENN: I'm good. I'm good. So I don't know if you know much about me, but I tend to think, that we are running a shell game with our banks and our federal reserve and central bank and our Treasury.
And I think we've done such damage to our banks.
And they are just printing money to keep everything looking like it's okay.
I saw your -- so that's my point of view, so you know where I'm coming from.
And I want you to correct me, you know, and enlighten me, if you have anything better to say.
I have not heard of Weiss Ratings before. But I know you guys have been around for about 50 years. And in the last bank crash, I think you guys were the ones leading the way saying, trouble. Isn't that correct?
DALLAS: Yeah. But let me just jump in and tell you who liked this and what we've been doing. So this analysis we did isn't something that we just did one time. We rate banks and many assets. Stocks, insurance companies. Bonds.
And crypto. Daily.
And so we see the movement that happened, based on the liquidity of banks. Capitalization. Stability. And so we're very vigilant. Our analysts are very vigilant about this. And so Weiss has been doing this. They started rating banks in 1971.
GLENN: Okay.
DALLAS: So Martin Weiss is the founder. And his father, actually back in 1930, his name is Irving Weiss.
He predicted the failure of the bank of the United States.
And so that's where the catalyst of this came. So in 1971. He got together with his son. He started rating banks for safety for consumers. And so we rate every bank.
And so it's not just banks. It's also credit unions. So in 2008, you know, we -- we named in advance warning all the major banks that failed during that financial crisis.
GLENN: I mean, you were -- I think the only guys that said, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers are going.
DALLAS: Yeah. Yeah. So it was weeks before Bear Stearns, and it was like 100-some-odd days before Lehman Brothers. They're gone. It's an end game with them.
But since 2008, there have been 539 bank failures.
And we have given advanced warning on 535 bills.
And some of the other ones --
GLENN: Jeez. Okay.
DALLAS: So this isn't something we take lightly here. It's important -- it's important for consumers. But we kind of agree with you.
It's not the bank's fault 100 percent. It is the government. It is the government forcing them, to push this money out. Not letting the free market play a key role in regulating the banks.
GLENN: Right.
DALLAS: And they just keep stepping in to protect banks. Protect them from the market.
Created this monster that will be tough to fix or save.
GLENN: Right.
And it's only really benefiting, at least at this point, the big banks. Everything keeps getting folded into these banks, that we said were too big to fail. And so we have to make them smaller back in 2008.
They are just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, it feels like we're going to end up with, well, just a Bank of America.
DALLAS: Well, hopefully that doesn't happen. Because that's not good for anybody in our country at all.
GLENN: Right.
DALLAS: I was talking with a president. Of a regional bank, not too long ago.
And he was talking about a nationalized bank, and I was just like, why? Why are you talking about this?
This is not something that we -- we are discussing -- we need the privatization --
GLENN: Correct. So go ahead.
DALLAS: So this is what we found. This is what we found.
Basically, what's happening, because of how quickly they raised interest rates. Right?
There's a lot of banks that are holding bonds.
And when someone comes and does a bank run. Or we have a lot of people taking out deposits. Especially ones that have high uninsured amounts. So that's people that have over 250.
The banks are having a crisis. And if they don't have the liquidity. Or they don't have the cash to cover those. Like a typical bank run. They have to sell their abandons. And on their balance sheet, the bonds are marked, or held to maturity.
And so they have them marked, as if they were going to sell them in ten years. In 20 years. In 30 years.
But then they have to take them now. And they take a loss. And so after that, if the money that they're taking exceeds the capital, for the bank. Then somebody has to step in and save them.
We only have two options. Either we bail out regional banks. If this starts happening.
Or we sell them to the bigger banks. And we lessen the free market.
GLENN: Okay. So this is what I read, what, a week or so ago.
1210 institutions. That's banks, and what do you call them?
Credit unions.
That's 12.8 percent of our banking system. Got a red warning flag, signaling risk of imminent failure.
