At the end of the 1980s, more than 1,000 savings & loan institutions in the United States were threatened by insolvency due to financing with divergent maturity dates in connection with high interest rates for depositors but comparatively low rates on mortgage lending. 11 In 1989, the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) – a bad bank – was founded. The RTC was set up with government funding and to a limited extent with money from private investors. Between 1989 and 1995, the RTC took over 747 bankrupt S&Ls with a book value of 394 billion dollars. The S&L bailout cost US taxpayers.
