The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s involved the catastrophic financial failure of over a thousand thrift institutions in the United States, driven by sudden deregulation, risky speculative real estate investments, severe managerial fraud, and inadequate federal oversight. As hundreds of institutions became insolvent, the federal government was forced to step in through the Resolution Trust Corporation to bail out depositors at an ultimate cost of over one hundred and sixty billion dollars to taxpayers, leading to major criminal prosecutions, congressional hearings, and sweeping overhauls of banking regulations.