While everyone has been discussing the likely results of the stress tests for the past few days, the official results were just released. The tests were created to weigh whether or not the nation’s 19 largest banks would need more money to survive the recession if it gets any worse. They more or less found 10 of the banks would need to raise about 75 billion dollars to be safe:

1. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500),  faces a $33.9 billion capital shortfall.
2. Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) and struggling auto finance firm GMAC will need to raise $13.7 billion and $11.5 billion respectively.
3. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), which has taken hold of approximately $50 billion in government aid to date, is being asked to raise $5 billion.
4. Five regional lenders — PNC, Regions Financial, SunTrust, Fifth Third and KeyCorp will also be required to raise new capital.
5. So will Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), which regulators said would require $1.8 billion to shore up its capital position.
6. Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), American Express (AXP, Fortune 500) and Bank of New York Mellon were among the nine banks that regulators said do not need to raise more capital. The others were Capital One Financial, BB&T, U.S. Bancorp, State Street and insurer MetLife.

The results are better than expected and the 10 banks that need to raise capital do not need to raise as much as originally thought.  And while this is a good thing, it still isn’t good news.  And the results do indicate that once this mess is cleared up things need to change.

Hopefully they will.