Countrywide's Mozilo Calls Borrower's Plea "Disgusting"

Wow! That is one of the most horrific things that I have ever heard!

geeze. Our country is about to go under. People without virtue aren't fit for self government. It scares me to say this, but I think we are going to see alot of industries nationalized over the next four years in a vain attempt to keep our broken monetary system/ecomony afloat.

This reply to Dan Bailey is DISGUSTING AND UNBELIEVABLE. I hope that Mr Mozilo and other bankers responsible for this mortgage mess are held accountable and have to fork over their grossly excessive compensation $$$ to help cover the expenses of doing the right thing for Mr. Bailey and others. Bank of America should cancel its deal to purchase Countrywide; this pending transaction is why I sold my shares in BAC.

I fully agree that this email is somewhat pathetic. "I was told" is no excuse. If someone told him that he would find a million dollars on his front porch in the morning, would he buy into that, too? We DIDN'T buy a house during the boom because we sat down and figured out all the expenses required in home ownership and found that it sounded (and was) too good to be true. Does any one have commonsense any more?

That is the pot calling the kettle black. 5 years ago I bought a condo at a resonable price within my budget. Morgage companys came up with intrest only and creative arms to get people into homes. I remember talking to people who made half the salary I did getting qualified for $250,000 morgages. Back then I knew the housing market would crash, but everyone thoght I was nutz. Now I have moved and am paying rent and a morgage because my house will not sell. My house value has dropped 37% and with gas prices incresing the value will continue to go down. My listed price is the lowest in the city and no bites. Will government let me write-down the loss if I have to take a significant 401k loan out to cover my loss. Of course not, but you (Morgage comapanies can). You make me sick. When intrest rates drop does the fixed rate drop? No only short term rates. And for those who need to refiance at a lower fixed rate are out of luck because the house no appraises less than what they owe. This problem goes on two fronts. People do not no how to budget, and big business looks for short term gains not long term stability. You are lucky the government bailed you out. As for me I can always move back or continue to pay to payments because I understand a budget. If Wall Street thinks there is a rebound in the future they are about as dumb as the folks who said "corn ethanol is a great idea". As gas prices increase, unempolyment rises due to outsourcing, medical costs increase, taxes go up, baby boomers trying to move out of house they can no longer afford the taxes on or can upkeep; the market will continue to drop. Who will buy the boomers expensive homes? I have not even began to speak about social security not being there. This country is on the verge of major changes.

I am "disgusted" by Mozilo, Countrywide, and every other bank/loan officer who turned a blind eye to these ridiculous, illegal transactions. On the other hand, I was a loan officer for a short while, and can't count the times I tried to explain complex Neg Am loans or "Adjustable Rate Riders" and people didn't care. Not "didn't understand", didn't care. Many borrowers I would speak to found other banks/brokers to do their loans because the other person pushed them through the process, and got the money in front of them quicker. They wanted the same thing Mozilo wanted, money. Keep in mind fraud and deception takes two, and banks and borrowers made their beds. Banks/brokers are more to blame, but there's a lot to go around. It's amazing to me how many borrowers now are acting like innocent lambs. 2nd - On the other siderson is responsible for this mess

Talk about a total intellectual, psychological, social and spiritual disconnect between CEO Mozilo, who is in the top 1% of earnings, and the rest of the population. It seems his life must have been insulated, silver spoon, best schools, no association with anyone who has led a difficult life. I'm just guessing, I could be wrong, I didn't do a background check. But what else can explain such calous and vicious attitudes towards those who are destitute? When you look, however, at the whole ARM scam scandle scamdle, and you think, well, was Mozilo one of the executives who designed or approved or watched uneducated people sign ARM deals, well, then, is it that hard to believe that he would be disgusted simultaneously when one of his victims can't pay? When has a con-man been sorry for his actions, or empathising with his victims. No, no, no, thats not how it works. As soon as feasible, the con man gets out of the lime light, and then takes as many more victims with him as possible. And does so while telling himself the rest of mankind is disgusting. Look in the mirror Mozilo. When you look at the rest of mankind, especially the disenfranchised, uneducated, hard working blue collar, who you and your kind conned, and you call them "disgusting", please look in the mirror at the same time. If you can still look in the mirror, and not flinch, then you are so far gone that your own case is hopeless, and you will need every penny of your illbegotten salary to keep you company, and make sure to keep some very materialistic trophy women and friends around you, and together, maybe you can sit around a cozy fire while on skiiing vacations, and talk about how disgusting all the people are who you made enough money off of to feed a small country.... disgusting? What is really disgusting Mozilo? Everyone else knows the answer, do you? I hope congress and a prosecutor find a way to uncover the mess, and find a way to prosecute you and all those who did this with you, and then we will listen to the echo of "disgusting" from a freshly unsanitized prison block.....disgusting? Disgusting!

