American's woke up to another slap in the face, IndyMac, the bank giant where many people deposited their life savings is going out of business. There you had them, people waiting in line to take their money out, only to be rejected later by other bank institutions when trying to deposit their money, or what they could get of it, because the letterhead of the cashier's check had the infamous word: Indymac. It was reported in the media that a California woman tried to deposit a cashier's check from Indymac at a Washington Mutual branch in Pasadena and she was told that it could take up to eight weeks for her funds to be available, other bank institutions said that they are following the federal guidelines in regards to availability of funds on the new deposits, and that those same guidelines apply to checks from Indymac.
The truth of the matter is that failures like IndyMac's have name: Greed from the Real Estate boom. Now banks are paying the consequences, first it was Countrywide, bailed out by a purchase from Bank of America, not without having the CEO, Angelo Mozillo walk away with a multimillion severance package. Now IndyMac is under investigation by the FBI for possible fraud in the subprime market. According the media reports, the investigation is focusing in the company and not in the individuals who run it. Apparently, IndyMac officials approved loans to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to qualify for one, leaving now thousands on the verge of foreclosure.
Reality Check: IndyMac is not the first major bank institution to go out of business in the last 25 years. The reasons could vary, but here's a list I found in the L.A Times. 
Yanni Raz |
