NYT-
If only there were mulligans on ill-advised Wall Street takeovers.
When Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial, the subprime lending specialist, it initially paid $4 billion.
Some analysts have pegged the true financial toll — including write-downs, legal expenses and settlements — at upward of $40 billion.
The costs threatened to widen further on Wednesday, when federal prosecutors in New York sued Bank of America over a mortgage program it inherited from Countywide. The Justice Department seeks to collect more than $1 billion in penalties over the program, known as “the hustle,” which prosecutors say churned out fraudulent loans at a rapid pace.
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