Compare & contrast: the world's second largest bank, Fortis, is being nationalized.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/worldbusiness/29euro.html?ref=business

<snip>
In the latest sign of trouble to hit Europe from the global credit crisis, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, took the unprecedented step of joining Prime Minister Yves Leterme of Belgium and Dutch ministers in Brussels on Sunday to discuss an outright seizure or rescue of the Belgian-Dutch financial conglomerate Fortis. The shares have fallen by a third in two weeks and plunged 20 percent on Friday on concern over its ability to raise funds and remain solvent following an ill-timed, costly purchase of ABN Amro with a consortium of other banks. </snip>

This is of course the start - negotiations have ended meanwhile:
For 11.2 Billion Euro, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg will take full ownership of the company, which will probably sell parts. The government also assured people their savings are 100 % guaranteed (no cap) by the states.
I don't have an english link of this last bit of info, so I didn't post in LBN.

To me, it is shocking news, and I was surprised to see that both Fortis and ING (the world's largest bank it would seem) are in the Fortune 500 top 20.
And, finally, the amount paid by the governments is much lower than the figures in the US for apparently smaller banks.

That tells you something, no?

the US is planning to buy.

We are more regulated over here...

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/28/news/international/fortis_nationalized.ap/?postversion=2008092818

That and Bloomberg ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHLJkQ0tCDEM&refer=home ) call it 'partial nationalization' - I don't think they get full ownership (it is very big, so that would be a really small price for it).

Post that link in LBN if you want.

Still dirt cheap, but good correction!

I'll crosspost in LBN then, thank you.

And have already lost several massive banks. So maybe that would tell you why we've got a larger amount of money to put forward.

But still...Fortis is larger than Citigroup - just for perspective.

and now that they've been bought by JP Morgan they will be the same size as BofA which is $600,000,000 a piece. And that's just two.

http://nyjobsource.com/banks.html

which is a different story, no? Check the Fortune list of banks:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/industries/192/index.html

I'm really astounded our two main banks are this big.

Your question made me check out what % of our federal budget goes to this deal: it's no less than 10 PERCENT!

The number of US banks on that list verse the number of Belgium banks.

The crisis is going global and will cause a worldwide hyperinflationary depression.