Where Was the Outrage?

The news from the House oversight committe’s hearing on subprime CEO’s came last night when Chairman Henry A. Waxman released a memorandum detailing the compensation history of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo and the internal decision making process that led to the resignation of Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal and Citigroup CEO Charles Prince.

Today’s hearing was all over the map and the subprime CEO’s largely avoided serious embarrassment.

Mozilo, O’Neal and Prince, as well as their compensation consultants who also testified, largely defended themselves as part of a housing market collapse they couldn’t control. And committee Republicans encouraged that sentiment.

“I’d like to find someone to blame, but I don’t see a villain here,” said Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

“I’m very proud here to be part of such a distinguished panel of people who run the country, or I should say run the business of the country,” said Carl Cannon (R-Utah). Cannon added that he hoped kids watching the hearing concluded that hard work pays off and “the compensation is great.”

Tom Davis (R-Va.) even downplayed the poor performances of the companies by comparing it with multimillionaire baseball players who have a bad hitting season.

It was not until the third hour of the hearing that some committee members got in their punches.

“Mr. Issa just makes it like an isolated thing where business practices didn’t go right,” said Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “Mr. Mozilo if you don’t bear personal responsibility, then I don’t know who does.” Cummings was the only committee member who directly communicated the costs of terribly performing subprime mortage lenders and investors.

“I got people I got to see everyday who are losing their homes and got to figure out where their children are going to do their homework,” Cummings said.

To the lawmakers credit, however, the sweeping subject matter- the subprime mortgage crises, rogues CEO’s, and the role of compensation consultants in Fortune 500 companies- left everybody spread a little thin.

The most dramatic moment came when Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) honed in on one specific subject: The $10 million dollar bonus of Citigroup CEO Charles Prince in a year of heavy Citigroup losses.

“Let me ask you how to the board come to decide this,” Norton said to Richard Parsons, the chairman of the Citigroup board’s Personnel and Compensation Committee, “What kind of discussion occured here?”

“We can’t say when exactly the committee met or anything like that,” Parsons managed.

Norton then ended her questioning by pointing out that according to the committee’s memorandum the board “met for 20 minutes to decide this.”