Although exports and production have continued to increase, their levels in the January–March quarter of 2010, the most recent quarter, were 16 percent below their peak levels reached in the January–March quarter of 2008, and the real GDP growth rate in the October–December quarter of 2009 was also 6 percent below its peak.
For example, when I was commissioner here, there was an old joke among state examiners that you never dared set foot in a bank on the Eastern Shore if you didn’t know the latest monthly count of blue crabs. Strong lines of communication between examiners and community banks are vitally important.