Countrywide to Lay Off 12,000 Workers

[Moe Bedard]

In an unsuprising move, Countrywide Home Loans has announced that it will begin lay offs of over 12,000 employees as it begins to trim the fat from this once "FAT ***" of a lender. The news seems to get more grim by the minute as earlier announcements hit the internet that employment is down for the first time in years and record breaking foreclsoures continue to devastate local economies in almost every city in America.

What Countrywide needs to do is stick those 12,000 people in their home retention department and start working more with troubled borrowers who's loans are exploding everywhere. They hired people to fuel their greed and rise to the top. Now, they will leave a mess behind them as they try to scrape and save every dollar they can.

I understand that this is business and this was a business move to improve the bottome line. But this is more then about improving the bottome line. Our country's financial welfare is on the line and until Countrywide and Mr. Mozilo put forth a "serious" effort to fix these bad mortgages that they made over the last few years, we will see lots more foreclosure and more casualties.

Countrywide really needs to put forth a decent effort to work with people and modify these loans, they will continue to affect our economy and lives everywhere. Letting the air out even more of an already deflated housing and mortgage market.

Links to new articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/bu.../XK5hGsyNR7gkQ

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thre...ath_at_co.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...&dist=hplatest