I am curious as to how much Countrywide employees who’ll be layed off will get. Wanna bet nowhere near 110M? Most of Countrywide employees who will loose their jobs weren’t involved in loan business.

Sorry, you ran a article last week about Countrywide where I commented:
“I was a CFS shareholder years ago when I was an admirer of their growth, service and dividends.
This changed when I was reading a quarterly earnings statement outlining how CEO Angelo Mozilo was forgoing retirement, but the board decided to give him his $9 Mill retirement package anyway and then voted him another $9M retirement package when he decided to retire again. This boosted his total comp package for 2005 to around $57 Million. Oh, and by the way we missed our quarterly earning expectation. Better luck next quarter.

This triggered what I call the DCOE factor: the Doushe Bag Chief Executive Officer. I sold the stock (for a decent profit) and haven’t looked at them since. ”

$57 Million in 2005 followed up by $100 Million in 2008 for running a respected company into the ground. Once a DCOE always a DCOE.

I think it’s impertive as investors to study corporate leaders. If one in enriching himself at the expence of shareholders or is in some competition to own the largest yacht, mansion, car collection..whatever, in the world, then running their business is not their top priority. Sell and find a better run company.

What bothers me about CEO severance packages is they don’t have any risk. The reward should equal the risk. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world with Microsoft, but he wouldn’t have received squat if it went belly up because he founded the company. He assumed the risk. He deserved the reward. The CEOs won’t lose any of their own funds if their company goes belly up. The only risk they face is the lost opportunity cost of taking over a different corporation.

That’s the most ridiculous, corrupt thing I’ve ever heard.

There is a huge problem in this country (and it’s not new) — if we don’t expect our business leaders — including not just the management team but also the board of directors — to behave in a responsible manner, why should we expect anyone else to?

OK — so I can take the reasoning that the borrowers should take it on the chin for signing up for a ridiculous loan. Of course, in my own recent experience when I was shopping around for a mortgage I couldn’t find any lenders who were willing to discuss a fixed rate mortgage with me(which prompted me to choose to leave the real estate market alone), so I think a lot of people bought from the options they were given and didn’t think twice. I think this makes them a little stupid and I don’t think they should be bailed out, but I do have sympathy for them.

However, we discuss here in the pf blog world the concept of taking responsibility for your money. At the individual level, we know it doesn’t work so well if you try to conduct your personal business affairs in a shady manner.

Why should we accept that the management team of a business be held to any different standard? That they should be allowed to make shady — even unethical — choices that injure their customers AND their shareholders.

As a shareholder, I expect the business to turn a profit and increase the value of my shares. By giving them money, I have signaled only my belief that this is a company that can do that. But I still expect them to conduct business responsibly.

Most shareholders are too far removed from the company to really have a view into how the management team is running the business. We rely on the news, the stock performance and the financials to weigh whether the investment is working. Also, most shareholders really don’t participate in electing the board of directors (or if they do, it’s a rather blind vote).

If you ask me, the board of directors for Countrywide should all be forced to resign along with Mozilo. With no golden parachutes for any of them. Of course, I’m not a stockholder.

Seems to me that if he had any principles, he wouldn’t have gotten the company into such a mess in the first place (IOW, writing up all these borderline-predatory loans, with or without understanding their consequences).