Countrywide Mortgage CEO Charged With Securities Fraud, Insider Trading
There was clearly a systemic failure in our finance system, but it required people like Angelo Mizolo to fully exploit it in order to make it collapse. Hopefully this is only the beginning (I'd still like to see Phil Gramm go down):
Angelo R. Mozilo, the self-made man from the Bronx who built Countrywide Financial into the nation’s largest mortgage lender before the credit squeeze hit, has been charged with securities fraud and insider trading in a civil suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Citing e-mail messages in which Mr. Mozilo referred to Countrywide loan products as “toxic” and “poison,” S.E.C. officials said that he had misled investors about growing risks in the company’s lending practices from 2005 through 2007. During this time he also generated $140 million in profits by selling stock in the company, the S.E.C. said.
“This is the tale of two companies,” said Robert Khuzami, enforcement director at the S.E.C. “Countrywide portrayed itself as underwriting mainly prime-quality mortgages, using high underwriting standards. But concealed from shareholders was the true Countrywide, an increasingly reckless lender assuming greater and greater risk.”
At a news conference announcing its filing of the suit, the most prominent against an executive involved in the mortgage crisis, Mr. Khuzami said the S.E.C. had made it a priority “to pursue cases at the root of the financial crisis.” As the nation’s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide helped fuel the housing boom by offering loans to high-risk borrowers.
There is a long list of crooks that should be headed for the hoosegow.
William K Black says the fraud was pervasive, here with Moyers.
Galbraith agrees, truthout here.
Unfortunately more than just a few are currently getting billions (was that to say trillions?) in welfare from their Sugar Uncle…
Sam.
excerpt:
read on…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
for the real crooks were the bush crime family, who allowed these fucks to rape the treasury and the country for 8 years
it goes so well with the guillotine!
This is great. Maybe if we actually put a few of these guys in jail, others will think twice before selling the country down the river for greed.
"Later the bailout will be known as why daddy went to prison"
Politics is ugly
These guys are money junkies. While they are in prison they should be forced to go through rehab, and also forced to pay back the communities they robbed.
far left loon >.<
Methinks this guy must have been using John Bohner's tanning bed!!!
Lol, that was my first thought too. Dayum. He's going to get awfully pasty in jail, what with only being allowed out of his cell for 1 hour a day.
That is not a natural skin color.
thats some crazy a$$ lizard texture!
Goodfellas
Extra Goodfella
Yeah, this guy has mafioso written all over him.
Is this how a lot of people from the Bronx look, making it a coincidence?
I guess it would help if I didn't have this feeling that the mafia controls our country.
I was afraid that I was a horrible person for thinking, "What the HELL did that guy do to his face??" Apparently that is the normal human response to this picture. Stay out of the sun, kids.
It's not even the sun. It's those shitty tanning beds or spray-on crap. People really need to stop using those.
Or maybe he hasn't gone far enough? I mean, why not go all in and turn into an Oompa Loompa? That would be awesome.
scheme may not warrant jail time.
He's from the Bronx?
Expect the Right-wingers to attempt to "smear" Sotomayor with this, since she's from there too.
Soooo - everyone in the Bronx knows each other? Must be a small place, eh? Kinda like our "little farming community."
“There was clearly a systemic failure in our finance system, but it required people like Angelo Mizolo to fully exploit it in order to make it collapse.”
I think the root cause of the financial collapse lies in the rating of the mortgage backed securities with the highest grade of "AAA" in order that they could be sold for more than what they were worth. That is why mortgage originators couldn't produce new mortgages fast enough. Responsibility lies with the rating companies, and that is where, first and foremost, I would like to see a criminal investigation of conspiracy to defraud investors initiated.
I think the action announced today against Mizalo is only a civil proceeding, although criminal action may follow. In any event, the victims in the announced matter are the investors of Countrywide.
Madoff, Mizalo is nibbling around the edges. The single point of failure, in which this fraud couldn't have scaled to the level it did, lies squarely in the grading of those mortgage backed securities as "AAA".
the raters wouldn't have done the bogus ratings if it weren't for some kind of big-time payment (kickback) from the mortgage brokers/companies, bankers, traders, hedge fund managers, and insurance company guys who created all these stupid 'sophisticated instruments' (BETS - derivatives, CDOs Default swaps, whathaveyou).
Everyone was breaking laws and scamming the public - they knew it and they did in anyway. It was engineered theft on a very large scale.
There's plenty of blame and Jail time to spread around to all of them....not that that will ever happen.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I think that the most blame should be reserved for the AIG geniuses who thought up the credit default swaps (CDO's) with no asset backing.
Slap a CDO on a pile of shitty countrywide loans and you can bet your ass they'd get a AAA rating. They're so damn safe even the pension funds can invest in them.
I think we can all agree Phil Gramm should be getting his wrinkly ass kicked on a regular schedule.
Does he have that tanning salon orange skin like Schwarzenegger? I know that's superficial, but so many wannabemacho aggressive types have it that I think of it as a sort of red flag.
I don't even think it's about how they look. It's about having a deep, leathery tan as a sign that they're men of leisure. Insane vanity. Honestly, the guy looks like he moisturizes with carbolic acid.
booze he imbibes causess the wrinkles and weird yellow jaundiced color from the inside - his liver has to be sad??!!
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Yeah, I think this guy knows all about "toxic" and "poison" assets.
it needs to be pointed out that these loans are not tied to the community investment act bullshit you always link the crash to.
So go fuck off back to malkin land
Thanks for the pre-emptive "fuck off" to the tools whose first response is always, "Can't we blame a minority for this?"
Their answer is ALWAYS Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. Period. When asked how Chris Dodd and Barney Frank caused this they answer back with Rush told me so.
None of this would have been possible in any industry, i.e. banking, insurance, mortgage lenders - if it were not for our genius "free market is god, deregulate everything because you can trust business," assholes in the republican party and their blue dog DLC cousins.
We need to put some of these arseholes behind bars. Maybe then they will take their responsibility to the public good more seriously.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Is Mr. Angelo R. Mozilo a 'person of color?' He appears to be about the same shade as Mr. Boehner of Ohio. Are they related?
will be examined for their potential role in these economic crimes.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
This guy could play the Emperor in the next Star Wars movie.
Looks like a MEAN Oompa Loompa. Who desperately needs a face punch... or a couple of 'em...
It's about high time! When do some of these crooks go to jail?! I mean what can we as citizens do to help get rid of these frauds? I'm sick and tired of slick, rich, conmen using their connections to loot the country clean! Isn't there anything we can do to stop them?
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