HousingPANIC Quote of the Day

"Angelo Mozilo is not a bad man, he is a very good man"

-Disgraced Countrywide Toxic Mortgage former board member and Mozilo co-conspirator Henry Cisneros, August 2008, supporting his Don and hoping against hope that he won't be subpoenaed and charged with various financial crimes (again)

Former Countrywide manager: "You see some of the things that were going on, and you know it's just not right"

Angelo Mozilo, you sir are going to go to jail.

It's just a matter of time.

PEOPLE OF COUNTRYWIDE - GET OUT AND GET OUT NOW. COME CLEAN. TURN STATES EVIDENCE. LOYALTY TO THE ORANGE MAN IS STUPID. AND IF YOU'RE NOT OUT OF A JOB ALREADY, YOU WILL BE SOON.

COME CLEAN. DO IT NOW.


Former Countrywide manager speaks out

HousingPANIC URGENT Quote of the Day

"Meanwhile, until it is clear how much Countrywide will benefit from Senator Dodd’s proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue – and exactly how Mr. Dodd came to do business with Countrywide – Congress should call a halt to legislating bailouts. Taxpayers deserve no less."

- WSJ Editorial Page, June 2008

The Late Great Housing Bubble - just one big orgy of mortgage fraud, and a country of sheep and realtors on commission who fell for it.

Silly Americans - you thought those skyrocketing housing prices were because "they're not making any more land", or because of "year-round-golf and pro athletes".

Nope. It was just one big orgy of fraud. And you fell for it.

Silly Americans.

Here's just a sampling of headlines today over at the mortage fraud blog. Just a sampling.

Florida woman sentenced in fraud scheme
Florida mortgage fraud laws passed
Valley (CA) man indicted in HELOC fraud allegation
Concord (CA) lender indicted
Tampa man provided false employment references
California man given 16 months in deed fraud
Three Ohio men indicted in Kentucky fraud case
Man indicted in Ohio apartment fraud charges
Two plead guilty in Pittsburg area mortgage fraud
Texas realtor sentenced to 18 months
New Jersey man pleads guilty to mortgage fraud
5 sentenced in Georgia mortgage fraud scheme
Two plead guilty in $35 million fraud in Minnesota

Will Bernanke and Paulson let Countrywide Toxic Mortage fail (after BofA pulls out in the next few days)?

It's coming.

You can just feel it.

Countrywide is about to go belly up, Angelo Mozilo is about to be indicted, and BofA is about to make a run for it.

No way this deal goes through as announced. No way.

So the question is - is Countrywide "too big to fail"?

I don't think so. We're not talking trillions in counter-party risk like Bear Stearns. And we're talking about a company that everyone pretty much knows is going belly up anyway.

If you have ANY money in Countrywide, GET IT OUT AND GET IT OUT NOW.

Stick a fork in it. This orange pig is toast.

Beware Collapse of Bank of America-Countywide Deal

Countrywide loses $893 million for the quarter while Angelo Mozilo cashes in for $143 million

Seriously, if BofA completes the CFC acquisition, you'll know something funny is going on with Hank Paulson and Ken Lewis. Countrywide is AIDS, Chlamydia, Genital warts, Herpes, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis and Syphilis all rolled into one. BofA would be dealing with lawsuits, losses and employees going to jail for years and years.

Watch for the other shoe to drop soon here. And watch for the FBI to announce formal charges against Countrywide execs, and Angelo Mozilo by the end of Summer.

And oh, get your popcorn.

Countrywide Financial Corp. said Tuesday it lost $893 million in the first quarter, as rising loan defaults amid a deepening housing downturn forced the nation's largest mortgage lender and servicer to sharply increase its provision for loan losses and book other credit-related charges.

Shareholders saw their stake in the company dwindle as Countrywide shares lost 80 percent of their value by the end of 2007. Shares had hit a five-year peak of $45.03 in February of that year.

Meanwhile, Mozilo was paid more than $22.1 million and cashed out $121.5 million in stock options last year.

Former Countrywide Toxic Mortgage President Stanford Kurland starts company to help Countrywide customers get out of their Countrywide toxic loans

How to get rich, REIC-style, while having no morals:

1) make money screwing sheep on the way up
2) make money screwing sheep on the way down
3) repeat 1 & 2 until you die and your soul burns forever in eternal hell

Former Countrywide Exec Heads Firm Targeting Troubled Mortgages

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Stanford Kurland spent nearly three decades helping build Countrywide Financial Corp. into the nation's largest mortgage lender.

