Wachovia is Gone

Wachovia Bank is being acquired by Citigroup.

Good deal for the Feds, since Wachovia was not long for this Earth in the first place. Citigroup presumably paid a very small fraction of what Wachovia was once worth. This won't draw any cash from the FDIC insurance fund.

As far as competition goes in the banking sector, it pretty much sucks, now. There are very few big banks left. The last time I checked, the FDIC's "deathwatch list" was reputedly to have over 100 banks on the list.

We could conceivably wind up with just two or three big banks and maybe a handful of local banks in each market area, which would be a banking oligarchy. That is not good for anybody and if there is any doubt that the free market is still alive, it would drive a stake through its corpse.