by calicon » Tue Apr 09, 2013 3:11 pm
Just so we're clear, we're not talking money, we're talking assets. When we're talking about borrowed money, at least in the US, we're talking about deposits most likely. This isn't true in all countries, but in the US right now, there are more deposits than loans, so it's a fairly easy extrapolation that deposits are funding lending. That's pretty straightforward banking, nothing too outrageous. You keep capital around to pay for losses.
And it's either outdated, or looking at non-US banking. There isn't a single big bank in the US right now with a TCE of 3%. I think the worst of the TBTF is JPM with a TCE of 5.8%? in that range at least.