Three thousand received a yellow warning flag, indicating risk of failure in a financial crisis, or recession.
And 45 banks, 45 percent of all banks, and credit unions, were deemed vulnerable.
Well, if the 12.8 go down, then you have a financial crisis, or recession. And that just triggers the other three thousand, does it not?
DALLAS: So a lot of these banks are teetering, right?
They're getting loans from other banks. They're selling their assets, to be able to cover, if any type of run happens.
So what we're saying is, there are -- 12 percent, or 1210 institutions are at a point, where anybody decided to pull money out. Or we had some sort of small panic. They're not surviving. It's not happening.
And that is a lot to do with the fact that they don't have the liquidity, based on the short-term and long-term demands.
So when we rate banks, we have five different ratings. And there's 154 data points, we look at, within that rating.
And then we compare them to the stability across all of our data on those banks. And so we compare 6,000 data points to figure out what is the stability of this bank. And we rate every bank, A through E. Okay?
And so A and B are more stable. C is vulnerable.
That's the yellow flag, right? And D and E are the red flag. But there is -- there is quite a bit, even in that yellow flag. That if we hit a recession, or we come into a new financial crisis, they do not have the liquidity or the cash on hand.
To be able to survive.
GLENN: So what does that mean to the average person?
I've been telling people, don't pull your money out of a bank.
Unless, I think you're foolish for putting more than $250,000 in a bank -- a bank account, especially if you're an individual making business, I understand.
But you put -- you're going to get your money back. Now, how much your money is worth in the end, is another story.
But don't pull your money out. Because you will get that money if it fails. Right?
DALLAS: Yeah.
We don't -- first off, we don't want to cause panic. Right? That's why the FDIC. Who understood that a lot of problems with these recent bank failures, they had a lot of uninsured accounts. Right?
They were over the 250,000 dollar limit.
But the first thing is, don't hedge your bets.
Don't think that the FDIC has the Capitol to cover everybody, because they don't.
Right? When they came out and said, we will cover all accounts. I'll give you 250,000.
That just -- they're just paying lip service. That's exactly what they're doing.
GLENN: Well, I think they'll print the money. That's why I say, I wonder how much it will be worth in the end. They'll just print it.
DALLAS: So it's not the FDIC that will bail them out. It will be the US Treasury that will bail them out.
STU: Correct.
DALLAS: So the first thing I would do is never have 250,000 dollars.
GLENN: Okay.
DALLAS: Spread them out.
Because each county is actually insured. So you can have one in one and one in the other. And have a total of $500,000.
GLENN: In the same bank?
DALLAS: Yeah, as long as they're in separate accounts, it's the accounts themselves that are insured.
GLENN: Okay.
So when you say, signaling a risk of imminent failure, that means if something happens.
Or -- I mean, imminent failure usually is like DEFCON 1. A war has started.
It's coming.
DALLAS: So everybody -- anybody that is on -- listening right now. Can go to Weissratings.com. And see what their bank is rated. They don't have to do anything.
There is a search at the top. You get all the information.
You don't have to pay for it.
We do this. Just because we care about the everyday person.
And so you can go right now, and see what your bank is rated.
If your bank is rated red, there's a possibility, and I'm not going to say it's happening.
But if it's rated a D or an E.
There's a possibility, that even without a crisis, they could go under.
STU: So what do you do if you're in one of those banks?
Because I don't want people to panic or freak out, but I want them to be safe.
So what do you do if you're in one of those banks?
DALLAS: So right now, it's not an issue.
We do not have an issue. So we're not panicking. Nobody needs to panic. Nobody needs to go take their money out.
They need to be careful, right?
They need to see where their money is. See why -- because you can see right there, why the institution is -- and if it's a profit problem.
If it's a stability issue.
A lot of these -- a lot of these are really small banks. Right?
GLENN: Uh-huh.
DALLAS: And so what they need to do, is they're going to be covered.
Everything is covered. Credit unions are covered.
Banks are covered under the FDIC.
