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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Mozilo Mania"

11 Comments -

1 – 11 of 11
Anonymous rightsaidfred said...

...the firehose of government-backed cheap credit...And now Obama is in office directing the hose of government largess. It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.

5/18/09, 4:13 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Successful minorities often have no psychological difficulties rationalizing their success, no matter how nefarious their activities, because they convince themselves that their own achievement in itself is an act of progressive racial advancement.

For instance, watching American Gangster it was clear Frank Lucas practically considered himself Jesse Owens, since he showed that African Americans could displace Italians from a certain business. It didn't matter to him that the business was selling poison in Harlem.

If Michelle Obama had magically been granted partnership in her corporate law firm before quitting, I have no doubt she'd view herself as a barrier breaker, and wouldn't lose sleep at night reconciling liberal beliefs with a corporate career.

For a man like Mozilo, it's sort of irrelevant to ask whether he was in it for Mozilo or honestly trying to help his community. He wanted to make money, and the justification would come later.

Humans (especially those with the salesman personality) are adept at convincing themselves that their self-interested actions are actually good for society, and minority status greatly facilitates these mental contortions.

5/18/09, 11:28 PM

Blogger Sammler said...

This is always the case -- that the true believer can outperform the cynic. The people who rose to the top in equity advisory during the dot-com bubble were never cynics; a cynic could mimic their contagious enthusiasm, but never fully capture it. The people who made the disastrous trades at Citi, Merrills, UBS, RBS, HSBC and so on really believed that they were making money -- lots of it -- with good investments. The true cynics will always lag behind the enthusiastic fools.

(Also, there was a widespread feeling that while someone was bound to lose money on these stupid securities, it wasn't a risk to us specifically -- for each participant's definition of "us".)

5/19/09, 1:36 AM

Anonymous Roger Chaillet said...

I don't know Mozillo, but former co-workers worked for Countrywide here in Dallas. Not one had anything good to say about the man.

Chip on his shoulder?

I believe he is the son of a butcher. Maybe this has something to do with it.

Contemporary elites believe in socializing risk and privatizing gain, far more so than did older generations. That's why there is an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies involved in finance. It's not for insurance purposes, for that there is the private sector, but for offloading risk onto the taxpayer.

5/19/09, 5:32 AM

Anonymous RKU said...

Successful minorities often have no psychological difficulties rationalizing their success, no matter how nefarious their activities, because they convince themselves that their own achievement in itself is an act of progressive racial advancement.
* * *
For a man like Mozilo, it's sort of irrelevant to ask whether he was in it for Mozilo or honestly trying to help his community. He wanted to make money, and the justification would come later.


Isn't Mozilo Italian? Are Italians really still considered racial "minorities" in American society these days?

I'd certainly agree that Mozilo was a "salesman" type, who sincerely wanted to make money, but I'm not sure how much he was really trying to advance his own "community".

As always, lots of the commenters here may be interested in race and ethnicity, but utterly clueless nonetheless.

I suppose that next we'll hear Hank Paulson's career at Goldman Sachs was probably motivated by a desire to advance his fellow blacks...

5/19/09, 6:28 AM

Anonymous patrick said...

I think Mozilo is Italian rather than Latino.
He is technically white, but really orange if you have seen his picture (really bad fake and bake).

5/19/09, 10:37 AM

Anonymous NINA said...

"Isn't Mozilo Italian? Are Italians really still considered racial "minorities" in American society these days?"

Of course not. The question isn't how we feel about the Mozilos in our midst, but rather how they feel about us. I some cases the urge to "stick it to the man" persists in spite of status and success that would have been unimaginable to their immigrant fore fathers. Ted Kennedy is an exemplar of this phenomenon and even a cursory examination of the recent political history US provides a rich trove of similar actors.

5/19/09, 2:27 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sticking it to The Man? Nope, just greedy.

5/19/09, 8:34 PM

Anonymous David said...

"Sticking it to The Man? Nope, just greedy."

A person can and does act from many motives.

5/20/09, 11:13 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

In some cases the urge to "stick it to the man" persists in spite of status and success that would have been unimaginable to their immigrant fore fathers. YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THIS IS TRUE

It's the first wave of immigrants that did this to you. I should know, that's where I come from.

5/20/09, 7:53 PM

Blogger PrestoPundit said...

Can you say "Hayekian artificial boom & inevitable bust"?

Steve writes:

"it's clear his business model was dependent upon Fannie and Freddie keeping the firehose of government-backed cheap credit flowing to him."

5/28/09, 9:29 PM

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