Why wasn't IndyMac on FDIC problem list?

Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, says "everyone expects regulators to be ahead of the curve, but they never are. It's hard for regulators to be proactive. If the FDIC was beating the hell out of IndyMac a year ago, the congressmen that represent IndyMac would have been all over them."

Whalen says the problem list understates the number of troubled banks. Of about 9,000 institutions, "we have identified about 10 percent that are in significant distress and another 10 to 15 percent headed in that direction," he says.