Except for one thing in the case of WMI all the assets i.e. loans were sold and the liabilities i.e. transferred to JPM. This means someone is going to pay for what WMI did own or were owed or would have made had they not been seized without benefit of warning or even a recapitalization letter.
My point is that 30BB in assets doesn't mean 30BB in cash. Remember an asset on a banks balance sheet is a loan lent on leverage backed by customer's deposits (liabilities) and multiple types of short/long term loans.