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Opinion: Attention WaMu -- George Washington wants his good name back

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Now, might somebody, somewhere, maybe, go to prison?

My L.A. Times colleagues Jim Puzzanghera and Scott Reckard are reporting that Washington Mutual execs knowingly concocted a ‘’mortgage time bomb,’’ making loans that they knew would probably go bad, then wrapping them all up in an enticing ribbon and selling them off as securities without a peep about what a Senate report calls fraud.

During this entire financial meltdown, we’ve heard over and over that Wall Street executives didn’t have a clue about the perils of these dicey, high-flying financial instruments, which were so complex that even the heads of the companies couldn’t understand them -- as if the ‘’experts’’ simply handed the CEOs sticks of dynamite and told them they were birthday candles.

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The report makes the WaMu dance sound like cynical loan limbo -- how low can you go in finding risky prospects? Never too low, was evidently the answer, according to the congressional report: The higher the volume of loans churned out, whatever the quality, the more rewards, and top performers could win trips to Hawaii or the Caribbean. Maybe they should have awarded trips to some place with no extradition to the U.S.

Finally, please, even apart from any potential criminal investigation, can this please, please, at long last, be evidence enough to kick lethargic members of Congress and regulators into putting some teeth into financial oversight? If not, may I do a little kicking myself?

-- Patt Morrison

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