This is reportedly the (real) first post-collapse ad from failed bank WaMu, and it's very... direct? "WaMu has a bright new future, thanks to the stability of JPMorgan Chase (and their nearly trillion dollars in customer deposits). [ETC.]" says the fine print. The failed institution deserves credit for confronting its massive failure. Although the ad would have been more appropriate in grey. Do not fail to click to enlarge. [Change Order via AgencySpy]

"Most banks are grey," read the colorful little tagline on Washington Mutual's website last week. "That's just not our style." Then WaMu catastrophically collapsed, ha. After the jump, their new homepage ad now, which is just so perfect that I demand you click through to see it:

Back in 2006, a startup started up that promised to revolutionize the financial information business. It was called Monitor110, and it had a kind of clever idea: it aggregated and analyzed raw content from all corners of the internet and turned it into useful news and information for traders. Like, message board threads and blog comments and Twitters and Flickrs and Tumblrs and what-have-you would all help measure consumer sentiment or whatever sorts of things traders need to know about. Monitor110 raised millions and millions of dollars and their founders kept saying they'd bury Reuters forever and now, today, they are shuttering because no one wants to give them money anymore. Turns out that 2006 was basically wrong about everything! Crowds are morons and their wisdom is useless noise. Calacanis: right again (after the fact)! [PaidContent]

Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed) (thanks Wikipedia!) used to be the most powerful woman in business, back when she was running HP. She ran HP into the ground, btw, forcing a deadly merger with Compaq, laying off 7,000 people, losing market share to Dell and IBM, and finally being forced out by the board. She received a ridiculous $21 million cash severance payment (breaking the company's own severance cap) and she also somehow received a reputation as someone to be taken seriously in matters of business. Now her job is to convince people that John McCain is business-friendly and knowledgeable about money in general. America! Lloyd Grove interviewed her for Portfolio. This is our favorite quote:

Remember the other famous musician who tried to busk in the subway? Except this one was Joshua Bell, "one of the finest classical musicians in the world." He made $32 in 45 minutes, and didn't even draw a crowd. [Washington Post]

Moby, international dj sensation andsensitive vegan weiner, took it upon himself to busk (that is, to play in the subway for money) at the Sloane Square tube stop. Sloane Square, btw, is where a particular type of attractive/annoying sensitive-y rich girl pashmina-scarf wearing girl hangs out. They are called Sloanies. You'd think that, since those type of people are Moby's target audience, he'd make a killing. But no! Our little bald honey bun hardly made anything at all. ""At the most I was given maybe £5 or £6, but that's fine because I was obviously not doing it for the money." Ah! I just read through the article in the London Paper. This guy is ridiculous.

Talk about your disproportionate responses. In answer to a 45-word item on Valleywag, employees and executives at Wellsphere, the poorly managed wellness portal savaged by Uncov, posted 1,800 words worth of comments. When a company takes up that much space to answer its critics, you know that the problems run deeper than mere logorrhea. Uncov has suffered a similar comments barrage, as has GigaOm, despite posting a mostly rah-rah story about the company. In the comments, Wellsphere executives offered their phone numbers and email addresses. Valleywag readers, I can only encourage you to take advantage of their offers.

Wellsphere, an Internet-health startup, gets the velvet-glove treatment from TechCrunch — and a savage expose from Uncov. An ex-employee emails Valleywag to add this about Wellsphere CEO Ron Gutman: "The most despicable human being I've ever come into contact with." [Uncov]