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Greedy CEOs have no shame

Ellis Henican

March 9, 2008

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It isn't just that some people have no shame. We knew that already.

It's that some people don't even accept the whole notion of feeling ashamed - no matter how greedy the behavior, no matter how public the display.

Say hello to Angelo Mozillo, founder and chief executive of Countrywide Financial, the mammoth subprime lender that's at dead center of the whole mortgage foreclosure fiasco. Mozillo earned $1.9 million last year on top of a $20-million bonus, as his company teetered at the edge of collapse because of billions in worthless loans.

Good going, Ang!

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Mozillo turned up in Washington on Friday, summoned by Rep. Henry Waxman and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He didn't arrive alone. Charles Prince was also there. He's ex-CEO of Citigroup. Stan O'Neal came too, the former big guy at Merrill. Waxman had the hopeless job of trying to locate some shame - anywhere!

Here's a statistic for you: Together, these three were paid $460 million over the past five years. In just the second half of last year, their companies lost more than $20 billion. And while Prince and O'Neal have finally been replaced, Mozillo's still sitting in his comfy CEO chair.

"As our company did well," he explained to the committee, "I did well." And when things got tighter last year, he insisted, "my direct compensation and the value of my holdings declined materially."

All the way down to a bonus of $20 mil.

"You're in the middle of an enormous debacle," an agitated-sounding Waxman said to Mozillo and his colleagues. "It seems like everyone is hurting, except for you."

Indeed, the executives' timing couldn't have been worse.

By the time they'd left Capitol Hill, another round of economic bleakness was moving across the wires, with nothing but danger lurking ahead.

The economy lost 63,000 jobs in February, the fastest falloff in five full years. Nearly 450,000 people left the labor force in the past 12 months. The Dow sunk below 12,000. Even George W. Bush was sounding down. "It's clear our economy has slowed," he said.

Our economy? No denying it's limping. Their economy? Don't bet your next eight-figure bonus the good times won't continue to roll.

LOCAL POTATOES: They just taste better! Rich Stabile, head distiller at newly launched Long Island Spirits, says his small-batch, ultra-premium LiV (rhymes with five) vodka should be in stores by April. "Nine thousand pounds of Long Island potatoes will be used to produce each single batch," he boasts from his converted-barn distillery on Sound Avenue in Baiting Hollow, the first licensed distillery on the Island since the 1800s.

ELLIS' BOOK CLUB: In "The Age of American Unreason," the delightfully provocative Susan Jacoby shows how willful dumbness became such a modern virtue. Semi-literate blogs, the wholesale rejection of fact and science, so-called reality TV - they've propelled this new age of anti-Enlightenment. Shoddy education and fundamentalist religion get some credit, too. There is, Jacoby argues, "an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge." It's like we've forgotten all the basic stuff we used to know. What can you say but ... "Duh!"

ASKED AND UNANSWERED: How much happiness has all that money bought the Gold Coast Handlers? Acrimony, legal battles, now another untimely death - really, what's the point of it all? ... Should we empty out a school every time a threatening note appears in a teacher's mailbox? Babylon Superintendent Ellen Best-Laimit didn't think she had much choice on Friday ... If Garth Lewis was going to deposit a fake $30,000 check in his Bank of America account, as Nassau cops claim, why didn't he add another zero or two - and reach for the stars? ... As long as we're taking an hour off the clock this weekend, what do you say we also knock 20 pounds off the cholesterol gauge? ... With Gary DelaRaba retiring as Nassau PBA prez, who takes over? SoMeOne will have to ... Should potty-mouthed LI follow Pasadena's example and declare "No Cussing Week"? #*&%@$ no! ... Did you see the outpouring of appreciation that Green Bay Packers fans just sent Brett Favre's way? How many professional athletes command such intense love around here? Any? ... With the recent rash of animal-cruelty cases, former Nassau SPCA detective Bill Kreisberg wonders: Why not mandatory background checks at the pet store and adoption agency? ... Forget the 10,000 diapers a year - anyone care to cover three identical college-tuition bills for Logan, Eli and Collin Penn?

AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T

1 Pose for a "We Did It" photo at a bomb site.

2 Set presidential primaries so the votes don’t count.

3 Stuff kiddie backpacks with Baldwin political fliers.

4 Elevate the national campaign with "monster" slurs.

5 Give a 100-percent pension to a 20-percent school lawyer.