Posted on 09/26/2008 4:34:48 PM PDT by metmom
Millions of Washington Mutual customers woke up Friday morning fearing that their life savings, checking accounts and mortgages were in danger, after federal regulators seized the bank’s assets and sold them in a fire sale Thursday night.
Despite assurances by the federal government that it guarantees deposits of up to $100,000, customers descended upon bank branches to yank out their money on Friday, hoping it was still there.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Do they do a better job with that than their healthcare?
IN fact, even uninsured deposits over $100,000 are said to be safe.
http://www.chase.com/welcomewamu/
"Q. What if I have more than $100,000 at WaMu?
A. Your money is secure and now protected by the strength of Chase. Chase assumed all deposits of Washington Mutual."
Well, as a shareholder, at least I’ll have a nice capital loss on my taxes this year...and next.
That's where I am headed....
Please let me know....
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public!.
I think our interest rate just went up.
But my wife's still emptying the safety deposit box, which isn't safe at all. Boxes are not insured, and if the bank goes under, they'll be in legal limbo.
I’m with you, we have a large jumbo CD, 5% and a large 4% money market account with WAMU.
Making a run on the bank is what caused their problem with the Fed in the first place when depositers pulled out 16 billion in the last 2 weeks.
Saw one elderly woman at a local Chase branch, very calm, just saying she wanted to discuss her WaMu account.
There will be no repeat of IndyMac insanity again.
If anything, we feel a great deal of relief now that it’s over. We moved out checking accounts out of WAMU years ago, and all we have left is our mortgage, which is in no danger of anything.
Frankly, I look forward to dealing with JPMC on our home mortgage, and I’m glad we don’t have to worry about what will happen to WAMU any longer.
“Local money invested in local economies. Small chance of failure, small risk.”
Not so, in the 1880s depression my GG grandfather lost his local bank, Pomona First Federal, and everything he had along with every other bank in the country.
Big or small they all went down in the 30s.
“What if I have more than $100,000 at WaMu?”
If it’s a joint account or a trust you’re good for $200k.
>> Course, with interest rates on bank accounts and all being the insulting pittance that they are, keeping money in the mattress is not losing much.
I know you’re probably just kidding about the mattress. But just in case you aren’t kidding, consider that a fire or a burglary could wipe out that mattress stuffing in one fell swoop — with zero recourse.
IMHO, an FDIC insured bank account (savings, CD) is plenty safe, as long as you don’t exceed the insurance limit. And you can find pretty good rates — up to 4%. Admittedly, some of the 4% banks are a little dodgy, but they ARE insured.
If you’re nervous about banks, then before you stuff that mattress, open an online TreasuryDirect account and buy T-bills. Doesn’t pay much right now (for example, 4-week bill is about 0.3%), but it’s the gold standard for safety, literally the world over. And it’s quite convenient to maintain your T-bill account online.
“But just in case you aren’t kidding, consider that a fire or a burglary could wipe out that mattress stuffing in one fell swoop — with zero recourse.”
Keep it in the freezer, along with important insurance papers.
Even if the place burns to the ground it will be safe.
A friend if mine whose home burned to the bround in the Chevy Chase (Glendale) fire had his freezer go through the floor and wind up in the garage where even the manifolds on his ski boat totally melted and his papers and money was saved.
What planet are you on? Or better yet, what the heck are you smoking? You should at least educate yourself at least a little before you post. The Bush administration has been warning about this type of thing happening for the last FIVE YEARS and the only response from Dimwits and the MSM has been derision and ridicule. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, the Dims, the MSM, and people like you want to lay it all on Bush with ridiculous comments like yours.
Ah, when my house got burgled, the thief completely tossed my freezer, as well as desk and lingerie drawers. Missed my hidden cache of mad money, though. Apparently even the most brazen of them won't approach a Tampax box.
This points up that the FDIC doesn’t have enough money in its insurance fund to handle massive bank failures. The mere existence of the FDIC is supposed to calm people down and prevent runs on banks.
Anyone with any amount of money better be doing anything but a regular savings account. We have one just for back up.
But the interest rates are an insult compared to years ago when they were 4-5 % on just a regular savings account. Now they’re less than 1% so if you can feel reasonably sure that it’s safe out of the bank, you’re not losing much in interest by not having it there. That way if everything does really tank out, you do have the cash.
I’ve always heard that you should have a couple months worth of cash on hand *just in case*. Now that does entail the risk of it getting stolen or fire or something.
It’s a risk either way. Nothing is sure but death and taxes.
Hey, don’t give the thieves any ideas.
I keep trying to figure out good places to hide money that the crooks wouldn’t think of but then I figure that if I thought of it, they would too.
I figure some where out of the ordinary is good. My guess is that there’s generally good areas to look but that they don’t want to waste too much time searching. Increases their risk of getting caught.
>> the interest rates are an insult compared to years ago when they were 4-5 %
You can still get 3.5% to 4% on a 6 month CD at an on-line bank. Check out http://www.BankRate.com. Mrs. Tick and I just got one at a certain bank associated with a major automobile manufacturer. Opened and funded it completely on line. Now, this bank isn’t “fly by night” but it IS risky, in the sense that its exposure to the subprime market is not zero. But so what? It’s FDIC insured.
If you don’t want to tie up your dough for several months, you can open on-line savings accounts at some places that pay pretty well. Check out the Complete Savings account at E-Trade (http://www.etrade.com). It pays 3.3%; you can open and fund it online; FDIC insured; up to 6 withdrawals per month. I’m sure others have similar products.
>> I’ve always heard that you should have a couple months worth of cash on hand *just in case*.
This is good advice. Until recently, I figured what I had in our regular old bank was safe enough, but now I’m not so sure. I’m not a believer in the mattress (or cookie-jar) thing, so here’s what we do: we have four 4-week T-bills with staggered maturity dates such that one bill comes due every week. (A CD “ladder”, in other words.) So we’re never more than a few days from availability of a little cash, backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government. This is really easy to set up using the Treasury Direct website. It doesn’t pay much interest, but it pays more than the mattress or cookie jar. :-)
FRegards
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