Not so very long ago, I published here a photo of an honest-to-goodness bank run in England, as depositors tapped politely at the door of Northern Rock Bank in the hopes of receiving their money back.

As you know, the British government charitably stepped forward and, dipping into taxpayers’ pockets, made depositors whole.

Here is another photo of a bank run, this time in the U.S. from earlier this week, as depositors sit comfortably under an awning on chairs thoughtfully provided by the management of IndyMac (IMB).

Now, you have to ask yourself a question or two.

Are these two bank failures members of the species of “black swans” you hear so much of these days? You know, outliers that come from nowhere and are expected by no one until they splash down next to you… and bite your face?

Or are they the first wave in an evolutionary process that will soon darken the skies with flocks of the breed?

The answer to this question is of no small importance.

You see, while the great unwashed of investor-world – those that get their investment ideas from watching Jim Cramer’s Mad Money — can handle a couple of bank failures, even a modest-sized number of same will, almost more than anything else, trigger real panic.

And in times of panic, people run for cover… increasing savings and holding off on discretionary spending… just the sort of thing that can turn a faltering economy into one for the history books.

It is worth noting that, while everyone tends to focus on the stock market crash of Black Monday, 1929, the worst of the bank failures didn’t occur until late in 1930 through 1933, with the Roosevelts’ euphemistically labeled “bank holiday” coming only on March 5, 1933.

With the rally in the U.S. stock markets this week, the financial talkies were abuzz with much speculation that the worst might now be over… and that the skies were bright blue and clear of anything other than swans of the white variety, handsomely offset by a puffy cloud here and there.

It’s a classic bear market trap.

The problems facing the banks are still miles away from being resolved… with the $5.3 trillion commercial real estate market now hanging by its fingertips over the same abyss that residential real estate has already tumbled into, the Fed clinging on its back like a powerless version of Gandalf.

Then there is the darkening picture on credit card delinquencies, which you can see in the graph below.

It is thus clearly in the interest of the banks, desperate as they now are to replace their evaporated capital, that investors not look too closely lest they discover the degenerated conditions and bleak prospects of many of the institutions.

And so this week the banks were pulling out all stops with “news” that could be spun into tidy sound bites such as these…

Citigroup Gains After Posting Smaller-Than-Estimated Loss of $2.5 Billion

Citigroup Inc. (C) rose in New York trading after reporting a smaller-than-estimated loss on fewer mortgage-bond writedowns, lower borrowing costs and job cuts.Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said its second-quarter net loss was $2.5 billion, or 54 cents a share, because of $12 billion in writedowns and increased bad-loan reserves. Analysts estimated the New York-based bank’s loss at $3.67 billion. The shares rose as much as 14 percent.

And this… JPMorgan (JPM) posted earnings of 54 cents, vs. $1.20 a year ago, and revenue fell 2.7%. However, Wall Street was expecting earnings about 10 cents per share lower. The bank took a $540 million hit related to its acquisition of Bear Stearns.The JPMorgan report isn’t the only evidence that some financial firms are avoiding the full impact of the financial crisis. Also Thursday, PNC Financial Services (PNC), the largest bank in Pennsylvania, said its second-quarter profits rose 19%. Earnings of $1.45 per share beat analysts estimates by 29 cents.

On Wednesday, Wells Fargo (WFC) sparked a stock market rally when it raised its dividend and its second-quarter profits impressed investors.Just as I was preparing to let out a long bottled-up Hip! Hip! and all that, a couple of items came across my desk. The first was an article out of Bloomberg…

July 14 (Bloomberg) — At an investor presentation in May, Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said shrinking the bank’s $2.2 trillion balance sheet, the biggest in the U.S., was a cornerstone of his turnaround plan.Nowhere mentioned in the accompanying 66-page handout were the additional $1.1 trillion of assets that New York-based Citigroup keeps off its books: trusts to sell mortgage-backed securities, financing vehicles to issue short-term debt and collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, to repackage bonds.

Hey, what’s $1.1 trillion between friends.

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