Actually, I didn’t mention it, but I’m confident that this is going on at the national level as well. In fact, in a way the situation could be worse at the bigger banks. At the local level, the bank’s President probably knows what’s going on with most of the bank’s loans, particularly the larger ones. So, there’s delayed recognition of problems, but it’s a “consciously” delayed recognition. At the national level, however, there’s a lot more bureaucracy between the top of the pile and the lenders on the ground. Consequently, there’s a more “unconscious” delayed recognition of loan problems. The challenge for the local banks is that they don’t have the advantage of geographic diversification that the larger banks do. So they live and die by the local economy.
