If you thought America’s banking crisis was over, think again. Government regulators closed six banks last week, bringing to 15 the number of bank failures already this year.

First Regional Bank, based in Los Angeles, was the biggest to fail, with $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits. Two banks in Georgia, and one each in Florida, Minnesota and Washington also failed.

The failures are expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (fdic)—the agency responsible for dismantling failed banks—$1.9 billion. So far this year, the total cost of failed banks to the fdic is estimated to be $3.2 billion.

The fdic is braced for many more failures. It had to take care of 140 banks last year—the highest annual level since the savings and loans crisis in 1992. It expects 2010 to be a bad year too.

“While the economy is showing signs of improvement, recovery in the banking industry tends to lag behind other sectors,” said the fdic’s director of resolutions and receiverships, Mitchell Glassman. “We expect to see the level of failures continue to be high during 2010.”

The fdic expects the total cost of bank failures from 2008 to 2013 to be around $100 billion.

Despite the recent reports that America’s economy grew substantially in the last quarter, the U.S.’s economic troubles are far from over. As the Trumpet has pointed out, a primary cause of these troubles is greed. People want—and think they can get—money for nothing. The United States will keep having economic crises until the entire system destroys itself. A house built on the wrong foundation cannot stand forever. For more on the future of the U.S. economy, see our article “2010: The Make-Believe Recovery.”