Almost, the thing is though, they are still bankrupt (as in they have highly negative equity). In normal cases banks that have too little (or negative) equity get put into receivership (called nationalization by alarmists) by the FDIC. If this doesn't happen, these banks can still clear checks and function normally with negative equity because of deposit insurance and the market expectation that the feds won't foreclose on them. In short "The banks keep on getting bailed out, we keep on getting sold out" -- -Nathan Tankus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------