Angelo Mozilo's Foreclosure Crisis

“When Angelo Mozilo succeeded in having Countrywide Financial join Fortune’s list of Most Admired Companies in 2005, and Barron’s named him one of the 30 best CEOs in the world, the then- largest mortgage lender in the country was already on a fast track for derailment – a crash that helped cause the 2008 economic meltdown.” (Gael O’Brien) In 2002 the Georgia State Legislature set what should have been an example to the rest of the United States by passing the most aggressive predatory lending laws ever seen. The law made abusive fees on mortgages almost impossible and allowed prosecutors to bring up criminal charges against and lender who knowingly broke this law. Countrywide Financial saw this law as a threat; they made public statements about their …show more content…
They didn't lose their health. They didn't lose their marriage. Those are the three factors that cause foreclosure. They left their home because the values went below the mortgage. That's what caused the problem,’ Mozilo said…” (John Carney) This quote from former Countrywide CEO, Angelo Mozilo, shows either how out of touch he was with the reality of what he did or the several moral and ethical issues ignored by him other leaders at Countrywide. “In 2010 Fannie Mae conducted a national survey that found that 9 out of 10 respondents say it is wrong for borrowers who owe more on their house than it is worth to default on their mortgage. Americans still look at their mortgage obligations as moral obligations rather than as contracts containing a put-option…” (John Carney) The American people were not, as Mozilo put it, making the simple economic decision to abandon their homes. The vast majority of people did not see it as a simple contract or business decision to make; it was a situation in which people could no longer afford the home as adjustable rate mortgages changed to higher rates or the borrower took on too much debt gambling on ever increasing housing