Somewhere in all this, it seems to me that the whole B of A deal is... tricky, at best, for Countrywide, as is their future in general.
Their basic business model of selling mortgages and then bundling those into MBS's has been brought into question, and they've been caught in between, holding huge amounts of currently unsaleable mortgages. It just depends on how the situation unfolds as to whether or not they have the resources to hold high risk mortgages rather than act as a pass-thru conduit.
Apparently, they were very heavily leveraged even prior to the B of A deal, so that aspect hasn't improved any. If defaults outstrip their cashflow obligations, they'll be forced to liquidate assets, as with the B of A deal, or go under.
Having learned from the Merrill-Lynch debacle with Bear Stearns, the last thing their creditors want is a public auction of any mortgages or mortgage backed securities... They'll call before they let that happen, be forced to absorb the losses internally so as not to reveal the true market value of such holdings... with the Fed bolstering their liquidity, monetizing the debt as required.
Unless the whole thing is really too big to be controlled. Obviously, I'm no financial expert, but the whole thing appears to be the result of a highly speculative marketplace on a lot of different levels. As any speculator should know, it's not all wine and roses- sooner or later, somebody loses as the market returns to a sustainable level. Other than overextended homeowners, who that'll be is hard to say.
Facebook
Twitter