Washington Mutual: How The Bank Turned Predatory

Business & Technology :

(David Heath is now the Senior Investigative Reporter at the Huffington Post Investigative Fund)

For decades, Washington Mutual lived up to its image as a staid, straight-laced Seattle institution. Its motto: "The Friend of the Family."

By the time WaMu made history last year as the nation's biggest bank failure, it bore no resemblance to this homey image.

Read the whole story: Business & Technology

Comments

[Twopennygal]

And the borrowers are to blame for this why?

[spaceship4theking]

End the war in iraq. End Guantanamo. NO more tax haven for the rich. NO more bailouts.

Reinstate COLA. Pass another stimulus designed specifically for JOB CREATION

good articles; http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

Obama please reform heath care and get unemployment benefits passed ASAP

[Sundialsvc4]

It isn't hard to figure out how this happened.

The business-model of "let's combine the three-legged stool of banking + finance + insurance under one roof and make a killing for ourselves" is fundamentally and fatally flawed. But still it is worth a lot of money, on paper, to a small group of gluttons who dub themselves "the privileged few."

Criminal enterprises never stop on their own. When they finally fly off the edge of the cliff, they're shifting gears. And they've got a great big train of fellow victims tied-on behind them. (The perpetrators always dream of stepping off at the edge of the precipice and waving, "buh-bye!")

The criminals turned to the crimes of bribery, extortion, fraud-on-t­he-market, swindling, racketeering and much more. "Especially, heh, bribery." They dubbed themselves "too $$ big $$ to $$ fail" and every politician in Washington "knew $$ what $$ that $$ meant."

Folly. Vanity. Inevitable conclusion.

[swift goat pet for truth]

May we use this as an example of how private business always does better tthan government run enterprises?

[investingonline]

where are the unemployment benefits we need?

he right: http://finnanceopinionss.blogspot.com

[getsit]

My daughter worked for a WAMU loan center. They decided to relocate in another state and LAID OFF EVERYONE WORKING IN THE BUILDING. This was years ago before the 'CALLAPSE". Not a friendly place.

Close your accounts at all the big banks and open up new ones at your local small banks and credit unions. This is the only way to bust up the monopolies.

[ETSpoon]

I was a high school classmate of former WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger. He earned his MBA from the University of Iowa business school, the professors and administers of which take their cues from the Friedmanite Chicago University and Harvard School of Business.

What we are witnessing even more than a collapse of the financial industry is the failure of an economic philosophy, Freidmanian free marketism, which almost has almost into religion.