Waste Management (NYSE: WMI - option chain) announced its earnings yesterday and dropped almost 5% on the report, but also sneaked in a little tidbit that I find amusing. WMI declared that as of 8/5, it will trade on the NYSE as WM, which until earlier this year designated Washington Mutual. How appropriate that a company that specializes in, um... waste management, has collected this trashed ticker from the curb and will recycle it for its own purposes.

WMI CEO David Steiner did not mention that connection in the company's announcement, instead saying,"From our trucks to our uniforms, the very recognizable WM represents our company and our people. The WM symbol reinforces how customers, communities and shareholders have come to think of us over the past years, and aligns our branding with our stock symbol." I guess that makes sense it you picture a green Waste Management truck or the logo attached to this post, but I imagine the board members considering the change and relishing how apt it would be.

As for the stock itself, yesterday's earnings came in a penny below expectations and guided downwards for the rest of the year, but this business is not going away any time soon. Also, yesterday's stock dip could have been the result of raised expectations, as WMI had been rising steadily for almost all of July. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on WMI.

A lot of observers have been complaining that federal bailouts of failed financial institutions have been too generous.

Now the Washington Mutual's holding company is making exact opposite claim, suing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The company claims that the fire sale to JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) violated its rights, arguing that a more orderly liquidation would have provided greater value to the company's constituents.

Over the past few weeks, we've seen some of the extensive damage done to the mega private equity operators, such as the Blackstone Group LLP (NYSE: BX) and KKR.

Now, according to a report from Reuters, we've got the details on the performance of TPG. And, of course, it's ugly (interestingly enough, TPG's roots are in the distressed investing category).

If you were among the millions of unemployed workers looking for a job in 2009, would you accept a 50% pay cut? That's the question that Shaun Chedister faced last year, according to CNNMoney. And his answer, after spending eight months looking for a new job, was yes. Unfortunately for Chedister, that pay cut meant giving up the lifestyle he had enjoyed before he got laid off.

Chedister had been making $125,000 at Washington Mutual but he was laid off from that job at the end of 2007. He spent eight months looking for a job to support his wife and four children. He ultimately accepted an offer from Ernst & Young as an executive administrator -- the catch? The job paid slightly more than half of what he was making before -- $66,000.

The problem was that Chedister's unemployment had run out and he still had bills to pay. Chedister is looking for a more affordable house and in December one of his cars was repossessed after he got behind on the payments. This hurts but once you lose a job you have two choices: keep looking or accept what's offered -- and that offer is likely to be less than what you made before.

The New York Times took a look at the problems that led to the collapse of Washington Mutual: Fraudulent mortgage applications were approved with nothing in the way of oversight from the boss -- who was snorting methamphetamine every morning. Meanwhile, the CEO took home $88 million between 2001 and 2007 before the company collapsed under the weight of the billions of dollars in bad loans it had made.

According to the Times, "By 2005, the word was out that WaMu would accept applications with a mere statement of the borrower's income and assets -- often with no documentation required -- so long as credit scores were adequate, according to Ms. Zaback and other underwriters."

It's great that former employees and the media are stepping forward to tell this story now -- after shareholders have been wiped out along with homeowners -- but where were regulators and Wall Street analysts back when this stuff was happening?

If you look at major private equity firms, they have huge amounts of capital ready for investment. So, when the credit crunch subsides, there should be a revival of buyout activity, right?

Not necessarily. Keep in mind that the amounts of capital available may be much lower. The reason: private equity firms usually have so-called capital calls. That means, over time they notify investors to pony up the required amounts of capital.

True, private equity firms are legally required to make the disbursements. But, if there is resistance, will private equity firms actually sue their investors?

Well, this is a big dilemma right now. Just look at TPG Capital. That is, according to The Wall Street Journal, the firm is paring back the capital requirements on its $20 billion fund. In all, it comes to about 10% of the total amount.

Something else: TPG will cut its management fees by 10%.

Of course, TPG has suffered some black eyes this year, such as its disastrous investment in Washington Mutual as well as big bets on bank debt.

Of course, the firm is not alone. Other tier-1 players are also sitting on some busted deals.

TPG's actions are certainly precedent setting – and are likely to be followed by its peers as we go into 2009. And, as a result, expect continued tepidness for deal-making.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Streetsmart Guide to Short Selling: Techniques the Pros Use to Profit in Any Market. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

Many of the names on our list of 2008 Money Winners are entertainers, athletes, or businessmen who are on the top of their game. Michael Phelps, Tina Fey, and subprime profiteer Bill Ackman are all examples of this kind of winner. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon has gotten credit as being one of the few executives to keep a large financial institution from feeling too much pain in our current financial meltdown. However, Alan Fishman, who gained notoriety as the last CEO of Washington Mutual, is not any of those kinds of winner.

