So many bank failures it’s hardly even news

America’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the failure of four banks on Friday, an event that went largely unrecorded in its national press. Bank failures, you see, have become common place. The closure of the First Vietnamese American Bank was the 143rd for the year.

That’s already a record high for the last decade. With 15% of the year still to go the failures of 2010 have already passed last year’s 140.

And this particular fall-out from the financial crisis is unlikely to have ended yet. The Calculated Risk website keeps an unofficial tally of “problem banks” compiled from information on the public record. Currently there are 894 institutions on the list with total assets of $416.5 billion.