WaMu joins bankers butchers bill

You probably all know that Washington Mutual - a bank that gave mortgages away like penny candy the past few years - has expired and gone to meet its maker.

WaMu's many Tampa Bay area branches were humming along normally on Friday. To salvage the bank's operations, the government has arranged a shotgun wedding with J.P Morgan Chase & Co. Unfortunately we're fast running out of grooms willing to go to the altar with these bankrupt brides.

Take a look at this chart of bank failures over the past 8 years assembled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Note that Florida's only recent contribution to death row is First Priority Bank in Bradenton, which went kaput August 1.

But the list underestimates the troubles. Coast Bank, for example, was absorbed late last year for pennies on the dollar by First Banks of St. Louis. Based in Bradenton, Coast had a bunch of branches in our area.

It got into trouble financing no-money-down new home investment schemes near Port Charlotte. The housing market collapsed. The builders and investors bailed from their deals. Coast went broke.

Comments

[Fuzzy Bear]

It is the investors in the banks who often pay the price for the greed brought on by upper management.

There are many more banks that will fail in the days and months to come as the asset, credit and housing bubbles continue to deflate.