Good bye thrift industry. As part of the historic financial reform bill (financial reform news), the Office of Thrift Supervision will be shuttered, an apt symbol of the demise of a once proud industry. The ranks of the nation's "thrifts" have dwindled. The biggest names--Washington Mutual, IndyMac and Countrywide Financial--have all bit the dust, a victim of the same lending practices that were never supposed to infect these companies.

Four years ago, the OTC regulated 863 savings and loan associations with total assets of almost $1.5 trillion. Now, there are just 757 thrifts with assets of $950 billion. Traditionally, thrifts were seen as mortgage specialists with a conservative bent. But the lure of riches was just too much for them to handle. They ended up embracing some of the most deleterious "innovations" in the mortgage industry, the sub-prime, the Alt-As and so on.

As the New York Times notes, now even its trade association has been shut down, perhaps owing to lack of dues. The thrifts that remain will now be supervised like plain old banks. The OTC itself will be folded into the OCC.

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