And if you're in one of these small banks. You're just going to be pushed into. Like we saw with the other banks failures that will happen.
Into the other banks that advice your assets.
Or it's taken over, until they can take them off the accounts.
So it's going to be seamless for them.
But, you know, it's -- it's -- we have them there.
Just so when people are looking to get into banks. Or looking to not have to deal with this. They know.
STU: They know.
Let me take a break. I want to ask you about Bitcoin.
I want to ask you about insurance.
But I also want to ask you about the bank big banks. Are any of the big banks in trouble? We'll go there in 60 seconds.
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(music)
Okay. Any of the big banks in trouble?
DALLAS: So I can't give you specifics right now, on individual banks.
GLENN: Okay.
DALLAS: I love to do it. But I have -- I have the overall information.
But normally, normally, I'm going to say this: A lot of the big banks, are highly rated for us.
Okay? Which means, they're -- they're a B. Or an A.
I'm looking at JPMorgan right now. They're an A-plus. They have some liquidity. They're a major bank.
And so they seem safe.
But the issue here is, it's not that they're in trouble or not.
It's a catalyst system. Like when we saw in 2008, it's a catalyst.
Like people end up holding back for other people.
GLENN: Correct.
DALLAS: On bad days. We have some interesting things happening shortly. Like, the commercial lending industry is going to go through a little bump in the road.
GLENN: Yeah. I don't think that's a little bump in the road.
DALLAS: Yeah.
GLENN: There's a lot of big commercial debt, especially in these giant cities.
Who is going to -- who is going to fund these things?
And then what kind of interest rate, is it going to be?
I mean, I just -- highway you are going to renew all this commercial debt?
DALLAS: Yeah. There's a lot of issues. Terms coming. There's a lot of issues with cap rates just getting annihilated.
And so we're -- we're going to see big discounts. We're going to see big discounts on commercial properties.
And the thing is, I was -- I was listening to a pundit the other day. Not to quote some of the others that I am listening to. But they were saying, they foresee -- there's so much cash out there.
And people are being hesitant about getting into these commercial deals.
They may not even get the foreclosure. They will just be bought on discount, to other investors. Because they haven't been wanting to jump in the last year. Because of the crazy interest rates.
GLENN: Wow.
DALLAS: And so. I don't know.
I can't forecast. I'm not an expert.
GLENN: Yeah. Right. Just your ratings -- so tell me do you rate Bitcoin? I've been concerned about Bitcoin.
DALLAS: We do rate Bitcoin.
GLENN: Because with everything that's going on with the Federal Reserve and the government, how do you rate Bitcoin?
DALLAS: So we have Bitcoin rated now as an A-minus.
GLENN: Okay.
DALLAS: So you have to understand, we individually rate each asset.
So because Bitcoin is an A-minus. Does not mean that it's better than Apple as an investment.
So we rate things within their own industry. And so we rate all cryptocurrencies, around cryptocurrencies.
We rate all banks, around just banks. We have individual algorithms for each one. So insurance is another one, we've been dealing with the mess in Florida.
Which you probably know about. With the insurance.
And we downgraded the -- the back stock insurance company
For the state of Florida. Because its citizens. Because it -- it's a mess over there.
They're losing money.
And, you know, it's another big hurricane season, just is damaging to the current state.
And right now, we've been currently working with the ledge a little bit.
To try to help them out. To fix this issue. But it's a large issue.
We're basing for it. We care about that.
GLENN: Dallas, thank you very much for coming on and being a voice of reason. And also of warning and not causing any panic from anybody.
But just sharing the information. I appreciate it. Thank you.
DALLAS: Yeah. No problem.
GLENN: Weissratings.com is where you can go. And you can see the ratings of your insurance companies, your banks, et cetera, et cetera. How stable are they.
Do not panic. Do not pull your money out of banks. I mean, if you have more than 250,000 in an account, split it up. But don't pull your money out of the bank.
It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Weiss. W-E-I-S-Sratings.com.