!oooH ooohW

That, naturally, is "Whooo Hooo!" backwards, "Whooo Hooo" being the misspelled catch phrase in WaMu's most recent ad campaign. If nothing else good comes out of this Federal / JPM fire sale at least we won't have to watch those ads any more.

What does this mean for me as a WaMu employee? Well, um, I'm not sure. If I worked in a branch I'd be pretty secure, since JPM doesn't have any (or not many) branches in the Seattle market. But I'm not - I'm back-office, and they've got plenty of them in New York. In fact, I'm not exactly sure where I end up in the big mix: does my department roll with the banking assets to JPM, or are we now part of the FDIC? Am I a Federal employee? And if so, does that mean I can arrest people? 'cause that would be kind of cool...

Anyhow, if you want to read up on what business writers and AP journalists and whatnot are saying, here are a few links:

CNN: JPMorgan buys WaMu

AP / Seattle Times: JPMorgan Chase buys WaMu assets after FDIC seizure

Yahoo! Finance: WaMu becomes biggest bank to fail in US history

Seattle PI: WaMu seized, sold

Oh, and on a lighter note, PETA would like Ben & Jerry's to stop abusing all those Vermont cows they milk to make ice cream and instead start abusing Vermont women and make ice cream from breast milk. Don't worry, Boob-Berry won't be in your grocer's freezer section any time soon.