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The Lost Bank: The Story Of Washington Mutual-The Biggest Bank Failure In American History (2012)

by Kirsten Grind(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1451617925 (ISBN13: 9781451617924)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: I was there. Yes, sitting in the middle of the new corporate office in Seattle when Sheila Bair spoke and the whole edifice (which was founded in 1889) came tumbling down. I followed Grind's reports in the Puget Sound Business Journal, and she has put together an excellent book about the whole sad affair. One caveat: she deals almost exclusively with the major execs (Killinger; Rotella) and does not cover the minions (like me) whose entire lives were impacted (read: ruined) by the Bank's failure. I understand that a Seattle Repertory company is going to turn this into a play! For that, I will gladly fly back up to Seattle!
review 2: "'Business got casual when dress got casual.'" (quoting Kerry Killinger, 51)"Killinger would later refer to the Countrywide chief ... moreexecutive [Angelo Mozilo] in an e-mail as the 'great orange-skinned prophet from Calabasas.'" (127)"'I was trying to torture them [JP Morgan] -- to smoke them out,' Fishman said later. 'They're torturing me, I'm torturing them. Everyone thinks we're kind of muttonheads. You're playing a weak hand, the world's coming to an end, and you're trying to run an auction on a band when no one knows where the bottom is. So you torture people.'" (291)"Because the bank held a large charter in Nevada, the FDIC was required to deliver a notice of its failure to this obscure location. The branch was WaMu's official headquarters. Since there were no WaMu executives in Henderson, the FDIC official delivered the paperwork to a distraught and confused young employee. Shaking she signed her name to the document indicating the government's monumental decision to take over her company. Later, the FDIC sent her an apologetic bouquet of flowers." (302-3) less

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