A collection of articles defining our times.
The pages contain clickable links, don't let
The titles fool you; some of the best articles
have very non-descript titles, and there are usually
more articles on the matters in the days and weeks
the links land on, so it's a sort of treasure hunt
through history, Enjoy! /\ \/
After you click on a page just scroll down to see the links.
The collapse of Washington Mutual, which the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation placed in receivership in 2008 near the outset of
the Great Recession, was the largest bank failure in US history. Yet in
comparison to the crashes and bailouts on Wall Street, it received
little in-depth coverage outside its Seattle hometown. Reporting for a
small paper in nearby Puget Sound, Kirsten Grind, who now writes for the
Wall Street Journal, followed the story meticulously and was named a Pulitzer finalist for her troubles. The Lost Bank, out this week, is the culmination of her award-winning work.
Packaged as a narrative tragedy, the book tells the story of WaMu's
adept transition to a publicly traded company under CEO Lou Pepper in
1983, successor Kerry Killinger's failed attempt to establish the
"Wal-Mart of banking" to cater to Main Street, and a last-ditch
three-week effort after Killinger's ouster that failed to convince the
feds to save the company. Along the way, WaMu's down-home sensibilities
and the "frugal is sexy" work ethic that steered the bank back to
profitability through the savings and loan debacle succumbed to the
allure of the subprime bubble. READ MORE
The Lost Bank
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