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Non-Tech : Banks--- Betting on the recovery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (778)	4/14/2010 11:10:32 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1428

After all, banks decided to be 'aggressive' in ways they have never done previously. ... because they could with the derivatives. They played a key role. I am not denying that that's part of it but it went deeper than that. There was very little regulation going on so they thought they could get away with their stunts and they did for quite a while until the house of cards came tumbling down.

To: Road Walker who wrote (778)	4/14/2010 11:26:35 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1428

Citi is moving up nicely off the JPM news.

To: Road Walker who wrote (778)	4/14/2010 11:37:17 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1428

After all, WAMU didn't come up with this ditty just because of derivatives...it was an attitude that had developed over time. ;-) WaMu lenders sang 'I like big bucks' politico.com In the years before it became the largest bank failure in American history, mortgage lenders at Washington Mutual liked to party hearty at the company’s annual retreats. But a 2006 WaMu retreat produced one of the more cringe-worthy moments of the mortgage meltdown: Lenders, on the eve of their industry’s collapse, singing “I Like Big Bucks” to the tune of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 hip-hop hit “Baby Got Back.” The details were unveiled Tuesday in a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has conducted an 18-month look into the failure of WaMu and the lessons it holds for the financial system. The Karaoke-style ode to greed – complete with faux WaMu rappers tossing play money into the crowd — took place in a room full of mortgage lenders who at the time were still churning out billions of dollars in high-risk mortgages. Their borrowers often had little chance of repaying the money and some had to forfeit their homes. But the lenders at the retreat, held on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, made huge fees for issuing the loans. And while it lasted, the business was extremely lucrative for WaMu as well. “I like big bucks and I cannot lie/You mortgage brothers can't deny,” sang the WaMu rappers. The presentation, which included cheerleaders moving in time to the music, and choreographed moves by the singers, continued: “That when the dough roles in like you're printin’ your own cash/ And you gotta make a splash/ You just spends/ Like it never ends/ Cuz you gotta have that big new Benz/ All of that bling you're wearin'/ Shining so bright peoples starin'/ It's crazy, I gotta ski Aspen/ That's all I'm askin'” During another skit, the WaMu bankers in Kauai staged a mock funeral for their competition, Countrywide Financial, a mortgage lender that was also deeply involved in the subprime market. “So many of us warned the dearly departed about the risky – some say reckless – behavior they engaged in,” said a presenter from the stage as a large coffin imprinted with the Countrywide logo was carried on stage by four pallbearers. Background speakers began playing the stadium anthem “Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey hey, goodbye.” Countrywide collapsed under the strain of the mortgage meltdown and was sold to Bank of America for $4.1 billion in a deal announced in January of 2008. WaMu wasn’t far behind. Eight months later, WaMu was seized by the federal government and placed into receivership, later sold at the fire-sale price of $1.9 billion to JP Morgan Chase.