This in depth article in the New York Times provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Washington Mutual Bank, more than 100 years old, was driven into the ground by their policy of approving almost any loan request.

“It was a disgrace,” said Dana Zweibel, a former financial representative at a WaMu branch in Tampa, Fla. “We were giving loans to people that never should have had loans.”

If Ms. Zweibel doubted whether customers could pay, supervisors directed her to keep selling, she said.

“We were told from up above that that’s not our concern,” she said. “Our concern is just to write the loan.”

……..

On another occasion, Ms. Zaback asked a loan officer for verification of an applicant’s assets. The officer sent a letter from a bank showing a balance of about $150,000 in the borrower’s account, she recalled. But when Ms. Zaback called the bank to confirm, she was told the balance was only $5,000.

The loan officer yelled at her, Ms. Zaback recalled. “She said, ‘We don’t call the bank to verify.’ ” Ms. Zaback said she told Mr. Parsons that she no longer wanted to work with that loan officer, but he replied: “Too bad.”

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Parsons disappeared from the office. Ms. Zaback later learned of his arrest for burglary and drug possession.

But this represents just a symptom, not the disease. Clearly most banks were acting this way, just not to the extreme represented by WaMu.

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Ever since Apple approved a sort of “mature audiences” label for iPhone apps, there’s been an explosion in applications that make fart sounds, more than 20 variations on a theme. Via All Things Digital, the developer of iFart Mobile writes:

But I had a hunch that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be higher. How much higher was anyone’s guess.

All I knew was that a lot of people would be getting iPhones and iPod Touch MP3 players on Christmas Day.

Christmas came a day early for us. On 12/24, my jaw hit the floor when I checked my stats.

We sold 19520 units, providing $13364 in net income after Apple takes their cut.

I now knew that Christmas Day would be bigger than I would have imagined.

I made sure I was sitting down before I checked my day-after-Christmas stats.

It was a good thing.

On Christmas Day, 38,927 people purchased iFart Mobile.

Thirty-eight thousand nine-hundred and twenty seven.

Wow.

Thats $27,249 net.

Them’s US dollars folks, not Hong Kong.

iFart Mobile is currently the #1 best selling paid iPhone application. It sells for 99 cents. And the guy netted 27 grand in under a month. I think I need to download the SDK and come up with some silly but attention-grabbing concept myself. I’ve got an idea or two ….
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Along with the recent passings of Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt, I was especially sad to note the death of Delaney Bramlett at age 69.

Bramlett, together with his then-wife Bonnie (reputedly the only white woman to be a member of Ike & Tina Turner’s Ikettes) led the influential Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, a group that at one point included Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Dave Mason amongst its members.

I saw Delaney & Bonnie (with Clapton) at the Fillmore East in NYC. Somehow we’d managed 8th row center seats (which meant that this incredibly cute blonde who’d snuck up from the back rows sat on my lap for the entire concert). Opening the bill was Wilbert “Kansas City” Harrison, doing some bizarro one man band thing. Next was Seals & Crofts, long before they’d had any hits. And then Delaney & Bonnie. Without taking any drugs, their southern/gospel/blues/folk/r&b hybrid left me feeling higher than I’d ever felt before, a simply amazing show, very similar to the one on the “On Tour” album. I’d also highly recommend “Motel Shot,” an acoustic album that came along long before the term “unplugged” was coined.

Delaney also wrote or co-wrote some hits that have become standards – Superstar, Neverending Song of Love, Let It Rain. Bramlett didn’t enjoy commercial success after he and his wife split up in 1973 but he continued to pursue an active career, releasing what will now be his final album of new material this year. Any collection of rock albums is incomplete without “On Tour With Eric Clapton.”