Comments on: Countrywide Routinely Destroyed Records It Was Required to Save

By: tawm

tawm — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:12:24 +0000

Bof A is the new Butt Boy for C’s crimes. Government loves a deep pocketed “corporate” villain; remember Spitzer’s corporate shakedowns for $100m’s in fines. BofA’s shareholders are next.

By: SHC

SHC — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:52:12 +0000

Specific answer to your question: almost certainly pre-dates the B of A acquisition and assertion of operating control, although post-acquisition I’ve seen anecdotal evidence of mis-selling out of former C’wide branches. Even now.

By: The Curmudgeon

The Curmudgeon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:48:31 +0000

Ho hum…a lot of fucking good it does to re-hash Countrywide’s shenanigans. (In no way does this imply I endorse their malevolence.) The rogue (not rouge, but perhaps their ex-executives should be forced to display a scarlet “C” for “Cheat”, or “Countrywide, which should by now be synonymous, on their foreheads) company is now gone, swallowed up in the belly of the BoA leviathan.

The real and ongoing crime in residential real estate is:

1) $1.45 trillion newly-created fed pixels, courtesy of diluted taxpayer dollars, attempting to prevent the residential real estate market from doing what markets do when demand falls (i.e., the price declines). Of that total, $1.25 trillion going to purchase MBS’s, many mortgages of which were undoubtedly originated by the Scarlet “C”.

2) $8,000 of your money being shoved in the faces of potential homebuyers, with plans to double and extend the program. Indefinitely?

These are the forward-looking issues. Worrying about Countrywide, which we know already did some bad things, will not prevent the coming crash in residential real estate when the folks funding this madness finally take a peek behind the curtain.

By: jc

jc — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:23:19 +0000

“You’ve reached the corporate document destruction department, all of our shredders are currently busy, we estimate that your original document will be destroyed in approximately 20 minutes and a revised document supporting the bank’s position in the dispute will be express mailed to you withn 48 hours. A $75 fee for this service will be added to your past due balance. All past due balances are subject to a monthly penalty of $100 and 29.99% interest on the entire balance. Thank you for using “Goliath National Bank, the last bank standing”TM

By: Mannwich

Mannwich — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:15:21 +0000

@Transor: Exactly the point I was trying to make. I got chills up and down my spine (and not in a good way) while watching that film a few years ago.

By: Transor Z

Transor Z — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:12:34 +0000

@Manny: Yep.

Again, it’s the point made in that (very dogmatic) documentary “The Corporation” that for-profit corporations behave sociopathically.

One of the things few people examine is charitable giving. We all know that publicly traded companies have to subordinate charitable giving to profits (thank you, Ford shareholders) but few people look at giving. Some people think dollars spent = effectiveness/measure of the love. Not so.

Corporate giving tends to be like other forms of corporate behavior: short-term and PR-driven. Much money is spent on feel-good ad campaigns to link brand to smiling disabled/minority children. And then there’s the jockeying to support museum and art exhibits (and bricks-and-mortar construction projects) that the poor will never see.

And this is the privately funded “safety net” that a lot of people strongly believe should replace entitlements. Sigh.

By: hue

hue — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:09:03 +0000

“It used to be more difficult to engage in fraud.”
it’s not fraud when everyone makes boat loads of money. it’s fraud when things head south. happens with every bubble. it will happen again, you can’t regulate human nature.

By: jc

jc — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:08:54 +0000

We had an ongoing investigation at my former employer and we had a light hearted approach “shred it or regret it”.

Very often prosecuters sink their teeth deeper into the coverup than the original action. The SOX regulations make corporate records sacred grounds, with a very broad definition of what a corporate record is (refer ro earlier defintions of “is”) and I am cautiously optimistic that the slow turning wheels of justice will eventually be felt by those who engineered these things not the “letter openers”

By: Mannwich

Mannwich — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:59:52 +0000

People just do what they’re told at companies these days. Anyone who questions too much inside “the corporation” is shown the door pretty quickly. That’s the bottom line. Many just do what they’re told out of fear, some out of apath, and for some the feeling is they work under a “corporation”, so any borderline criminal activity is justified (“not my problem that I’m screwing my neighbor and community, just trying to make a living”) will be protected. Just sad.

By: Robespierre

Robespierre — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:49:22 +0000

BR: “Corporate Ethics: An apparent contradiction in terms”

Calling these transgressions “ethics” is offensive. This is not an ethics matter this is a violation of the law to cover up fraud. Calling things for what they really are is the first step to correct the problems. When some one robs a 7eleven nobody says perpetrator has been told that his misappropriation of the 7elev cash is due to ethical oops.