Mozilo Speaks, Part Three: Angelo Plays the Blame Game
Reuters today has more from Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo on what went wrong and who's to blame for the mortgage mess:
"Perched on an arm chair on a ballroom stage, Mozilo, who made $387 million in pay and stock options over the past five years, disavowed blame for the collapse, pleasing his audience of fellow mortgage-banking industry leaders and foot soldiers.
"'You've got to be careful here about blaming ourselves too much," the deeply tanned and sharply dressed chairman of Countrywide told the Mortgage Bankers Association this week. The real culprits, he argued, are the Federal Reserve with its series of interest rate hikes, crooked real estate speculators, falling housing prices and regulators' attacks on interest-only and other risky subprime loans.
More from AM: "Regulation ... is better for the crooks because only the good people have to comply," Mozilo said to a reporter before taking the stage. "So I'm against it. In fact, it's regulators, in my opinion, that have caused part of the problem when they attacked the pay option and interest-only loans."
Your thoughts? Comments?
Photo Credit: Reuters
Blaming themselves too much? As far as I've seen Mozilo has shouldered zero blame.
Also I love the clever logical fallacy with any suggestion of regulation. Using his logic all laws should be removed because they only help the criminals.
Smart and slimy, guess that is what it takes to do what he is doing.
Posted by: Cal | May 25, 2007 at 12:21 AM
Considering Countrywide's relentless quest to be the biggest mortgage company on the planet, their engagement of the same loans that others offer (through BOTH their retail AND wholesale bank), and the sheer greed of their exorbitant margins, Countrywide is equally to blame for the mortgage mess. Once an honorable bread-and-butter provider of stable 30 year fixed mortgages and now just another cutthroat, take-no-prisoner, bitter mortgage broker (Countrywide is NOT a mortgage bank - everything they underwrite is for investors) in light of their own failure to keep a high standard. Mozila has been and always will be interested in one thing - more profits. Countrywide's operations manager is a 350 pound gorilla who proudly boats of his cheeseburger consumption prowess, using it as an analogy to Countrywide, in the mortgage business. His entire company is run by numbers - that incessant, insatiable thirst for more and more and more profits, at any cost. Bigger is better, but bigger is now looking like bust. Mozila is just another trailer trash corporate executive who has a lot of money. That's s no excuse for shallow ignorance and blaming everyone else. He is a vulgar hypocrite.
Posted by: Ernie Sandoval | May 25, 2007 at 12:15 PM
The problems would be greatly reduced if Counrtywide and others like it had to retain some risk in the loans they made. Back in the 1960s and 70s when I first began buying homes, the lender made the loan and retained it in their portfolio. If it went bad, they took the loss before the government insurance programs got involved. Today, Countrywide sells the loans for a profit within a few days of funding them. Unfortunately the new investors are pensions funds, 401ks, etc. who may or may not have any experience in making loans. We need MORE regulation, not less!
Posted by: Jim Long | May 27, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Can this guys nuts get any bigger??? He makes 80 million dollars a year for the last five years building up a company that is a house of cards. What a set he must have.
How much money has been poured into saving this company..I remember reading hundreds of millions......and by the way Angelo, I beliieve the regulators want to save your sorry company.
Why they should save you, they gave you the leash from which you now hang.
I can wait to see the next leash you are given as I am sure you'll be back.
Posted by: Kevin Donovan | October 20, 2007 at 10:54 PM