We had lots of empty space- but the rate of growth the bank was experiencing when they started the process for leasing the space kind of justified it, tbh.

If the bank was experiencing the growth it was without being negligent, I don't really think there was much problem with the nice building. Three airplane was probably a bit much (I got to ride in one once when evaluating a big software purchase in Houston and it was pretty convenient)- if it was justified at all you think one would have been enough.

We all got our standard bonuses (which are pretty big in the banking industry- small raises, but at the VP level, which I was, my bonus was something like 10% of my salary) even when things were starting to go south and our debt ratio was way off- this definitely gave me a lot of confidence at the time that the leadership was doing right and weren't just out for themselves.

In the end, the building wasn't THAT nice (imo) and the timing could've definitely been better (they'd been planning to do it long before the financial crisis), but the real issue isn't the fancy stuff- it's making bad loans and putting hundreds of smaller banks at risk when you take risks to pursue a high growth strategy. While I was at the bank, they bank never grew less than 10% in assets any year until the financial crisis hit, and most years it was far north of that (I was there maybe 2 years before the financial crisis, but I saw the number for the previous decade).