When I say, “I messed up,” it’s usually because I forgot the milk at the grocery store, showed up late to a meeting, inserted a typo in my column or mispronounced a name on TV.
I never knew the expression could be used to explain a multibillion-dollar fraud and a subsequent mortgage meltdown.
Paul R. Allen, 55, of Oakton, Va., former CEO of Ocala, Fla.-based Taylor Bean & Whitaker, used these words at sentencing earlier this week. Taylor Bean had been one of the nation’s largest privately held mortgage lenders until it collapsed in 2009. And it’s collapse resulted in the failure of Alabama.-based Colonial Bank, the sixth-largest bank calamity in U.S. history.
He might as well have said “whoops!”
Click here to read my column on Allen on MarketWatch.