Instead, he wears his crown as a result of being in the right place at the right time. He replaced longtime WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger during the first week of September of this year. WaMu was seized by federal regulators just three weeks later and the banking assets were sold off to JPMorgan. Thus ended the less-than-spectacular reign of Mr. Fishman.

Fishman was paid just under $20,000 a week before taxes, which is a nice salary if you can get it, but is not nearly enough to land you on our list. However, he also got a massive signing bonus of $7.5M, plus 612,500 shares of WM. Since that stock is worthless now, we will only count the cash. He also had a golden parachute attached to his back and, unless he was fired for cause or voluntarily resigned, he was due to get another $6.15 million. Things get fuzzy when you look at his target annual bonus, which was set at $3.65 million. Since the company disappeared under his watch, I would hope he got none of that bonus, but I can't find any concrete evidence for how that matter turned out. When you total it all out, Mr. Fishman pocketed somewhere between $11 million and $18 million for his three weeks on the job. Wow.

All is not well in Seattle for executives at Washington Mutual. The Seattle Times has reported that some 3,400 WaMu employees, mostly from the company's headquarters, are to be let go by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM). The good news for workers is, it appears that employees at WaMu's branch operations will, for the most part, be spared the ax.

These types of staff dismissals should come as no surprise in an era when companies are quickly consolidating just to survive. I suppose that it's fairly standard practice for an acquiring company to thin out the executive herd of any distressed company which it has recently purchased. In regard to this particular instance, The Seattle Times quotes JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon as stating: "We are going to build a great company for the long run. Unfortunately, that entails tough decisions in the short run." Tough decisions always tend to ooze downward.

To the credit of JP Morgan & Chase, the executives who are to receive their walking papers at WaMu, will apparently be sent off with moderate severance packages. However, this does little to lessen the pain of good jobs lost. Additionally, The Seattle Times article opens a discussion about the ramifications of this deep payroll cut and operations consolidation upon the local commercial lease space market in a city with an impending surplus of commercial office space.

Preliminary indications are that JPMorgan's consolidation of WaMu in to the 42-story WaMu Center will put approximately 500,000 square feet of commercial lease space back into the hands of Seattle landlords. At least one commercial real estate broker in Seattle indicated that WaMu's withdrawal from commercial space there could lead to slight downward pressure on rents. However, citing a rental office inventory of approximately 37 million square feet, Oscar Oliveira, a senior vice president with brokerage Colliers International, is quoted by The Seattle Times as stating: "It adds a couple percentage points to the vacancy rate... The bank's moves alone won't push lease rates down..."

The weekend is often the time when boards and the government decide the fates of companies and CEOs. It gives everyone involved at least two days, perhaps more, to weigh options and make decisions without the fury of stock market trading. A board of directors can start work on Friday at 4 PM and weigh options until 8 PM Sunday, when Asia opens, or 8 AM Monday if overseas trading is not an issue.

No one with any sense would believe that the board of Citigroup (NYSE: C), the FDIC, the Fed, and the Treasury are not working through this weekend, again. Most of the government people are so exhausted that those who leave with the current administration will be happy to have the rest.

A lot of options have been thrown around. But, the fate of Citi comes down to two things. At this point, the bank is believed to be in such bad shape that putting in a new CEO, even Jack Welch, would make no difference. Chapter 11 would wipe out too many firms that have non-insured deposits at Citi, too many companies that have loans with a bank that could be called, and too many common, preferred, and bond holders in the financial firm would lose everything.

That leaves the government taking over Citi the way it did AIG (NYSE: AIG) or forcing a sale as it did with WaMu or Wachovia (NYSE: WB).

Monday morning cold be quite a drama.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

This week, some of the top veterans in private equity -- TPG's David Bonderman, Carlyle's David Rubenstein, and KKR's George Roberts -- got together at a conference in Hong Kong. And, all in all, it was fairly depressing (hey, I guess that's what happens when you lose billions and billions of dollars).

Take Bonderman. He thinks the downturn will be protracted, calling it an L-shaped recession (the more common description is a V-shaped recession, which means there is a strong snapback). In fact, he thinks U.S. unemployment will hit 10% or so.

Then again, keep in mind that Bonderman lost about $1.3 billion on his six month investment in Washington Mutual.

Despite all this, Bonderman still has an appetite for investments. For example, he's focusing on the debt securities from hedge funds. Because of massive redemptions, the prices are at distressed levels.

Rubenstein also gave a grim presentation (he thinks the downturn can last several years). But, he is still bullish on some opportunities, especially in Asia. For example, he thinks China offers some compelling valuations and that the country may become more open to outside investments.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Streetsmart Guide to Short Selling: Techniques the Pros Use to Profit in Any Market. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.

