Saying Yes, WaMu Built Empire on Shaky Loans

Saturday, December 27, 2008
PETER S. GOODMAN and GRETCHEN MORGENSON, New York Times,

“We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe’s-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we’ve done our job, five years from now you’re not going to call us a bank.” — Kerry K. Killinger, chief executive of Washington Mutual, 2003.

SAN DIEGO — As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John D. Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling stockbrokers’. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes.

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Posted by Editor on 12/27/08 at 04:49 PM • (0) Comments

Tags: washington mutual, wamu, killinger,