Slog - Comments on The Sign of All Times http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times Who is paying for the WaMu mess? No need to guess: The Florida employee said she'd like to leave the industry but "I'm 58, and I've got a house and car payments to make and parents who have Alzheimer's, and I don't know what else to do." A Seattle-area loan officer who is being laid off after a decade at WaMu said he and others are angry at upper management. "On April 1, they told the big producers that we're solid, we're good, we want to keep you, and less than a week later, you're gone," he said. "The loans... Copyright 2008 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:52:48 -0800 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:29:21 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by laterite To be fair, it's not the employees who are expressing surprise in that quote. It's the mortgage brokers who are losing a huge chunk of business. I don't think any WaMu employees being laid off are truly "surprised". But it still sucks to lose a job.

]]> laterite http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993711 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993711 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:05:32 -0800 Comment by laterite Also, I think you have some link fixage to perform.

]]> laterite http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993713 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993713 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:07:20 -0800 Comment by Bellevue Ave their retail banking is still pretty good though.

]]> Bellevue Ave http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993718 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993718 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:09:00 -0800 Comment by grateful I am not a WM employee When is Kerry Killinger getting his pink slip? And, when is he selling the corporate jet and flying coach?

]]> grateful I am not a WM employee http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993723 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993723 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:19:19 -0800 Comment by Bellevue Ave when shareholders tell him to.

]]> Bellevue Ave http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993728 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993728 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:24:57 -0800 Comment by Fnarf The fun thing about this mortgage crisis is, nobody really knows where it came from. I mean, sure, subprime lending, unqualified buyers, yadda yadda. But the real issue is the exposure of ALMOST EVERYTHING through the mysteries of derivative trading that even derivative traders don't understand. And everybody's got a piece of it, even lots of companies that don't do mortgages.

WaMu's completely fucked, of course. They may not even survive as a company, especially if they find any more hunks of business that have been securitized, if that's the right word.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993729 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993729 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:26:05 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle @5 - we can't tell him to. There's literally no way for investors to do that - we don't get to vote on his pay package, and they even ignore our votes on travel expenses as well.

(caveat - only own BofA and PBBT shares at the moment)

derivatives (including CDOs and such) are just gambling wrapped up in a pretty bow and called "assets" - thanks to the MBAs like GWB.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993743 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993743 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:38:36 -0800 Comment by bob The sickest part of the whole mess is that the WAMU board of directors changed the compensation plan so that the senior executives won't be compensated based on the mortgage business meltdown, but rather on other parts of the business and fuzzy metrics. In other words, they screw up, people lose their jobs, and they'll still get their million dollar bonuses.

]]> bob http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993778 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993778 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:01:05 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle @8 - exactly - and it's not even put up to a binding vote by shareholders.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993799 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993799 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:16:39 -0800 Comment by left coast I agree with @6 that the problem is probably not the loans that WAMU originated but the securitized loans that it bought. I'm not sure decent mortgage brokers shouldn't have been surprised. As people have pointed out above it's management that seems to be escaping with their money and jobs, and monkey pres is bailing them out with the pretend stick of more regulation (hasn't really been his administration's strong suit).

]]> left coast http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993856 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993856 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:02:50 -0800 Comment by monkey So basically if I hadn't been laid off by WaMu in December I would have been laid off this month.

I wish I still had access to the internal wamu blog. That's gotta be some fun stuff right now, if they haven't shut it down.

]]> monkey http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993883 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c993883 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:28:32 -0800 Comment by King Rat New home loans are in the crapper. Did they not see prices and number of sales going down and inventory going up industry-wide? Expecting Wamu to keep employing them when there is little new business is like expecting Exxon to keep employing full serve gas attendants after all the oil is gone.

]]> King Rat http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c994770 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_sign_of_all_times#c994770 Money Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:29:21 -0800