Filed under: Countrywide Financial (CFC), Housing

Cleveland’s East Side Organizing Project has an interesting way of reacting to the waves of foreclosures sweeping across that city: aggressive protesting.

Supporters of the confrontational non-profit recently showed up at the home of Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE: CFC) regional VP Mike Garmone and, according to the Associated Press, “deployed, ringing bells at the big homes with three-car garages, handing out accusatory fliers and lambasting Garmone and his company’s loans. Before departing, they left their calling card - thousands of 2 1/2-inch plastic sharks - flung across Garmone’s frozen flower beds, up into the gutters, littering the doorstep.”

I certainly appreciate the group’s intentions but I have to wonder — If people can’t keep up with payments that they entered into a contractual obligation to pay, what exactly is a lender supposed to do? They should — and often do — make efforts to restructure the debt. It isn’t like Countrywide is dying to take people’s homes!

Bad loans haven’t exactly generated billions in profits for the industry. Look at Countrywide’s 2-year chart if you don’t believe me. The real victims of Countrywide’s lax lending are the shareholders who lost billions while CEO Angelo Mozilo sold hundreds of millions in stock.

Of course, that doesn’t make good fodder for marches and picketing.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Real Estate and Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.