By its nature, it's a morbid thought to consider, which helps explain why so many Americans don't want to think about it: What will happen to your hard earned assets after you die?
This means that the banks cannot expand their earning assets such as government securities and private loans, beyond that point.
In the second quarter this year, Mr. Kasriel said, 61.7percentt of banks' total earning assets consisted of mortgage-related holdings.
But buried in the regulator's quarterly data dump is a line, titled "cost of funding earning assets," that comes as close as it gets.
The assets of the banks consist of "reserves" (currency plus deposits at other banks, including the central bank) and "earning assets" (loans plus investments in the form of bonds and other securities).
These alone make up about half of the earning assets of Commerce Bancorp, a fast-expanding New Jersey bank, and Mellon Financial, a biggish lender, according to Standard & Poor's (S&P), a rating agency.
In general, you want your highest earning assets in your tax-deferred accounts.
Net interest income was up 4% because of an increase in earning assets.
U.S. securities account for 7.7% of ICBCs total foreign securities investments and 3% of its earning assets, Goldman Sachs said.
He noted that 60% of banks' earning assets were mortgage-related twice as mortgage-related twicen 1986.
To see the squeeze at U.S. Bancorp, which has 19% of its earning assets in mortgage bonds, check out its net interest margin: still a healthy 4.20% but down 22 basis points in the past year.
