A layman's explanation of the recent bank failures

Imagine the American banking system as a vast ocean. If you envision what happens to any ocean when things change suddenly in it, you can, perhaps, have a better understanding of why the mismanagers of the failed banks... failed. They took their eyes of basic principles, and failed to see financial signals that even you and I saw. Worse, it was their JOBS to see those signals, and to understand how to react to them.