• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Petty moves from a petty man.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We still have time to mess this up!

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Mozilo Charged

Mozilo Charged

by John Cole|  June 5, 20098:32 am| 14 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

FacebookTweetEmail

SEC files charges against Countrywide exec:

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.”

The real question is how much of what went on here was the norm.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Your Silence Is a Canvas For My Wildest Fantasies
Next Post: At Least They Included Numbers »

Reader Interactions

14Comments

  1. 1.

    Napoleon

    June 5, 2009 at 8:40 am

    On the plus side if his cell mates stage a night time break out they will not need a flashlight but can find their way out from the glow of his tan.

  2. 2.

    cleek

    June 5, 2009 at 8:42 am

    i’m gonna go with the norm.
    unlike Minnesota.

  3. 3.

    SpotWeld

    June 5, 2009 at 8:46 am

    Does it really matter if his specific actions were the norm or not?

    It seems to really matter that his actions should have been obvious to the majority of the people in positions of power within the industry and they did nothing to self-regulate.

    In other words, a key lesson learned from this whole event is that the interest of the customer (as opposed to profit though herd behavior) is not a driving force towards industry self-regulation.

    Greenspan’s theory of how the market works has been proven utterly wrong wrong wrong.

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    June 5, 2009 at 8:53 am

    First J-Lo, then Sotomayor, then Mozilo.

    Can we really trust people from the Bronx in positions of authority? And does anyone know which syllable Mozilo emphasizes when he says his name?

  5. 5.

    TR

    June 5, 2009 at 8:55 am

    Wasn’t Mozilo one of the evil monsters from the Godzilla films?

  6. 6.

    NonyNony

    June 5, 2009 at 8:56 am

    @SpotWeld:

    In other words, a key lesson learned from this whole event is that the interest of the customer (as opposed to profit though herd behavior) is not a driving force towards industry self-regulation. Greenspan’s theory of how the market works has been proven utterly wrong wrong wrong.

    Greenspan’s theory of how the market works was laughable on its face. He made the classic error of mistaking his model for reality. His model abstracted all the people out and left behind only “corporations”, “shareholders” and “consumers”. He forgot to include “greedy bastards who care nothing for the actual corporations and will do whatever it takes to make sure they get theirs no matter how much it screws over everyone else”.

    It has all the marks of someone who has never actually worked for a large publicly traded company to see how these hired-gun CEOs actually work. Greenspan may have known a few CEOs socially, but there’s nothing like actually working for one of the bastards to make it patently obvious that they care nothing for the company itself, except in as much as they need the company around to pay for their own gravy train and make sure their stock options stay profitable.

  7. 7.

    Steeplejack

    June 5, 2009 at 9:09 am

    @TR:

    Big bug eyes, mouth pincers and a dorsal fin? Yeah, I thought Rodan kicked his ass. Let me see if I can find my copy of the definitive reference Japanese Insect Fear Films and the Dread of Nuclear Annihilation, 1950-1970. It’s around here somewhere.

  8. 8.

    Karmakin

    June 5, 2009 at 9:19 am

    @NonyNony: To be honest, where the whole thing goes off the rails and why we won’t and probably can’t do anything about this whole mess is that the economics field as a whole is completely incapable of grasping that moral hazard applies MORE SO to those in positions of power, instead of virtually non-existent

  9. 9.

    The Other Steve

    June 5, 2009 at 10:21 am

    Mozilo stared as one of the Oompa Loompa’s in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sheesh, I thought that was obvious.

  10. 10.

    Jager

    June 5, 2009 at 10:48 am

    One of my neighbors belongs to the same Catholic Parish as Mozilo, he was a twice a year Catholic for years…he’s going to Mass 2-3 times a week, now. Asshole!

  11. 11.

    Michael

    June 5, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    Big bug eyes, mouth pincers and a dorsal fin? Yeah, I thought Rodan kicked his ass

    For sheer awesomeness, nothing beats King Guidra and his 3 heads.

  12. 12.

    Travis

    June 5, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    John –

    The answer is that a great deal of this was the norm. It was well known within the industry that there were unsustainable pressures from CDOs and CDSs that the regulators were choosing to ignore. I attended a seminar in 1996 at the bank I worked for, and left with my mind reeling. It was like finding out you were sailing on the Titanic — and I had already believed that there was a massive housing bubble underway. This was a low-level seminar for IT nerds like myself, not some top-secret meeting of the C-level executives.

    So the question is not so much what was the norm, but how can we make this never fucking happen again. The internal risk folks were (and still are) shut out of making important decisions. The regulators were befuddled, powerless, and overwhelmed. The allegedly neutral third-party raters were financially and legally threatened by their own business arrangements.

    And inside each of these businesses were people like Mozilo who knew about the problem and kept their mouth shut. For the common good, this disconnect between the public and private needs to be brutally punished. Sarbanes-Oxley was not enough, even though it will help prosecute this motherfucker. There has to be major attitudinal changes in people where they realize they personally can be threatened if they do something so stupid and venal with the public trust. I hope they put Mozilo in jail and force a disgorgement of profits over the last several years. That is the kind of action that will wake up the C-level executives.

  13. 13.

    chrome agnomen

    June 5, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    @dougj: first j-lo…

    no, first colin powell.

  14. 14.

    asiangrrlMN

    June 5, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    @cleek: Thanks. Rub it in. John, that’s not really a question, is it? Because I think the answer is pretty self-evident. This kind of thing happened all the time. We need some real consequences for it–not just a hefty fine. I don’t know who mentioned hard time for white collar crimes, but I am beginning to think the same way.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - PaulB - Olympic Peninsula: Salt Creek Recreation Area & Kalaloch Beach
Image by PaulB (5/10/25)

Recent Comments

  • Jay on Political Wins Open Thread (May 16, 2025 @ 12:40am)
  • Timill on Lest We Forget: Kilmar Abrego Garcia (May 16, 2025 @ 12:38am)
  • sab on Lest We Forget: Kilmar Abrego Garcia (May 16, 2025 @ 12:23am)
  • YY_Sima Qian on War for Ukraine Day 1,176: Happy Vyshyvanka Day! (May 16, 2025 @ 12:01am)
  • Sally on We Are Just Incubators (May 15, 2025 @ 11:48pm)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!