Economies: If it's Friday, it's time to close another US bank.

It's becoming kind of routine. Just as everyone is getting ready to go home on Friday evening - or to head for a bar to try to forget the latest awful week, an email arrives from a Regulator.

Its headline raises one of two emotions: "poor buggers" or "TG it's not us."

On Friday 1 August, it was First Priority Bank, Bradenton, Florida which was handed over to FDIC by the Florida regulators

On Friday 26th July, First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, Nevada was handed over by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. And that action was after a failed rescue attempt when, on 30 June, 2008, First National Bank of Arizona, Scottsdale, Arizona, "merged with" First National Bank of Nevada and was included in this action.

And OCC was the driving force behind the Friday 26th July appointment of FDIC as receiver forFirst Heritage Bank N.A., Newport Beach, California.

Historically, when a bank got into trouble, there was little difficulty in finding someone to take it over before a regulators' intervention. But no longer: the industry is leaving it to the "lender of last resort," i.e. an organ of state, to handle the disastrous fall-out from the appalling management of the banking sector over the past five or so years. You can call it by all sorts of soft-skills, PR-spin names but the bottom line is that the financial sector stuffed up in the biggest possible way and more and more institutions are paying the price.

Now, Mutual of Omaha is the FDIC's principle assistant. Assets in failed banks are being transferred to it, and it is honouring cheques (so long as there are funds in the customers' accounts) and allowing ATM withdrawals.

But no worries: today is Monday. There's a whole working week before the dreaded email arrive again.