John Kanas CEO of Bank United predicts 1,000 banks will fail in the next two years.  He feels like most will be smaller regional banks affected by losses in commercial real estate.

After two date changes and negotiations with Galveston and League City, TXDOT has finally decided to close I-45 at Calder Road in League City this weekend. The closure will affect all residents of the Houston area planning on traveling on I-45 through League City. If you are not familiar with the saga that surrounds this simple road closure click to read the article about it in the Galveston Daily News. TXDOT originally had scheduled the closure for the weekend of August 8th but business owners on Galveston Island called TXDOT for days to complain that it would hurt their business. As a business owner in League City who has watched how traffic has had a negative impact on our city I was shocked to learn that a city 20+ miles away could dictate when construction takes place.  While Galveston business owners may have won that short battle it will leave a bad taste with many League City residents who have waited years for traffic problems at the intersection to be fixed.

The closure begins at 7:00 pm on Friday August 28th. The northbound main lanes and frontage road will be opened to traffic Saturday by 10:00 p.m. The southbound main lanes and frontage road will be opened to traffic Sunday by 5:00 p.m. Also there will be no crossing of I-45 at Calder Road until Thursday, September 3rd due to construction.

Below is a diagram that the City of League City provided the showing the road closures.

TXDOT Diagram of the road changes.

Texas based Guaranty Bank was shut down by the FDIC as the 2nd largest bank failure of the year . The bank’s assets and deposits were sold off to the U.S. division of  BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) Compass, Spain’s second largest bank.  FDIC and BBVA will share in $11 billion assets. Guaranty Bank had over 150 locations in Texas and California. BBVA indicated that acquiring Guaranty Bank’s asset will help reach Spanish speaking markets in both states. The FDIC has taken over a record 81 banks in 2009 and that number is expected to rise with mounting loses in commercial real estate.

BB&T Bank

Guaranty Bank

Despite a growing labor force of more than 12 million and adding job growth in multiple sectors the unemployment rate for Texas increases to 7.9% in July. A positive note is nonfarm payroll grew by 37,900 jobs with growth in professional/business services, education, healthcare and construction. In Houston the unemployment rate grew from 8% in June to 8.4% in July. While the unemployment rate in Texas has risen much higher then 2008 levels it still well below the national unemployment rate of 9.4%.