Mozilo Speaks, Part Three: Angelo Plays the Blame Game

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Reuters today has more from Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo on what went wrong and who’s to blame for the mortgage mess:

‘Perched on an arm chair on a ballroom stage, Mozilo, who made $387 million in pay and stock options over the past five years, disavowed blame for the collapse, pleasing his audience of fellow mortgage-banking industry leaders and foot soldiers.

‘’You’ve got to be careful here about blaming ourselves too much,’ the deeply tanned and sharply dressed chairman of Countrywide told the Mortgage Bankers Association this week. The real culprits, he argued, are the Federal Reserve with its series of interest rate hikes, crooked real estate speculators, falling housing prices and regulators’ attacks on interest-only and other risky subprime loans.

More from AM: ‘Regulation ... is better for the crooks because only the good people have to comply,’ Mozilo said to a reporter before taking the stage. ‘So I’m against it. In fact, it’s regulators, in my opinion, that have caused part of the problem when they attacked the pay option and interest-only loans.’

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Photo Credit: Reuters