Akkam’s Razor

At the very bottom of recent stories announcing the need for expanded staffing at the FDIC by 60%, with an emphasis of recruiting S&L Crisis veterans (WSJ, subscription required), was a sentence stating the following:

There are 76 banks on the FDIC’s “problem institutions” list - which would equate to about 10 expected bank failures this year. About six banks fail per year on average, FDIC officials said.

Why is Nissan cutting production?  Why are Circuit City and CompUSA closing stores?  What's happening in the near future that would adversely affect consumer demand?

I regularly read a gaggle of econblogs, and they are talking about a couple of books - Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Crash by Peter Schiff, and Michael Panzner's Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes (Panzer also has a blog to support the book).