Buffalo Bills fans often wondered why any team would hire a quarterback whose name is pronounced Loss Man. Sure enough, he lived up to his reputation as a Loss Man. Washington Mutual employees must be wondering why a guy named Killinger was in charge their of their company. Now they know, just as Losman lost games, Killinger turned out to be a corporate killer, almost single-handedly destroying a 119 year-old institution.

Killinger and Losman have another thing in common, in spite of their poor performance they were paid millions of dollars. The Killer's actions have serious implications in the region as WaMu- the cute name Killinger gave to Washington Mutual a few years ago- happens to be Orleans County's largest private employer.
The rise and fall of WaMu is a true American success story for Killinger. The CEO took over WaMu in 1990 and immediately began buying up smaller banks. The acquisition frenzy peaked in 2001 when Washington Mutual gobbled up Dime Bancorp. In retrospect, the acquisition of Dime and Fleet's Mortgage portfolio was the beginning of the end for WaMu.

After the Dime acquisition in 2001, employees at the Albion NY service center wondered if Washington Mutual would close their facility. Instead, they converted the service center from mortgage servicing to a personal banking call center. The move meant that hundreds of jobs were saved and new ones created.
There were a number of reasons that WaMu kept a presence in Albion; not the least of which was that former congressional representative John LaFalce negotiated a deal with Killinger. One may wonder how a congressional representative from Western New York could sway a CEO in Seattle, Washington; the answer may have something to do with the fact that LaFalce was the Ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversaw banking regulations.

The term "banking regulation" may seem like something in the history books. In his first 100 days in office, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act, which established the FDIC and placed other restrictions on banks that remained in place until 1999 when President Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law.
Of course deregulating banks while keeping their deposits insured by the FDIC is about as logical as car insurance companies allowing drivers to consume alcohol while driving.

Deregulation did promote economic growth, at least for Killinger, since Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Kerry Killinger earned over $100 million dollars, including more than $20 million in the last two years while WaMu nose-dived. If that does not make your stomach turn then this will. Alan Fishman, WaMU's CEO for three weeks, received a signing bonus of $7.5 million and is eligible to earn as much as $18 million. Not a bad take for three weeks work.
Meanwhile, back in Orleans County, one can only hope that another miracle is in store for our largest private employer. Unfortunately for us, LaFalce and Killinger are out of the picture, which leaves our county vulnerable if Chase decides to shut down our call center.

The county government has not been able to keep taxes down in spite of record growth in sales tax revenue and six years of growth at WaMu. This county’s unemployment rate is already higher than the national average and, according to the latest statistics available, has increased by nearly 2% from last year. It makes you wonder if our Economic Development Agency does anything beyond offering cheap office space to driving schools.

If Chase does pull the plug on our call center then our county economy may be devastated and we will all pay a terrible price for the mismanagement of county tax dollars over the last four years. Then again, we may be off the hook for a new jail because even the prisoners will not want to live in county with no jobs.