S&P downgrades Washington Mutual

S&P downgrades Washington Mutual

I think Wamu will make it through this mess.

bushspeak fundamentals sound

Johnjspear;105413:
I think Wamu will make it through this mess.

famous last words made just as the bank door closed.

This bail out is a Joke. Wall Street doesn’t care about the middle class, why should we bail out the ones who created this mess. Then we are going to give them $700 billion? That is like giving a crack addict all the crack they need to get off of crack. U.S. Citizens should boycott this effort because they would not bail out you. Have they help you with your bills or stop any foreclosures or repossessions for you no. This is more of the rich getting richer. President Bush and Henry Paulson are justing looking out for the rich. Worse case scenario is that things begin to get worse but for the middle class things can’t get worse. Our social security benefits are down to nothing but we will survive. Let Wall Street take their own punishment. We will rise again but with more oversight. Vote No! We bail out Freddie and Fannie earlier this year but what happen? Nothing! Then the same People are preparing this bail out that is Crazy. GIVE THE $700 BILLION TO THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

Largest bank failure in U.S. history...
:eek:
JPMorgan buys WaMu’s assets for $1.9B
25 Sept.`08 - Government seizes WaMu, sells some assets

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. came to the rescue of Washington Mutual Inc. Thursday, buying the thrift’s banking assets after WaMu was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank. This is the second time in six months that JPMorgan Chase has taken over a major financial institution crippled by bad bets in the mortgage market. The deal will cost JPMorgan Chase $1.9 billion, and the bank said in a statement it planned to write down WaMu’s loan portfolio by approximately $31 billion. JPMorgan Chase, which acquired Bear Stearns Cos. last March, also said it would sell $8 billion in common stock to raise its capital position.

The FDIC, which insures bank deposits, said it would not have to dip into the insurance fund as a result of the seizure. There had been concerns that the fund, which took a big hit after the seizure of IndyMac Bank, could be depleted by a WaMu seizure. WaMu “was under severe liquidity pressure," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair told reporters in a conference call. “For all depositors and other customers of Washington Mutual Bank, this is simply a combination of two banks," Bair said in a statement. “For bank customers, it will be a seamless transition. There will be no interruption in services and bank customers should expect business as usual come Friday morning."

The government measures bank failures by an institutions’s assets; Seattle-based WaMu has roughly $310 billion in assets. The previous record was the failure of Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984, with $40 billion in assets when it closed. IndyMac, seized in July, had $32 billion. WaMu was searching for a lifeline after piling up billions of dollars in losses due to failed mortgages. WaMu has seen its stock price plummet by 87 percent this year, and it suffered a ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s earlier this week that put it in danger of collapse.

More [url:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26893612/[/url]

See also:

U.S. bank deposit fund dodges bullet with WaMu buyer
Fri Sep 26, 2008 WASHINGTON - The U.S. fund to insure customer deposits used for bank failures dodged a big bullet when regulators on Thursday announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to buy failed mortgage lender Washington Mutual.

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Becoming the largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual Inc was acquired in a transaction that did not dent the Deposit Insurance Fund, which stood at about $45 billion at the end of June, or incur costs to the taxpayer.

“I think this institution was a big question mark for a lot of people about the health of the deposit insurance fund," Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said during a telephone call with reporters. Fears were mounting that a big bank failure could devastate the reserve at a time when public confidence in banks was eroding as one big U.S. financial firm after another was spiraling downward.

The FDIC fund is used to insure up to $100,000 per account per depositor and $250,000 per Individual Retirement Account at insured banks. As concerns surrounding WaMu increased, Bair repeatedly said that she remained confident that the fund had ample amounts to deal with future bank insolvencies. She doubted that the FDIC would have to tap into the Treasury’s coffers for short- and long-term lines of credit totaling $70 billion.

More [url:
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2522314320080926[/url]

G-men gonna get to the bottom of it...
:cool:
Feds investigate Washington Mutual failure
Wed Oct 15, 2008 - Federal investigators have opened an investigation into the collapse of Washington Mutual Inc, the largest U.S. banking failure.

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Jeffrey Sullivan, U.S. attorney for the western district of Washington, said in a statement on Wednesday that he has set up a task force that includes investigators from the FBI, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigations unit. “Given the significant losses to investors, employees and our community, it is fully appropriate that we scrutinize the activities of the bank, its leaders and others to determine if any federal laws were violated," Sullivan said in a statement. He said the probe comes on the heels of “intense public interest in the failure of Washington Mutual."

Federal regulators seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual on Sept 25 after the savings and loan, once the nation’s largest, had $16.7 billion of deposit outflows in 10 days. JPMorgan Chase & Co bought the Seattle-based thrift’s banking units on that date for $1.9 billion, in a transaction arranged by regulators. Washington Mutual later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Tom Kelly, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment. Washington Mutual collapsed amid soaring losses from mortgages and home equity loans, and less than three weeks after replacing its longtime chief executive, Kerry Killinger.

More [url:
http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE49E9C620081015[/url]