Anecdotes on reckless lending at WaMu from the Seattle Times

The Seattle Times has a must-read piece on Washington Mutual today which reveals a lot of the fine detail on how the company was run and what led to its demise (hat tip calculated Risk). As with many of the other busted financial giants like Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers, indications that something was amiss were apparent long before their ultimate demise. However, in an environment of easy money and lax regulatory standards those signs were overlooked as share prices kept rising. Here

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The latest bubble warning: Swedish house prices

There is mounting evidence that bubbles are forming again everywhere across the globe as easy money makes itself felt in asset prices. The latest evidence comes from Sweden where Europe’s lowest home loan rates have pushed up the price of residential property. At issue is the extremely loose monetary policy in Sweden that is an outgrowth of both recession in Sweden and a massive exposure by Swedish banks to the Baltics which are presently in depression. Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, has

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