Problem: According to Gerald Baker, columnist for the London Financial Times, November 23, 1999, "In the United States, banks are, by whichever measure chosen, in unusually good shape for this stage of an expansion. There are few signs of emerging excesses that even undermined America's own banking system at the end of the 1980's...Again, of course, a significant fall in asset prices would harm balance sheets, but not do anything like the scale in post-bubble Japan."
Q1. What problems be set U.S. banks at the end of the 1980's?
Q2. How did these problems compare with those in Japan?
Q3. How does a fall in asset (stock or property) prices hurt banks?