Now, the former president of the troubled company and several key colleagues hope to cash in as the housing market collapses.

Kurland, 55, will serve as chairman and chief executive officer of a new company unveiled Monday that will acquire and restructure distressed mortgages.

Private National Mortgage Acceptance Co. LLC, also known as PennyMac, intends to help borrowers restructure loans so they can avoid foreclosure and maintain payments.

"He won't be the first or the last person trying to make money on both sides of a trade," said Frederick Cannon, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. who covers Countrywide.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

When he is eventually sentenced and convicted, what do you think Angelo Mozilo's sentence will be (not "should be" - go with "will be")?

# of years in Federal prison ______

$ fine ______

(For reference, Bernie Ebbers got 25 years and $45 million in fines)

Phoenix new home price now down 25% or $75,000 from bubble peak. And anyone who listened to realtors on commission these past few years got killed

Man, $75,000 in a matter of months, that's just brutal... No matter how the Arizona Republic's Rolodex-of-Realtors Catherine Reagor (she's still employed?), Phoenix realtors on commission or RL Brown wants to spin it.

If you listened to the new-home-ad-supported Arizona Republic or Reagor's always-good-for-a-quote realtor buddies these past few years and stupidly bought a new home in Phoenix, you simply got destroyed.

Here's the latest from Housing Ponzi Scheme Ground Zero, Phoenix Arizona:

Valley new-home permits dip during Feb.

Home-building was down 64 percent from a year earlier, and sales were off by 38 percent.

New-home building permits and sales across the Valley both dropped slightly in February, according to RL Brown's Phoenix Housing Market Letter. Brown said the continued slowing in permits and sales is expected as builders sell off existing speculatively built homes.

The median new-home price in the Valley fell to $225,000 last month, compared with $231,000 in January. In 2006, the Valley's median price hit $300,000.

And here again are the immortal words of a ramen-eating Phoenix six-percenter, the most discredited realtor in America who is still allowed to pollute the Arizona Republic, who has yet to admit to how horribly wrong he was or apologize to HP'ers, Phoenicians or his former clients.

The BubbleBloggers will someday bawl balefully in private, but they will never, ever admit that they have been very publicly very foolish.

You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of their hearts they will know they were wrong all along. But as long as you don't hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine.

Have hope HP'ers - "FBI Criminal investigations have been launched against 17 companies in the fallout of the subprime mortgage collapse"

Angelo Mozilo - you're going to jail. For a long, long, long time.

Say hi to Bernie when you get there.

Criminal investigations have been launched against 17 companies in the fallout of the subprime mortgage collapse, the FBI disclosed late Tuesday.

The list of corporate fraud investigations focused on subprime mortgage lending practices by major banks and companies has grown since January, when the bureau announced a probe of 14 mortgage lenders.

While the bureau will not comment on the companies that are under investigation, two Justice Department officials confirmed to ABC News reports in last week's Wall Street Journal that Countrywide Financial is under investigation.

Ben Bernanke wants to reward failed housing gamblers and mortgage fraudsters who can't afford their payments by cutting the PRINCIPAL amount they owe

So let's say you commit mortgage fraud and take out a Liar's Loan for $500,000 even though you can't afford the monthly payments. Your new best buddy Helicopter Bernanke wants the banks to cut the loan amount to $400,000, but only for loans where the failed flipper stopped making payments.

And for those of you who 'bought' homes you could afford, who didn't lie on your mortgage application, and who kept making timely payments, Bernanke says "f*ck you byatch - no bailout for you!"

Crime and irresponsibility pay in America today. Doing the right, ethical and honest thing is penalized. And I think this desperate and pathetic brain-fart by Bernanke shows just how fast things are now spinning out of control.

Bernanke urges banks to forgive portions of mortgages

Saying banks must do more to stem rising foreclosures, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke called on lenders Tuesday to go beyond trimming interest rates on some troubled mortgages by cutting the size of the loans as well.

Bernanke's call for outright mortgage cuts is more sweeping than anything he has previously advocated and appears to put him at odds with the Bush administration. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. contends that homeowners are obligated to keep paying on their home loans.