The 12 Reasons Banks Fail - Pt. 2

The story of Washington Mutual.

I received an email from a pr firm a few years ago letting me know that a new book about banking had just been published. The title was, Nothing Is Too Big to Fail: How the Last Financial Crisis Informs Today. The author of the email offered to connect me with the authors of the book.

Ordinarily, I ignore cold outreach because it’s uninteresting. But this one struck a bullseye.

It was a book about banking. Bank failure, no less. Co-written by the CEO, who, with his wife, were seeking to set the record straight on the biggest bank failure in US history: Washington Mutual.

That’s how my wife and I got to spend a pleasant but peculiar afternoon at the Women’s University Club in downtown Seattle four years ago with Kerry and Linda Killinger.

This is a story I’ve told before, but only behind closed doors, as I derive zero satisfaction from criticizing people. But it’s a story that deserves to be told because it sheds light on the role that character plays in the failure of a bank.

So I shall tell it.