[nickik]

Bank failures were very common in the US specifically, especially in the GD. The reason is that the US had 10000s of banks because of a regulation called 'Unit Banking'. This made banks incredibly weak (not diversified) to shocks and failed often. Because of other problem in the US system this often lead to lots of banking failures. 1000s of them went down in the GD for example. Compare to Canada where no bank failed (there were less in the first place of course).

It was deregulation that finally abolished that absurd practice along with other changes, including some more regulation, and the removal of lots of old regulation that lead to an improved banking system.

The Depression of 1929-1933 was followed very quickly by a recession in 1937 but banks didn't fail anymore. Pretty much every economist agree that the reason was the FDIC and the consolidation of the banking system in the following years.

To track bank failures today on deregulation in the 80s is a really hard sell, if you study the history of banking you will see huge changes in regulatory structure, types of regulation and so on all the time, including after Reagan. To sell the old 'evil republic deregulation is cause of all evil' story is always easy but unless you are at a political rally it is a pretty meaningless statement.