House and home

Misguided efforts to make poor people homeowners led our financial system into crisis; Christian ministries show a better way | Jamie Dean

Collage of Getty Images photos

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—When RBC Bank opened a new 33-story tower in its Raleigh, N.C., headquarters on Oct. 2, bank officials nixed one of the flashier activities planned for the grand-opening: skydivers parachuting from the top of the bank.

Three days after the worst-ever point drop of the Dow Jones Industrial average, RBC spokeswoman Jamie Averette Mitchell told reporters: "Given the recent market activities, we just didn't think it was an appropriate time to have people jumping off a bank building."

Nearly 200 miles south, stunned employees at the Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Bank weren't celebrating: Citigroup announced that it would buy the nation's fourth-largest bank for just $2.1 billion in a deal arranged by federal regulators to save Wachovia from collapse. (Four days later, Wells Fargo offered to buy Wachovia for nearly $15 billion. Citigroup cried foul, sending the two banks into a battle that could split Wachovia into smaller pieces.)