countrywide execs buying bad mortgages - perspective question (lawyer, dollar, leader)

[compJockey]

Ex-Leaders at Countrywide Start Firm to Buy Bad Loans
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/bu...y.html?_r=1&hp

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.

I was immediately aggravated when I read this, and I wondered if this was a bi-partisan reaction (not likely, I wager).

Do people who defend wealthy business owners.. would you defend these guys, as they haven't broken any laws? Is the article's author playing with my emotions (spinning the story)?

Feels too much like gaming the system at our expense for me to have an objective reaction.

However, the article also claims "their efforts are, in fact, helping many distressed homeowners."

“Literally, their assistance saved my family’s home,” said Robert Robinson, of Felton, Pa., whose interest rate was cut by more than half, making his mortgage affordable again.

This was intended to be back one forum (politics and controversies).

[Drover]

Well, i don't see anyone else making a serious effort to try to put these distressed assets back into productive use. These guys are taking a huge and frankly necessary risk that nobody else appears willing to take. So I'm not sure what the issue is.

For me the eye-opener is that the ex-managers of one of the biggest mortgage-meltdown offenders were actually able to raise enough capital to start up this venture. Who are the people who put their hat into this ring? I sure wouldn't have been one of them.

[compJockey]

Originally Posted by Drover

Well, i don't see anyone else making a serious effort to try to put these distressed assets back into productive use. These guys are taking a huge and frankly necessary risk that nobody else appears willing to take. So I'm not sure what the issue is.

I tried to explain my aggravation - I am open to the idea that my reaction is petty.
Maybe this will help a little.

Having sold off close to $200 million in stock before leaving Countrywide, he has also put up some of his own cash.

More ceo-angst, I suppose.
But then, that looks like the article's intent as they describe the guy relaxing in a leather chair as the market crashes.

Here's one last quote

“Kurland is seeking to capitalize on a situation that was a product of his own creation,” said Blair A. Nicholas, a lawyer representing retired Arkansas teachers who are also suing Mr. Kurland and other former Countrywide executives. “It is tragic and ironic. But then again, greed is a growth industry.”

Obviously Nicholas gives too much credit to Kurland.
But some people here are worried about punishing the successful - should we not be equally opposed to rewarding failure?

[dixiegirl7]

Well since they were one of the biggest contributors to the subprime meltdown, maybe this is their way of doing penance, but somehow I doubt it.

[DrJoey]

Originally Posted by dixiegirl7

Well since they were one of the biggest contributors to the subprime meltdown, maybe this is their way of doing penance, but somehow I doubt it.

Should they be regulated then?

[chielgirl]

Maybe because they caused a lot of the problems facing the "homeowners" to begin with.