What better evidence that everything is rosy and that the financial stimulus is working than a new wave of bank collapses – the worst in 17 years?

Reuters………..The number of U.S. bank failures this year reached 106 on Friday, when regulators closed seven more small banks, marking the highest annual level of failed institutions since 1992 during the savings and loan crisis. There were 25 bank failures in all of 2008 and only 3 in in 2007.

The number is expected to continue rising as the industry tries to get a handle on commercial real estate loans that will continue to deteriorate as more strip malls go vacant and condo developments remain stalled. Happy as a clam, HFDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has said the banking industry’s recovery is expected to lag the improvement in the overall economy. Bair continued her insane sense of optimism by observing, “Obviously, the pace of bank failures has picked up and it’s going to continue into and through next year. But I think it’s not nearly where we were during the S&L days.”

As the old joke goes, “Your miseries could be much worse….they could be mine.”