As of December 31, 2010, the FDIC lists 157 U.S. bank failures for the year 2010. That number eclipses the previous record of 140 shuttered banks set only one year earlier in 2009. When the ongoing economic storm began in 2008, only 25 banks failed that year.
The chart below illustrates bank closures going back to the year 2000.
FDIC listed U.S. bank failures for the 21st Century
Regardless of rosy economic projections made by some for 2011, clearly the U.S. economy is far from well. Indeed, we might just now be entering the initial stages of economic collapse.