At a time when mortgages were becoming an incredibly unsound financial instrument, Countrywide was pinning their entire business model on them. Not over were they originating them, Countrywide was servicing them, selling them, securitizing them into foundationless loan pools, trading those securities, and using those securities as collateral for further borrowing to repeat this cycle of dubious lending.

Countrywide was arguably the leader of subprime lending activities like this, which created systemic dangers and pervasive structural damage to the nation’ economy, and played a major role in forming the origins of the 2008 financial crisis.