Comments on: Is Countrywide the New Titanic?

By: Is Countrywide going bankrupt?

Is Countrywide going bankrupt? — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:14:26 +0000

[...] said a long time ago – “if you have to say it, what what are you saying?” We called Countrywide the Titanic of the mortgage industry back in August and the company got off the ropes back then; the question now is how many lives [...]

By: Will Countrywide Home Loans go bankrupt as the mortgage meltdown worsens?

Will Countrywide Home Loans go bankrupt as the mortgage meltdown worsens? — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:18:56 +0000

[...] may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!In my post a few days ago I asked “Is Countywide the next Titanic?” I didn’t know; and I still don’t know if it is or not. But there has been a [...]

By: BetterVillage

BetterVillage — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:44:24 +0000

re: Cutbacks at Industry Giant in Today’s Latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hjobbeason11aug11,1,5897203.story

As for what happens to Countrywide employees next? let’s see? Mozilo is probably worth about $1B. According to this article back in 9/2006, CW employed about 23,460. After “culling” that probably went down to let’s say conservatively 20,000.

So assuming again for arguments sake, they cut half their employees at this point to stay alive, they’re left with about 10,000 direct employees. So we’ve got 10,000 folks that need new jobs, and time to find them. How bout removing about $999,950,000 from Mozilo’s grubby little accounts, leaving him with $50k to give him time to find a job (we’re human, right?).

You can then take care of all 10,000 direct employees nicely, giving them a little buffer?even more if you pass around the ill-gotten gain from other executives, consultants, and attorneys.

Simple math says the penalty divided by the employees would be $99,995 for each and every one of them.

By: Schahrzad Berkland

Schahrzad Berkland — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:19:05 +0000

Sandy, so you think they are referring to asset inflation when they caution about inflation? I think inflation of US-produced services and goods runs above 8%. They don’t include it in the CPI, but they know it’s there.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:24:25 +0000

I did participate in 1999 and this is worse, potentially affecting many more people.

Fed’s in a bad spot right now because inflation is a huge problem that they can barely admit even exists but it really ties their hands as far as how they can respond to what’s happening in housing.

What I find ironic is that for years they haven’t included housing in the economic indicators that they use to measure inflation, but just because you don’t count it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

By: Schahrzad Berkland

Schahrzad Berkland — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:22:25 +0000

As usual, the market is clueless. All hyped up about the Fed repo, which has to be repaid, which is hard to do when you are insolvent.

The market runs on fumes, by that I mean hopes and wishes. THe Fed meets next week, let’s run up the market because maybe they’ll cut rates and bail us out. Someone asked Fannie for an increase in their conforming limits, so let’s buy up stocks.

Remember 1999? This is the same. I watched 1999 from afar, I did not participate, so I remember the misplaced optimism.

By: Sniglet

Sniglet — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:32:02 +0000

Maybe this news isn’t all that significant. The market is taking it in stride today. CFC stock hasn’t even gotten close to it’s August 3rd $24.73 low today. I guess people are more optimistic about CFC than they were a week ago.