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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

In case you had any doubt that they knew damn well what they were doing

Posted by Jill | 6:14 AM

Perhaps the executives at Countrywide weren't incompetent after all. Perhaps they realized that they stood to gain more by wrecking the country's economy than by doing business the right way:

Fairly or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has the economy staggering.

So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.

“It has been very successful — very strong,” John Lawrence, the company’s head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac’s spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.

“In fact, it’s off-the-charts good,” he told Mr. Kurland, who was leaning back comfortably in his leather boardroom chair, even as the financial markets in New York were plunging.

[snip]

It is quite evident that their efforts are, in fact, helping many distressed homeowners.

“Literally, their assistance saved my family’s home,” said Robert Robinson, of Felton, Pa., whose interest rate was cut by more than half, making his mortgage affordable again.

But to some, it is disturbing to see former Countrywide executives in the industry again. “It is sort of like the arsonist who sets fire to the house and then buys up the charred remains and resells it,” said Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, which for years has sought to place limits on what it calls abusive lending practices by Countrywide and other companies.

So are we supposed to give these guys a fucking medal for putting people in this position in the first place?

Labels: corruption, greed, You can't make this shit up

3 comments

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

--Been saying for a long time now that these alchemists can turn s--t into gold.

3/4/09, 10:01 AM

The Minstrel Boy said...

the arson scam was a foundation of ceasar's buddy crassus' fortune. he would set fires, show up with his crew of firefighting slaves, and often make lowball property offers right there on the scene.

he became the single biggest property owner in rome that way.

boss tweed and the tammany hall machine was also big on that one. they'd start fires, show up to put them out and get the people they "saved" onboard to vote a straight democratic ticket.

3/4/09, 1:15 PM

G. David said...

I have been working on a series of articles on my blog, RABBLE ROUSER'S FORUM. I initially wanted to write a brief overview on the economic mess, but as I researched and digged deeper, I cannot begin to tell you the behind-the-scenes mad deals and bullshit that people have been pulling off, so this info you've posted, as appalling as it is, doesn't surprise me. If this is the "American" way, then I think we need to find a new way, you think?

3/4/09, 7:54 PM