Washington Mutual's lame legacy

Jon Talton, the Seattle Times business columnist whose day job is crime novelist, blogs about what seems to be the final chapter in the saga of Washington Mutual -- the end of Chapter 11, to be precise. WMI Holdings Corp., the bad part of WaMu that wasn't acquired by JPMorgan Chase, is emerging from bankruptcy. Writes Talton:

Four years later, downtown Seattle has recovered from the loss of a major corporate headquarters. The thousands of employees who lost their jobs and shareholders who were ruined -- probably not so much.

Like every other instance of the cooks who made the Great Recession, the bigs at WaMu got away with it. ... Seattle lost a major financial institution and banking was even more concentrated in the east.

Last month the Times' Drew DeSilver wrote in detail about WMI Holdings, which ostensibly is a mortgage reinsurer. Though if you figure out what the heck this company really is or does, be sure to let us know.