Well another "Rich Rad" was formally charged with fraud by the SEC. Marketwatch reported that Ex-Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo "with securities fraud for failing to disclose credit risks, concerns and uncertainties they had with the company's future, and in particular, problems with the credit-worthiness of the company's Pay Option ARM loans." Mozilo was also charged with insider trading. Basically the picture the SEC filing paints is one of a company that was in the thick of the loan sharking business, relaxing lending standards to glut their portfolio with trick mortgages designed to explode like IEDs. While Mozilo was sporting his suntan and smile on TV, and talking up the company, he was privately urging that the entire portfolio of Pay Option ARMs be sold because they were such a bad risk, and the icing on the cake was his nifty little sale of stock, netting an estimated $140 million just before the company collapsed and had to be gobbled up by Bank of America. Isn't it nice to be a wealthy insider?
So one of the Rich Dads that pretty much lit the fuse on this economic mess has finally been called on the carpet. It remains to be seen if he will end up joining Bernie Madoff as a cell mate, and then the two of them can act like a couple of Mafia bosses on ice, dreaming of all those hidden accounts where millions of dollars once flowed through their greedy hands. This is American business at its very worst.
Meanwhile, half a million more Poor Dads lost jobs last month, and someone please tell me how those lost jobs are ever going to come back anytime soon. While he was quietly preparing to abandon ship, Mozilo wrote a nifty "Dear Collegue" letter to employees at Countrywide, announcing an expected layoff of 10,000 to 12,000 at the very end. Mozilo's ill gotten stock profits on the alleged insider trading could have paid the average annual salary of 4000 of those employees, and God only knows how much other loot has been stashed in bonds, hidden derivatives, securities, or Swiss bank accounts. The SEC is just looking at the tip of the ice berg where the Rich Dads behind this crisis are concerned. I hope there will be many more charges filed and successfully prosecuted, because we need to know, on some level, that there is still a shred of justice in this world for men like Angelo Mozilo, Bernie Madoff and so many others who may now be quietly "making arrangements" with the billions they looted from the system before jig was up. You can read about some others here.
We are well past the time when pitch forks and torches should have surrounded the Rich Dad mansions in this country. But at least this SEC filing is a step in the right direction.
So one of the Rich Dads that pretty much lit the fuse on this economic mess has finally been called on the carpet. It remains to be seen if he will end up joining Bernie Madoff as a cell mate, and then the two of them can act like a couple of Mafia bosses on ice, dreaming of all those hidden accounts where millions of dollars once flowed through their greedy hands. This is American business at its very worst.
Meanwhile, half a million more Poor Dads lost jobs last month, and someone please tell me how those lost jobs are ever going to come back anytime soon. While he was quietly preparing to abandon ship, Mozilo wrote a nifty "Dear Collegue" letter to employees at Countrywide, announcing an expected layoff of 10,000 to 12,000 at the very end. Mozilo's ill gotten stock profits on the alleged insider trading could have paid the average annual salary of 4000 of those employees, and God only knows how much other loot has been stashed in bonds, hidden derivatives, securities, or Swiss bank accounts. The SEC is just looking at the tip of the ice berg where the Rich Dads behind this crisis are concerned. I hope there will be many more charges filed and successfully prosecuted, because we need to know, on some level, that there is still a shred of justice in this world for men like Angelo Mozilo, Bernie Madoff and so many others who may now be quietly "making arrangements" with the billions they looted from the system before jig was up. You can read about some others here.
We are well past the time when pitch forks and torches should have surrounded the Rich Dad mansions in this country. But at least this SEC filing is a step in the right direction.
