Whether he's right or wrong, he should just shut his pie hole, and take the tens of millions in stock option grants his derelict board of directors has bestowed upon his arrogant ass, and carry on silently. I don't think he has the moral high ground in dispensing any advice at this moment in time. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aST7PK5_3Ua8&refer=home Countrywide's Mozilo Says Regulators May Worsen Subprime Losses By Jody Shenn April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Banking regulators may push more homeowners into foreclosure by making it tougher to refinance subprime mortgages, said Angelo Mozilo, head of the largest U.S. home-loan lender. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed guidelines last month that would encourage lenders to turn down borrowers who won't be able to afford mortgages after ``teaser'' rates expire. Rates on loans to people with poor or limited credit are typically fixed for two or three years and then rise. The plan is an ``inadvertent attack on liquidity exactly when it shouldn't happen,'' Mozilo, co-founder and chief executive officer of Countrywide Financial Corp., said in a phone interview last week from his office in Calabasas, California. The change would block more than half of subprime borrowers from refinancing mortgages at a time when slumping real estate prices have already caused delinquencies to rise to a four-year high, according to Mozilo. Teaser rates on almost 2 million subprime loans will expire in 2007 and 2008, according to First American Corp. a Santa Ana, California-based realty data firm. Mozilo compared the proposals to the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, when he said more than 1,000 thrifts failed in part because regulators set rules that encouraged thrifts to buy bonds with credit ratings below investment grade and then forced them to sell, causing prices to tumble. Next Junk Bonds ``These junk bonds performed beautifully later on,'' Mozilo, 68, said. ``It's like anything else in life, all they need is time,'' he said. ``If we can give then another two or three years, income goes up, their home's value eventually goes up.'' A Merrill Lynch & Co. index that tracks the performance of debt rated below Baa3 by Moody's Investors Service and below BBB-by Standard & Poor's fell 4.36 percent in 1990 before gaining 39 percent in 1991 and about 17 percent in 1992 and 1993. Countrywide made $462 billion of home loans last year, or 15.5 percent of the total in the U.S., according to newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance. Spokespeople for the Fed, OCC and FDIC declined to comment. Each of the agencies reacted differently to Mozilo after he raised his concerns, he said, declining to elaborate. Rule Changes ``The Fed is very different than the OCC,'' which regulates national banks and ``is very different'' that the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees U.S. thrifts, Mozilo said. Countrywide became a thrift last month, dropping its OCC charter. Regulators, lenders and consumer groups are coming ``to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the issue that is looming in regards to subprime resets is to -- to the extent that they can make those payments -- put them into 30-year fixed-rate loans or comparable products that don't have these reset features,'' said Kevin Petrasic, an OTS spokesman. Banks should postpone rate increases written into adjustable-rate subprime loans or offer fixed-rate loans to limit foreclosures that would result from the higher payments, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said April 16 after an eight-hour meeting of lenders, federal regulators and Wall Street underwriters of mortgage bonds. Mozilo recommends that regulators exempt subprime borrowers replacing adjustable mortgages from the guidelines. ``These people bought houses under one set of rules and the rules have changed on them mid-stream,'' he said. ``The simplest thing to do is to permit programs so we can refinance them.'' Flippers, Speculators About 20 percent to 30 percent of people who took out subprime mortgages in 2005 and 2006 won't meet the financial thresholds regardless of whether the new guidelines are adopted because lenders aren't lending as much against property values, according to debt strategists at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The main cause of delinquencies and defaults has been ``flippers, speculators and people knowingly stretching themselves without the capability to get past any bump in the road,'' Mozilo said. Tax and accounting rules and contractual obligations for loans that are packed into bonds are obstacles to keeping teaser rates in place longer, Mozilo said.
CFC Profile (Key Executives): http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CFC Two GIVs: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/nameSQL.asp?nametxt=Countrywide+Home&sort_option=5
As much as I hate subprime brokers, they would not exist if our suburban households were not so greedy and need to buy a McMansion with their middle class earnings and fill it with barely any furniture. I can't tell you how many homes I have visited (as a potential buyer) that were expensive (ie. over priced) but the people's stuff inside was looked like the interior of a Bronx tenement. You reap what you sow.... BTW love your George Hamilton comparison. I always felt Mozilo reminded me of someone....i think you hit the nail on the head.
actually sub prime brokers exist because wall street needed to create an asset class to securities not because people needed houses.
Doesn't take any "moral high ground" to know what you're talking about, and what to do about it, does it? I think he's exactly right....passing some of the rule changes causes liquidity to contract, exactly when it doesn't need to. Speaking of "moral high ground", where would you put the politicians on your morality scale? LOL! OldTrader