Meeting in Lincoln as diagnostics on America's biggest, stressed-out financial companies were released, Nebraska commercial banking leaders acknowledged they resent the mess imprudent financiers and mortgage lenders imposed on the rest of us.

"We do resent that," said Mike Jacobson, a former vocational ag instructor, now CEO of NebraskaLand National Bank in North Platte and chairman of the Nebraska Bankers Association. "Because everybody refers to themselves as a bank. AIG and Bear Stearns are not banks. I can assure you, across the state, in towns of an average size of 400 people, these (bankers) are not getting seven-figure salaries.

"This was a subprime mortgage problem," Jacobson said. "Banks in Nebraska weren't involved in that, but we're paying the price in terms of reputation and higher FDIC (deposit insurance) rates.

"I'm not sure there was a bank in Nebraska active in subprime lending," said Jacobson.

Their national organization spent the day defending the big commercial banks examined in the national "stress tests" as "well capitalized," and criticizing the federal government for changing the rules on how the capital cushion is calculated for those under stress.

But the fallout of subprime lending and investing by the nation's biggest financial organizations is not lost on those bankers more familiar with farmers and wage-earners.

Two years ago, Jacobson said, banks like his were doing very little mortgage lending, because they were undercut by brokers and Internet lenders who weren't obliged to conform to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan standards.

Now they're gone from the market, the securities made of subprime loans are mucking up the nation's financial works and his bank actually is getting more mortgage applications.

"Our (lending) standards haven't changed," he said.

The stress tests, routinely belittled by bankers as redundant to their own self-examinations, nonetheless are probably valuable as validation and as a stabilizer, said Larry Marik, chairman-elect of the state association, and chairman of First National Bank of Columbus and Norfolk.

"It will lead to better things," Marik said.

He offered reassurances that the kind of bank that still deals with local customers face to face in Nebraska is not part of the problem being addressed by regulators now.

"Our economy never shut down," he said.

The reward for that lack of excess, Jacobson suggested, is that in this state, at least, the bottom of its real estate market is probably here.

Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or at dpiersol@journalstar.com