when one's back is against the wall financially--------regardless of how it got there (assuming no outright criminal intents)----------- people will do things that in the usual, day-to-day operations they would never even think about doing.

I have seen good guys get a little too big a little too fast, taking advice from, say, bankers who are looking to get a huge customer and then going into panic mode themselves when they realize that everything is not as stable as they thought, and yanking the lines of credit, etc etc etc.

I have never done any business with Walterman, nor would I know him if he walked in here........don't know anything about his "true intentions", etc etc..........

but I have seen more situations than I care to have seen where a person just got caught up in the moment.............good people.........and just did not have the procedures/practices in place to make it obvious that things were going astray before they got really out of hand...............and then they compounded the problem by engaging in things that probably would have saved their tail if things had gone as projected, instead of maybe a hicky happening that they did not foresee.

Personal situation............I did nearly 100% of my banking at local bank since about 1969.  Never worried about financing anything---------buy it, and call the bank to cover the check.  Enough equity to handle what I wanted.

Allowed the bank to have blanket mortgages on everything-------why not.......they would loan whatever money I needed.

President and I periodically socialized........and drank more brown water together than we needed to.

That bank was secured over 3:1 on land and equipment.........value to loan.

Due to loans totally unrelated to me or even this community........they had opened a branch in a larger city...........that bank went belly up, and the regulators stepped in.

Not ten days before the "public" found out, that bank made a committment to loan a client several hundred thousand dollars............that of course went poof..........but they played with him for nearly 12 months, telling him that they could handle it, etc etc, and that the bank was coming out of the problem......would only be another 30 days, etc etc.

I personally could not get a loan from them for over two years for even 10,000..........because the collateral was pledged against the other loans........and the regulators would not release anything without a waiting period of at least 6 months.

Fortunately for me, I had other sources...........so it was not a big dea.

However, the client did/does not have those "other sources"..........and may go into chapt 11 due to the bank jacking him around.  Had he (we) been smarter, we would have smelled that a total failure was imminent, and looked elsewhere quicker--------but we did not.

So.............I have a little empathy for those who get themselves into hot water.........but............it depends on how it was handled, and the "true intent"-----if that could be determined.