by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
Our economy runs on credit, and our banks are the beating heart of that system. Without healthy banks, how would Americans buy homes, purchase vehicles or get credit cards? The way that our system is currently constructed, it is absolutely imperative for our banks to function properly. Unfortunately, the truth is that our banks have gotten into deep financial trouble. They are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses, and the primary reason why those losses have become so large is because we have witnessed a historic bond market crash over the past several years…