Well, I guess I am not too far away to be touched by the financial crisis in America, after all. Yesterday, my bank failed, to set the dubious record of being the largest single bank failure in American history.

I have called Seattle home since 1942, when my family moved there from east Texas. My father opened a small account at Washington Mutual Savings Bank, at the West Seattle branch. He had money there, in increasing amounts, until he died in 2000.

Living overseas almost continuously since 1962, I needed a safe place for my funds, and a place to have my paycheck sent to each month. Naturally, it was Washington Mutual. And it remains that way until this day, though now the WAMU website (which is still fully functional) announces that all assets of WAMU now are owned by JP Morgan Chase.

I am saddened by this mainly because I am somewhat of a sentimentalist. But I am not fearful of what happens now. WAMU is a casualty of the crisis, but life will go on, and things will be alright again.

I am more than a little disgusted though, by the talk of Ritchie the WAMU CEO for just 17 days getting a $20M compensation package. That is obscene in the extreme. CEO compensation is now running 275 times that of the workers. I’m not a socialist, but we have to change a few things around here, if you ask me.

I held a small position in WAMU when it went down. Some call options for the stock at $2.50. I was well aware of the risks at the time I bought the options. They are still on my broker’s books with a bid price of 0.95 cents, but I expect they will not be there long. The long-time WAMU career employees, those having stock options, are just SOL, I expect.

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