Monday Afternoon Housing Crisis Quote Quiz
Guess who’s quoted in answer to a question posed in July, 2007, asking “whether with hindsight he would have done things differently, starting in 2005 or 2006.”
I ask myself that all the time as C.E.O. … What should I have known and when should I have known it, and what should I have done about it?”
Answer can be found on this link.
In 2007, subprime defaults escalated wildly, and Wall Street bankers abandoned the mortgage-backed securities they had prized. In August, they cut off Countrywide’s short-term funding, which constricted its ability to operate, and in just a few months Mozilo was forced to choose between bankruptcy or being acquired. In January, 2008, Bank of America announced that it would buy the company for a fraction of what Countrywide was worth at its peak. Mozilo has reportedly been named a defendant in more than a hundred civil lawsuits and a target of a criminal investigation. On June 4th, the S.E.C., in a civil suit, charged Mozilo, David Sambol, and Eric Sieracki with securities fraud; Mozilo was also charged with insider trading. The complaint seemed to formalize a public indictment of Mozilo as an icon of corporate malfeasance and greed.
It’s the case so often with people whose rise and fall reach allegorical proportions: they believe they can outfox reality. Connie Bruck’s reporting for The New Yorker tells the story of the son of a butcher from the Bronx and his pathway to becoming a legend in his own mind.
In the process, the article visits one of the most complex business, economic, and cultural issues of our time: the seduction of emerging market populations into homeownership. Where did social conscience, business ambition, and greed cross paths? Read the story.
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