Washington Mutual: The Biggest Bank Meltdown in U.S. History

By Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen
Posted on September 26, 2008, Printed on December 22, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://culturekitchen.com//100463/

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has put it rather succinctly : Hope you like the smell of napalm in the morning. Otherwise, this will not be your sort of day.


The biggest bank meltdown in US history and it has to be Washington Mutual, the bank that's holding most of my money. Geezus! This from the Financial Times :

JPMorgan Chase has acquired the banking operations of Washington Mutual which was seized by US regulators on Thursday night in the biggest bank failure in US history.


Under the deal, which was brokered by government, JPMorgan will pay $1.9bn to the banking regulator, and acquire all insured and uninsured deposits, assets and some of the liabilities of WaMu’s banking operations, including its troubled mortgage portfolio.

I was actually going to take all my money out earlier in the week but decided to leave it for today. I should have done what the thousands of other depositors did. Take my money out of WaMu. Of course, the deposits run killed the bank, but now I have to run over there and find out if I have access to my cash.


Oh, wait! Here's the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC)

Liza Sabater blogs at Culture Kitchen.

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