The problem with Banks these days is that it’s hard to understand if they are solvent or not. Sometimes I suspect that the people running them don’t even know, or if they do they are in denial, or lying.
Presumably, in July 2008, before Hank Paulson stood up and announced to the world "The US Banking System Is Safe And Sound One", he or his people, had looked at the audited accounts, talked to the regulators, perhaps the SEC, perhaps the rating agencies too; I mean presumably he wasn’t deliberately telling a big fat lie? 

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Over a year ago Hank Paulson declared "The US Banking System Is A Safe and Sound One", the market’s reaction to that piece of news was to short Fannie and Freddie into oblivion. A key issue there was holdings of mortgaged backed securities, specifically RMBS; valuations of those things depended on (a) their credit rating, (and once the LTV started to slip the rules said they had to be downgraded, so the price tanked), and (b) there was a rule of thumb that the value of those things was what an equivalent Treasury cost, less the cost of a CDS to insure them; when fear took over, the cost of a CDS went through the roof, the "market" (it never was a real market), froze. Then there was Lehman.

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First the market graph from Doug:

Click on graph for larger image in new window. The first graph is from Doug Short of dshort.com (financial planner): “Four Bad Bears”. Note that the Great Depression crash is based on the DOW; the three others are for the S&P 500.

TheStreet.com has a list of 89 banks to watch: Eighty-Nine U.S. Banks, Thrifts Lack Capital

Here are the banks with the highest percentage of Non-Performing Assets on TheStreet.com’s list (note: Corus and Vineyard make the list)

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