WaMu is largest U.S. bank failure

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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington Mutual Inc was closed by the U.S. government in by far the largest failure of a U.S. bank, and its banking assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.

Thursday's seizure and sale is the latest historic step in U.S. government attempts to clean up a banking industry littered with toxic mortgage debt. Negotiations over a $700 billion bailout of the entire financial system stalled in Washington on Thursday.

Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, has been one of the lenders hardest hit by the nation's housing bust and credit crisis, and had already suffered from soaring mortgage losses.

Washington Mutual was shut by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was named receiver. This followed $16.7 billion of deposit outflows at the Seattle-based thrift since Sept 15, the OTS said.

"With insufficient liquidity to meet its obligations, WaMu......read more

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This is indeed a sad situation for the country, on aspects of money and investment. This means LEHMAN BROs and BEAR STEARNS are not the only victims of the current meltdown of financial firms. However they are the ones that got it the hardest. They lost everything when others got rescued at the last minute and look for another day under the Sun.

Let us hope against hope everything will turn take a smooth turning really soon.