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LAKE JACKSON, Texas — Already staring down the barrel of an $8-million assessment to replenish the share insurance fund, like other credit unions Texas Dow Employees Credit Union is now bracing for additional investment losses in the wake of the US Central and WesCorp conservatorships.

SALT LAKE CITY — A prediction that it would all "blow up some day" has come true.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The $2-billion price tag corporates will shoulder in charging off membership capital shares and paid-in-capital at U.S. Central has members of Corporate One FCU concerned.

BURLINGTON, Mass. — One corporate is expecting the ranks of corporate CUs to get smaller.

HARRISBURG, Penn. — Mid-Atlantic Corporate FCU issued a statement to its members that read, in part, "To date the investments that Mid-Atlantic Corporate holds with U.S. Central have continued to earn dividends, and we plan on holding them to maturity. Also those deposits are guaranteed under NCUA's extended guarantee of corporate deposits. Mid-Atlantic Corporate will maintain our normal practices of analyzing and evaluating portfolio valuation and risk, and the corporate will continue to look to various investment sources as our U.S. Central investments mature.

DALLAS — The conservatorships of U.S. Central and WesCorp won't unsettle CUs that deposit with Southwest Corporate FCU, predicts Bob Rehm, the corporate's SVP of corporate relations.

SEATTLE — Despite the economy, credit unions should investigate expanding their branch networks if it will help their bottom lines in the long run.

GLENDALE, Calif. — Glendale Area Schools FCU has removed a controversial ad from its website several weeks after NCUA asked it to do so. But the CU said the ad had already accomplished its mission.

DEARBORN, Mich. — How does a credit union streamline operations, reduce the cost of generating a dollar of revenue to 48 cents from 78 cents, and then leverage those efficiencies to deliver a $17-million member dividend each of the last three years?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Golden 1 Credit Union helped the State of California meet part of its budget shortfall by buying $500 million in "revenue anticipation notes" last week.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — NCUA has rolled out a five-month media campaign featuring financial journalist Jane Bryant Quinn to promote deposit protection provided by the NCUSIF.

LENEXA, Kan. — In a move that is reverberating throughout the credit union movement, NCUA took over troubled U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp FCU, the nation's two largest corporate credit unions, signaling deepening problems for the health of all credit unions.

DENVER – First data Corp., which was taken private in 2007 in one of the biggest leveraged buyouts ever, reported a $3.8 billion loss for 2008, after taking impairment charges for almost all of its business lines.

NORWALK, Conn. – The Financial Accounting Standards Board is preparing a proposal that would ease the strain of mark-to-market accounting by allowing credit unions and other entities to separate the actual expected losses on their holdings from the diminished market value, or fair value, of the holdings.

CHICAGO – The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago reported Monday that continued troubles on its private label mortgage backed securities caused it to report a $119 million loss for 2008. That compares to net income of $98 million for 2007.

MADISON, Wis. – CUNA Mutual Group, which reported a $148.9 million loss for 2008 earlier this month, had its issuer credit rating downgraded a notch yesterday by insurance rating agency A.M. Best Co.

WASHINGTON – Regulators closed three more banks Friday, in Georgia, Colorado and Kansas, bringing to 20 the number of bank failures so far this year.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA said Friday it approved just nine mergers last month–less than half the normal monthly average–all but one of them involving a credit union that reported losses for last year.

WASHINGTON — A national survey of CUs indicates support for using Treasury funds as a back up for the National CU Share Insurance Fund, according to CUNA.

WASHINGTON — Leaders of the credit union movement asked the Senate Banking Committee last week for help paying for the $5 billion corporate credit union bailout by allowing NCUA to stretch out the assessment for the bailout to as long as eight years and to give troubled corporate credit unions direct access to the $41 billion emergency loan fund known as the Central Liquidity Facility.