Book Description

During the decades from 1982 to 1992, Texas banks failed at a rate unprecedented in United States history, even including the Great Depression of the 1930s. In all, 506 Texas commercial banks failed (accounting for 36% of all failures nationally), including seven of the ten largest banks in Texas. In this fascinating insider's account, Joseph M. "Jody" Grant, former chairman and chief executive officer of Texas American Bancshares, Inc. of Fort Worth (the seventh largest), tells the story of the collapse of Texas' major banks. He vividly re-creates the three-year struggle to save his own organization, Texas American Bancshares. This sobering account makes a compelling case against the FDIC's handling of Texas' financial crisis. In Grant's view, the bank failures have deprived Texas of the engine of capital that spawned the nation's third largest industrial economy, built Texas' major cities, bankrolled its entrepreneurs, and provided a pool of talented business and civic leaders. Grant's book will be thought-provoking reading for everyone in the financial community, as well as for students of Texas history and of business and government relations.