Should Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo give his severance to 'subprime victims'?

I am glad this blog/site exists! Once more, the overpaid CEO's run things into the ground, keep past year's bonuses, cash out of the stock they inflated, and to add injury(they lay off people!) to insult, get obscenely high Golden Parachutes running into the millions! It is Enron, MCI all over again. At least Lay was guilty and Skilling faces jail(Enron) and Bernie Ebbers(MCI) is in jail. Sounds like this latest round of corporate greed should be investigated by Congress.....but wait....isn't that like the fox guarding the hen house? Shame on America! Board of directors are an evil cabal!

We have the National Mortgage Complaint Center & we think its amazing that CEO Angelo giving up his pay off package should be the first step. What about CEO Angelo on CNBC last February telling viewers that "Countrywide is in a great position to take maket share away from other lenders"; as he was dumping shares in his company? Sounds like Ken lay talking to Enron investors to us. With think it begs the question, why have a SEC?

This is the same company that has 1,000,000 ARM type mortgages re-sets this year.

On the topic it would be great for you to do a blog about "yield spread premiums". A yield spread premium is a kick back banks and mortgage bankers like Countrywide get for increasing a borrowers interest rate. Mortgage brokers must disclose these but banks and mortgage bankers do not have to disclose.......even though they get them too. We figure that 9 out of 10 consumers pay a higher monthly mortgage payment because of these kick backs. In all of the mortgage reforms talked about by Congress there is no talk of banks or mortgage bankers having to disclose these kick backs.

The mortgage crisis was never about sub-prime, it was about yields the lenders were getting from all borrowers and it was about pushing values. CEO Angelo was leading the pack.

I have been watching this mess unfold daily and think that the entire financial services industry needs to be taken to the regulatory woodshed, pronto. We shareholders have been screwed again by the bandits who have been given uber-freedom by an absentee Congress and a Whitehouse that has had its blinders on since Reagan was elected. Initially I felt some pangs for the "poor, disadvantaged borrowing homeowner" but I now look at anyone who undertakes a loan that he/she cannot service as a person without merit. Read the darned print on your paperwork people, read it! If you cant understand it, get help. Interest rates can kill your future and that of your family.

I think that bastard ought to give it to the laid off employees of Countrywide like myself! Hope he gets his little butt reamed in prison for insider trading!

Schumer and Frank think it's normal to screw people is the ass; using somebody else's (usually taxpayers) money, of course. Borrowers were just as guilty as anybody for the subprime bull. I can't tell you how many BEGGED, BEGGED and BEGGED for a loan that they knew they couldn't afford; and went somewhere else if one company didn't give them one. Why should Mozila pay for the greed and stupidity other people BEGGED for? He built the company. All Schumer and Frank have ever done is sucked the taxpayer's tit.

I am a customer of Countrywide and Bank of America and those of us who are loyal customers are paying for this Idiot's severance package. If he gets paid, anyone who banks at Bank of America or has their mortgage with Countrywide should change to a different bank and mortgage company.

Make these companies pay for their actions where it hurts, THE BOTTOM LINE.

There are a number of other Banks and mortgage companies who want your business.

CEO should give his HUGE severance package. Most CEOs in this country are grossly overpaid and over-perked. But the shareholders share in at least some greed by investing is these companies.

Old saying, "If it looks too good to be true, it just might be."

Thank God I had the good sense not to deal with Countrywide and also to bank with Bank of America, although I must admit I own B of A stock...figured sooner or later they'll own the globe.

in this day and age........the word is GREEEEED. Hell, look at Nardelli's pay package for leaving home depot. He royally screwed the company.........and apparently, Chrysler thought he was just what they needed. I assume Nardelli must be giving nice head...........and perhaps Mozillo is too.

This sounds like insider trading to me. AngeloMozilo sold his shares for $39.00 a share and right after, they went down to $9.00 a share . He made a killing of $150 milllion.Now he is supose to get a golden parachute from bank of america what a joke.So the tax payers are getting screwed again. George Soros the liberal Hungarian billionair investor bought $33.9 million shares of countrywide in the third quarter and probably did the same thing.

There should be a Congrssional investigation how this ARM disaster started who okt it. It is a national calamity to this present day and it should be traced to the source and there should be accuntabililty. That is if we stilll have any honesty left besides greed and coruption.

This is Eron all over again.
Angelo, you know you shouldn't take that money, give it back to the shareholders. You know what the right thing to do is. These people have worked for you, and they deserve to not be Eroned. Leave with dignity and respect. You are not a bad person.

The reality is the investors wanted to buy these loans, they were offering huge spreads- the mtg bankers like countrywide, indymac offered these products, but when the investors pulled out, they had no where to sell their loans. They got screwed too.
Granted they should have known better, but when you have an automated underwriting engine giving stated income stated asset findings, with the most weight given to credit scores, with info manipulated by a loan officer that stands to gain easily 1% of the loan amount to get a loan through, with over the top house prices and not enough verifiable income- guess what- the bubble burst- the party is over.

As far as yield spread, most federal chartered banks don't have to disclose it, because the loan is typically not sold until the loan is closed (borrower has long signed the docs), banks don't know what the YSP will be because they are sold in a pool of loans, and not just one loan here and one loan there. BY the time the loan is sold in the secondary market in a pool oif other loans, it is to late to disclose to the customer.

This is the beginning of the end for middle men mortgage brokers, now that BofA aquiring CW, possible JPM aquisition with WAMU, it will be retail only world, with the extiction of mtg brokers. They have turned into the wart on the face of mtg banking, with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Reality check: Investors do not want to buy wholesale mtg loans, which will mark the end of loan brokers as we know it. BofA was forced into this aquisition by the govt-but they can absorb the loss.

Why don't American Corporate directors and shareholders stop rewarding failure? Why should the senior managment get bonuses, while lower management and labor get the boot and no severance? The non-executives had no control over those decisions, so why should they lose their jobs and very little if any severance, while the executives that made the initial decisions, keep their jobs or get booted with a "to die for" bonus? Can anyone explain to me why we reward failure?

Amazed in Houston

Compensation committee members Harley Snyder, Robert Donato, and Oscar Robertson should be hauled before Congressional hearings to explain this abject failure of corporate governance.

Don't count on it. Our politicians are to busy lobbying these same guys for political donations to do anything about this legalized looting of America. The Democrats keep whining about the Republicans yet they control the Congressional Oversight Committies. They hold majority and control what and what DOES NOT get investigated. What are they doing????? Not a damned thing except lip service of criticizing. Pathetic!