One banker's box stuffed to the brim with mail: that's what awaited us as we returned from an extended stay in Pittsburgh welcoming our granddaughter. I spent most of the evening sorting it into piles: Urgent, Important, Interesting, Political, Magazines, and Washinton Mutual. I kid you not. The mail from WaMu rated a pile of its own, as there were 16 envelopes, one for every two days we were away. I can't tell you what's in those envelopes, but I know it's not important: neither of us has an account with that bank. And yet we rate mail from them at a rate of one every two days?
So I wasn't totally shocked when I read this from the New York Times: Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history. I'd say WaMu's downfall was caused by unwise investments, all right—not in real estate, but in paper and postage!
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