Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage company, an example of what’s wrong in today’s economy and a political culture dominated by corporate lobbyists, Bloomberg News reports.
Obama, campaigning in Pennsylvania, criticized Countrywide for its role in the subprime mortgage crisis and denounced the millions of dollars the company’s top executives will receive even as workers lose pensions and homeowners are forced to sell.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Obama asked a crowd today in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “These are the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis — 2 million people may end up losing their homes.”
Obama, seeking to woo economically strapped voters away from rival Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, is the latest politician to take on Countrywide. The company in January agreed to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for stock valued at about $4 billion after it couldn’t overcome record losses and a cash shortage.
