Washington Mutual Preferred fka WAMPQ

[Wamook]

All the banks were on shaky ground a couple of months ago. Every Single One of them. They were all like ships in a hurricane. I've been thinking lately about all this mess and how there was a pretty strenuous effort to make one of the banks look big and strong enough to absorb another bank with huge losses on it's books. What state would the world be in if both banks had failed?? What if there had been a run on both banks??

Where would we be now??

All of the banks are having to take write downs on their toxic debts and bad loans. But with JPM they talk about all the write downs by saying something like: We wrote down XX billion dollars on the WAMU deal, and a few of our own loans as well. We're laying off XXXX employees from the WAMU purchase, and a few of our own as well. And the numbers are all pretty staggering.

If they were not reporting their losses in context of the WAMU deal, they might be suffering worse in the press. Investor and depositor confidence might be lower than it is. Dips in those confidence levels can spark a run or a sell off. And it's not looking very swell at the moment all around. Banks are holding the funds the government gave them, pay no attention to what they say about it. "Everything is Great!!" "Everything is Fine!!" is all you can ever expect a banker to say about his business. Look at what they do!! It's the only measure of their best interests. They are holding on to the money. BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BE CAUSE!! because they JUST MIGHT NEED need need need THAT MONEY money money money money!!