Countrywide CEO to forfeit $37.5 million

Many already had their home but their financial circumstances changed due to personal problems. It is not so easy to say one should sell and move when you have lived for 15 or 20 years perhaps in the same home - so it may not have been a matter of buying more new home than they could afford. The point is that there are many circumstances and not easily rectified by finger pointing in any direction but eviction and foreclosure is certainly an extreme penalty made possible by the new loans designed in part mostly by CountryWide Home Loans and adopted by all other lenders as a source of great income. The notes were then bundled and packaged by Wall St. into a new class of negotiable derivatives bearing great gain for them (the New York Investment firms except for GS which disagreed and went short and is now the only winner not needing the Middle East and Japan to bail them out leaving the end homeowners with no one to bail them out since the lenders closed off all further home and a lot of business loans to avoid any further billion dollar mistakes. The result is a massive number of foreclosures and some losing homes they have lived in for years and in need of lower monthly payments for various personal reasons ranging from vitriolic divorces to very unfortunate medical expenses and lacking ability to pay for very expensive meds and treatments.

I agree with you if the objective was greed versus survival but who knows how that was the case and in what percentages. The problem is we are throwing all the babies out with the bathwater in this case and in the illegal alien case, IMHO. No one asked for a hurricane in New Orleans and being forced to leave with little hope of ever being able to return is another, similar example, as well as the Enron case where everyone lost their retirement funds which were essentially stolen as were many of those being evicted from their homes for seeking lower mortgage rates on their existing homes for various unforeseen circumstances. I suggest the politicians seeking votes should stand before a mirror when pointing their finger at the guilty parties since oversight is part of their duties - at least it should be and not greed for votes let’s say any more than money by the lenders and investment organizations.. I contend that unless you are in the unfortunate position of having a subprime loan it is very difficult to assess blame and easy to over generalize as I am also doing. I do know that the elderly do not wish to lose their homes and probably would do nothing to bring that about if they had of had a crystal ball and knew all the intricacies of a new class of loan offering lower mortgages to supplement their meager Social Security payments with which to buy food and medicine and pay the rent or mortgages. Were you aware of the fine print containing the refinance penalties that prevented them from rectifying their mistake even now and stopping their getting out from under these great money maker loans for the lenders in general or the large New York investment houses and their new class of derivative? I contend that none of the complexities were ever explained to them as only their signing on the dotted line was the objective of those exploiting their need and ignorance of complex economics. Unfortunately it has backfired almost across the board into your purse or wallet as well in ways we are only beginning to understand. Of course the banks will be saved, but what about the homeowners living on meager social security - I doubt it and a few stimulus dollars is ludicrous compared to the real need for rectifying this problem in New Orleans, at Enron, in IRAQ/Afghanistan, and now our housing/building sectors. We get what we vote for I guess - but sometimes we are not given much worthwhile help and the market will suffer accordingly again, IMHO. Look at the Russell today compared to the Dow. Or the techs vs. the S&P.

Morris morrise@pacbell.net

From: holygrailsm@yahoogroups.com [mailto:holygrailsm@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of hwb25801 Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:52 AM To: holygrailsm@yahoogroups.com Subject: [holygrailsm] Re: InvestmentNews.com: Countrywide CEO to forfeit $37.5 million

Buying a home within their means would have been the cure to a lot of people’s problems.