This has happened even though the share of equity in the banks' capital has risen from 6% to 9%.

ECONOMIST: Hard times have been good to America's smaller banks

Unlike Trump, whose development business is privately held, and Zeckendorf, who flourished before the real estate investment trust was invented, Zuckerman gets ample equity capital for his projects via share offerings of Boston Properties.

FORBES: The Master Builder

"What these banks want is market share, " says Scott Valentin, an equity research analyst at FBR Capital Markets in Virginia.

FORBES: Wall Street

All agree that banks need more capital and that a greater share of it should be pure equity, the strongest buffer against loss.

ECONOMIST: A new chapter for the world economy, maybe

Reinvested earnings make up the largest share of the overall figure in 2006 (43%), with equity capital running a close second.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Throw in deregulation, which gives depositors other places to place their cash, and a weak share market, which eats away at banks' unrealised gains on their equity portfolios and thus at their capital, and it is clear that many banks are in dire straits.

ECONOMIST: Will Tokyo finally clean house?

Investors in the share offering included CIC International, Boyu Capital and CITIC Capital, as well as CDB Capital, the equity investment arm of China Development Bank.

FORBES: Connect

As The Economist went to press, it looked likely that a diluted version of the Volcker rule would pass, allowing banks to keep running hedge-fund and private-equity units for clients who want to invest in them, and perhaps to keep putting a small share of their own capital in them as well.

ECONOMIST: The Volcker rule