I think the CEO's comment is being taken wildly out of context. The word "Disgusting" refers to the tactic used to generate the message the CEO received, not the situation of the ewriter. This is so plainly obvious that I cannot believe anyone is spending time pursuing this. The focus on the discussion should not be on this; rather it should be on Countrywide's tactics in approving loan apps from borrowers who clearly had no ability to pay/repay their loans, and the company's internal policies and guidelines associated with packaging and reselling known bad loans overseas.

I am not particularly pleased by Mr. Mozilo's email. Nor am I pleased that Countrywide no longer uses an "if the loan makes good sense, then fund it" attitude toward underwriting. As a mortgage broker, I have now reached a level of 10 loans I wanted to place with C'wide that do make sense, that I would bet my life would not go bad, but which C'wide will not consider...though they would have been fine in March! On the other hand, though there are plenty of "scummy" mortgage people who probably deceived borrowers, the burden of reading your mortgage paperwork is still on the borrower. Sure, there is a lot of paperwork, but the adjustable rate mortgage disclosure, in particular, is very understandable. It is not legal gibberish and it is also given to the borrower when he signs the original loan package to sign...and copy to retain and read long before the borrower has to approve it again at the closing. I would bet my bottom dollar that Mr. Baily's problem is not that he was not informed as to how much his loan could go up, but, rather, that he was sure that, given a little breathing room, he could get his financial house in order. And, it turned out that he didn't get enough room. Though I have a lot more sympathy for Mr. Bailey than I do for Mr. Mozilo, he obviously refinanced his property while he was under some financial duress and was, in no way, as cautious as he should have been. As a mortgage broker, I have not discouraged borrowers from accepting ARMs in general, but I always urge borrowers to go for fixed terms of at least 3 years. Anyone should be able to dig themselves out of a hole in that time. But, 1 year? That is risky. For at least the last 1.5 to 2 years, the interest rate for a 3-year ARM is a little bit lower than a 1-year ARM and not even that much different than a 30 year fixed rate. For most people, during this time, there has really been little advantage to accepting an ARM vs a fixed rate mortgage. Mr. Bailey was obviously in dire straits, regardless, and then slit his own throat by going for the very lowest rate he could get, rather than giving himself that breathing room. In addition, the rate increase cap on a 1-year ARM is somewhat reasonable. It sounds like Mr. Bailey would have been in trouble, at some point, even with a fixed rate loan. On the other hand, to avoid appearing like "Simon Legree", most lenders are willing to work out reasonable terms...ranging from a refinance, to tacking the arrearage onto the end of the original term, to forgiveness of part of the arrearage, to an additional short-term loan for the arrearage. He needs to contact the right people and agencies and continue his dialog with his lender. He has to realize that the lender will probably suffer a bigger loss by taking his home or accepting a "short sale", etc. It is to their benefit to work something out, not to be "hard-headed". Mr. Bailey has to be as persistent with them to work out a mutually satisfactory solution as the lender would be in pursuing the arrearage.

I feel like a heel, I should have read further, it sounds like Mr. Bailey has been through a rough patch. I hope his situation improves. Although, I hope he does have a person who is knowledgeable and can counsel him on his predicament.

Mozillo is a pompous over paid jerk with no feelings and an attitude problem !

The thing that no one gets, it that the lender cannot "re-do" the loan. In most cases, the actual note was sold at time of funding. The original lender does keep the servicing rights to about 18% of the loans they actually funded. If you read the reply of Mozilo, I dont think that he was calling that nitwit "discusting" he was referring to the whole form letter, and could be thinking someone is using this as a way to make money. I also feel that it is a copout for anyone to use the whole "I didn't know what I was signing excuse" What about those smart ones who cashed out $200k or more, did the lenders come back and want a piece of that? Being in the business for 15+ years, and knowing how I conducted myself, and my staff, I find it hard to believe that everyone can get away with blaming the lenders, LO's, etc. Blame Our President, and Alan Greenspan for getting us into this mess. 7 years ago, you could get a "free" HELOC loan take it up to 95% LTV, at 3% interest only for 5 years. Go ahead and debt consolidate, put everything into this "free" loan. Keep your cash in the bank. No one understands for most of the american population, their home is their savings account, retirement, etc. That is who is to blame. I knew when Greenspan was getting out of his job duties, and he starting raising the fed by 100 bps at a time, we were in for a rude awakning. People, this has been happening for over 2 years. WE have been in a deep recession since, and it will only get worst. People are losing their jobs at an alarming rate. Go to the central part of the US. The occupancy rate of a huge mall in a very large town I was in was 27%. 18 months ago it was 98%. The population has dropped in some towns by 25% in the past two years. EVEN the gaming industry is showing a loss. Stop blaming the big wigs of these companies who dont even have their hands tied, their hands are chopped off. Their is nothing they can do. There are no investors to buy these b/c loans. They dont have the capital to invest in you. Write to the white house. Blame them. There is someone making zillions of dollars in all of this. Look there.