This is un-officially being called the largest bank failure in the history of the U.S. Economy. Today Washington Mutual was closed by the Federal Government and and its assets sold to JPMorgan Chase & Company to the tune of $1.9 billion.

The above Washington Mutual commercial is kind of prophetic, in that it shows what appear to be banking executives (?) getting ready to jump off of a tall building.

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.

[ This entry is my contribution to the Rice Bowl Journals Collaboration Project for September ]

As I look at my little coin collection of pennies, nickels and dimes, I’m thinking…

So, our own government is planning to bail out those big investment banking firms to the tune of $700 billion dollars, maybe more. Read more