In what’s becoming just another day at the office in the world of American Banking, Washington Mutual was seized by the Federal Government today. An enormous number of bad investments in the mortgage backed securities market at the Seattle based bank forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to take control of WaMu and sell its assets off to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 Billion. The Company had been previously valued at having over $307 Billion worth of assets making its failing the largest in the history of the United States, by far.

The good news to be found in this troubling event is that the sale of WaMu eliminates any exposure the FDIC’s insurance fund had to the assets deposited in the bank, with those now being guaranteed by J.P. Morgan Chase. So at least WaMu’s customers are secure and we’re not all taking the hit on the irresponsible investments that the bank’s management should have known not to make.

You can takepart by, again, contacting your Representative in Congress and demanding a responsible economic package is passed to deal with the financial crisis.

LINKS:

AP: WaMu becomes biggest bank to fail in US history

Wall Street Journal: WaMu is seized, sold off to JP Morgan in largest bank failure in US history

Seattle Times: Feds seize WaMu in nation’s largest bank failure