In the UK, we've been talking for a while about the issues with our politician's expenses being blanked out.
See:
It's downright disgraceful. Hiding secret purchases including porn movies and duck houses, how are we ever to trust our leadership again?
It's so refreshing to see how America does things so differently with the release this week of the internal communications between Washington Mutual's (WaMu) regulators, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), that led to the closure of WaMu.
Of particular interest were the communications that might explain why regulators seized the bank in September 2008, even though WaMu appeared to meet regulatory standards for operating a bank, notwithstanding its burden of bad loans.
Here is an example of a few of those emails:
Thanks to the Puget Sound for championing the cause.
The Finanser is sponsored by Vocalink and Cisco:
For details of sponsorship email us.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
