Bad Hustle
“And we played the Hustle music. There were, you know, printed materials passed out,” with dance steps so “ideally we could all perform the Hustle in precision,” recalled the former Countrywide first vice president. “There was a lot of excitement. There was a lot of fanfare. It was fun.” He was describing events in the summer of 2007, when Countrywide decide to speed up its process for approving loans, using a program called the “High Speed Swim Lane,” or “HSSL” (or “Hustle”). The music stopped after the global financial crisis. Bank of America bought out the failing Countrywide Financial. In 2013, federal prosecutors secured a $1.27 billion jury verdict against Bank of America for the “Hustle” scheme of the subprime operation of its Countrywide subsidiary. Just a few weeks ago, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.