If you're a fan of found humor as strange juxtapositions, FailBlog.org definitely belongs in your RSS feed. But it's rare that the site contains brilliant -- and unintentional -- commentary on the state of the economy.

FailBlog posted this picture of the neon sign at a Washington Mutual branch office. All that's left is "Was." Before it collapsed in the largest bank failure in history, Washington Mutual was a leader in banking and home loans. It was picked up off the scrap heap by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM).

More gallows humors: Andy Kessler has suggested that after Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) completes its acquisition of Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER), the combined company should rename itself "Lynch America Countrywide."

Everything is upside down these days. The folks with all the money and multi-million dollar bonuses are begging for a handout on the pretext that the economy will crash if they do not get one. We're not talking money for coffee or a snack, we're talking billions of dollars.

It is crashing anyway, or at least sinking. It is just a matter of what it takes down along the way. Apparently, the folks at the Treasury and Federal Reserve are now convinced that it will be everything.

The survivors are pawing at the defeated as Wells Fargo tries to grab Wachovia despite its previous tentative agreement with Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C). While Citigroup gained a point in Wachovia deal over the weekend, the balance has since tilted in favor of Wells Fargo again.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) gobbled up Countrywide (done) and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) (a work in progress), while JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) corralled Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM).

Sadly, only the federal government was big enough to swallow the problems of American International Group (NYSE: AIG), Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). Otherwise,those in the know think world financial markets would have crumbled due to the collateral damage, (pun intended).

When I posted Congress is screwing up -- think backstop not bailout!, I was concerned with the psychological effect as much as the financial effect of not approving the funding, but no doubt the people suffering the most are not those who created the pain.

In short order, the shareholders of Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) have lost billions. A tier-1 private equity investor, TPG, has lost $1.3 billion on the company. And, unfortunately, thousands of WaMu employees have lost their jobs.

However, there are some winners. For example, there are the short sellers. JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) is also likely to do well since the firm bought WaMu's assets for a mere $1.9 billion.

But there appears to be yet another interesting beneficiary: Alan Fishman. He is WaMu's CEO, who took the top job 18 days ago.

As should be no surprise, he signed a juicy contract: a $7.5 million signing bonus and a lump-sum payment for severance that comes to $6.15 million. In other words, if he leaves the company, he'll walk away with $13.65 million.

That's a pretty good deal in light of the fact that WaMu is the biggest bank collapse ever.

Moreover, I suppose it is yet further evidence of why Americans have low regard for the financial system. And despite huge bailouts, it's probably a good bet that little will change.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.

As soon as Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) evaporated, the natural question was: "Who's next?" And after its stock plunged 38% during the day, it now looks like the next one to go will be Wachovia (NYSE: WB). This time the buyer could be Citigroup (NYSE: C),

With $120 billion in adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) it got through its Golden West Financial acquisition, Wachovia is particularly vulnerable to the capital-eroding impact of a drop in their value. But if Citi bought Wachovia, it would get a stronger presence on the East Coast and its well-regarded retail banking management.

Citi is not the only firm to talk merger with Wachovia -- prior to its decision to turn itself into a bank holding company (BHC) on Sunday, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) was in merger discussions with Wachovia. I just wonder how any deal could be struck with Wachovia that would not involve those nasty ARMs. And if those ARMs are involved in a deal, how can the acquirer avoid those nasty digestion problems that have sent Wachovia shares into a dive.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns Citigroup stock and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned.

In what I feared might become a regular feature here, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) arranged for the takeover of the 13th failed bank of 2008 Thursday. As I posted, the FDIC likes to close banks on Friday after hours so it can reopen as branches of the acquiring bank on the following Monday morning. But since this is history's biggest bank failure, the FDIC couldn't wait for the weekend. The bank in question is the $310 billion (assets) Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM).

This is history's biggest bank failure -- it's almost eight times bigger than the previous record holder, Continental Illinois. In this case, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) was the rescuer, buying WaMu from the FDIC. This follows JPMorgan's purchase of Bear Stearns back in March in which the Federal Reserve provided a $29 billion loan. But this deal will cost JPMorgan far less -- a mere $1.9 billion, and it will write down WaMu's loan portfolio by 10% in the process. To further bolster its position, JPMorgan will raise $8 billion in capital.

What does JPMorgan get for all this? Branches for one thing -- 5,400 in 23 states -- and it will shutter 10% of the combined branches. What JPMorgan does not get is much of the junk that WaMu carried and by that I refer to "senior unsecured debt, subordinated debt, and preferred stock of WaMu's banks, any assets or liabilities of the holding company, Washington Mutual Inc.; or [WaMu's] lawsuits."