You are a football guy, you have never said it, but I think you are. BAC and Countrywide is like Jim Tressell and any school that hires him. Countrywide was toxic. If BAC, with their IMMENSE resources did not know they were toxic, something is seriously wrong. No one anywhere near market research would believe that they would take on Countrywide unless they thought that the big bet would pay off. They know what Countrywide was about, and they knew what they were getting.
And before you jump at me about the OP, yeah, that was not cool. But at the same time. It's good to be King
I was trading BAC and CFC back then and remember Ken Lewis was on a mission to build an empire, torpedoes be damned, between buying that POS and grossly overpaying for Merrill Lynch.
It's vry clear what's holding back the real estate market and a more general economic recovery that would follow in its wake. People cannot get mortgages, not unless they have pristine credit. I have talked to people who could refi and save hundreds every month but don't qualify under current underwriting standards. Now these are not people in default. They have already demonstrated an ongoing ability to pay higher monthly mortgage service, but they are not being allowed to refi due to credit concerns. Unreal. Now you have the Obama administration. First, they coerce banks to lend to poor people with substandard credit. Them, they turn around and sued banks over the terms of loans that minorities received. Apparently, in true liberal fashion, they assume these minorities were just too damn stupid to understand the terms or shop around for a better deal. Somehow, that is the bank's fault and they have to pay billions to Obama's cronies to settle. Then they try to force banks and investors to accept huge losses on mortgages so that "homeowners cna remainin their himes", notwithstanding the fact that a lot of them were ninja speculators or never made a single payment. Then they and their political allies in the states sue banks for foreclosure practices. Sp banks are forced to lend to unqualified borrowers, get sued for the terms, then face rpessure to eat the loans, then can't foreclose on them. And people wonder why housing is weak and it is tough to get a mortgage. What lender in their right mind would try to run this gauntlet whne they can just borrow from the Fed at 0% and buy T-bonds?