"Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president ....."
In other news, just because Carlo Gambino was the Godfather of the Gambino crime family and worked there doesn't mean he was guilty of anything.
Posted on 03/04/2009 5:46:05 PM PST by Lorianne
Fairly or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has the economy staggering.
So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.
Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.
“It has been very successful — very strong,” John Lawrence, the company’s head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac’s spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.
“In fact, it’s off-the-charts good,” he told Mr. Kurland, who was leaning back comfortably in his leather boardroom chair, even as the financial markets in New York were plunging.
As hundreds of billions of dollars flow from Washington to jump-start the nation’s staggering banks, automakers and other industries, a new economy is emerging of businesses that hope to make money from the various government programs that make up the largest economic rescue in history.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
These guys will help the market clear and are on the right track.
Just because they worked there doesn't mean they're guilty of anything.
Attack any market cures to insure big government can move in. Socialism is such a noble cause.
More power to them. NYT is just PO’d that Dodd got caught accepting a sweetheart deal from Countrywide.
Yep. How many front page NYT stories on the Dem involvement in our mortgage woes?
Government created the mess by pumping the real estate bubble and threatening those that didn’t loan to the “disadvatanged”. Our government is the one selling the mortgages for pennies on the dollar.
Stupid is as stupid does.
More government is always the wrong answer to any problem.
Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis, Video aired September 2008
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2198674/posts
This is what should occur all over the place. Let someone buy the debt cheap enough and then they can make a deal with the debtor that is realistic. I know someone lost money in there somewhere but this is better than propping up bad business models with taxpayer dollars.
The NYT must protect the enlightened elites of the Demo . . er . . Socialist party.
"Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president ....."
In other news, just because Carlo Gambino was the Godfather of the Gambino crime family and worked there doesn't mean he was guilty of anything.
They should be auctioning off these loans. I don’t think that is being done. I could be wrong.
Well you got me with that one. Capitalists are not criminals. Take that Marxist doctrine to DU. They love it, although it won’t get you noticed.
While the NY Times wants us to be outraged that someone is actually turning around these bad loans, what this really illustrates is the absurdity of the ‘mark-to-market’ accounting rules that have been imposed on publicly-traded companies.
A great many American (myself included), who bought a house in the last 5 years are now under water, because of the drastic price drops. The vast majority of those people (myself included) will do what it takes to meet the obligations they have maade and pay their mortgages on time every month. Likewise there are many good banks, with positive income streams, that hold portfolios of these under-water mortgages. These banks have had to declare huge paper losses, because they have to mark the value of their mortage portfolios to the current market rates for mortgage securities, even if their own loan portfolios are performing well.
In essence, the mark-to-market rules are telling sound financial institutions that they can’t remain calm and ride out the downturn. If the market it panicking, they have to panic also, declare huge losses and sell off these ‘bad’ loans to get them off their books. Meanwhile, some people are realizing that many of these loans weren’t so bad after all ...
You’re right. It is the only way that will work. Otherwise we’ll be like Japan or worse, Europe.
Pelosi’s son works there so my guess is that she was paid off too.
Pray for America, Our Troops and obama’s Failure
You got it! A top appraiser actually told me that in most places it is only the outer suburbs, an hour plus drive non-rush hour, that have seen drastic drops in prices.
The Case/Shiller model is faulty and exagerates loss. No appraiser I know would equate a distressed sale with a normal market sale. It is a sham.
The only exception is in some of these new communities where essentially new homes are selling at drastic losses. It still is not a true reflection of the market, though.
Fear and socialism are making the market worse. Who’s the new president preaching fear and socialism?
September 2008 was a little late to ‘warn’ about anything. I wouldn’t brag about that if I was either of them.
They knew about this ‘toxic asset’ stuff years beforehand and did virtually nothing. Except craft bailouts for the culprits in the 11th hour.
McCain made some noises early on, but then he ‘suspended his campaign’ to vote yes on TARP I. Now he’s against bailouts? Sorry, no medals for him. He should sit down and shut up until he’s justly voted out.
I'm a greater capitalist than you will ever be and I have the portfolio to prove it.
Do you know what you call somebody that is so utterly naive that he believes that a capitalist can never be a criminal?
A "Pigeon".
A "Mark".
A "Sucker".
A "Greater Fool".
"Somebody that was born yesterday".
The particular company in question, Countrywide, knowingly wrote out mortgages to people without two nickels to rub together that they KNEW could never repay and they then took those worthless IOU's and sold them for fat profits to the managers of the mutual funds in your 401k and helped poison the entire financial system.
Another particular company, Peanut Corporation of America, had positive tests for Salmonella, sold their tainted product anyway, killed several people and devastated the bottom line of other responsible companies affected by the subsequent massive recalls.
Salmonella Criminal Probe Heats Up as FBI Raids Peanut Corp. of America
Believing that capitalists can never be criminals does not make you a champion of capitalism.
It merely makes you a naive fool with "Pigeon" tattooed on your forehead.
That wasn’t when the warnings happened, it was when Fox new compiled and aired the video from 2003 2004 and 2005.
You didn’t watch the video did you?
I can dredge up more on what they tried to do to stop the madness, but it wouldn’t change your mind. I don’t make a habit of peeing in the wind.
No, it wouldn’t change my mind because they actively participated in TARP I. Look where that has led.
Where does that leave you?
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