the largest bank failure in history just occurred, as washington mutual went under, with $307 billion in assets. for comparison, indymac had just $32 billion in assets, and cost the fdic $9 billion. i won't guess what this one will cost, but expectations are north of $20 billion. normally they announce bank failures on friday night, but this one couldn't wait, so a hastily-arranged shotgun marriage with jp morgan chase was in order.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/bu...