countrywide financial's founder, angelo mozilo, talked enthusiastically of wanting to help minorities and low income americans secure a mortgage. doing it part to democratize the home loan business, countrywide became the number one lender to both hispanics and african-americans. in a february 2003 speech here in washington, mozilo promised to devote $600 billion to mortgage loans for underserved communities through 2010. and yet according to company insiders, countrywide's systems were designed to increase costs for pres icily these -- precisely these types of borrowers. one former mortgage broker in los angeles said the countrywide branches in upscale neighborhoods had to slash their mortgage rates to be competitive with rival banks. but in areas that were predominantly minority, countrywide's rates were far higher because company executives borrowers in these neighborhoods had few, if any, alternatives. the former employee told me, i'll put it this way; at countrywide's santa monica branch they lost anywhere from one to two percentage points on a loan. if they broke even, they were