Countrywide Financial is now Bank of America Home Loans

It's official: Disgraced lender Countrywide Financial has now been "re-branded" as Bank of America Home Loans. Jane Wells reports on the move and all the window dressing that Bank of America is doing to try to convince people that Bank of America Home Loans is a good company, focused on providing service to people.

But what I don't understand is this: Is the Bank of America brand really that much more respected than Countrywide at this point? Countrywide was an evil, evil company run by Angelo Mozilo, a man who has become synonymous with slimy lending practices (and fake tanning but that's another story), but it can hold its head high in the conviction that it wasn't a welfare brat. Bank of America on the other hand is one of the largest recipients of taxpayer handouts, and that doesn't sit real well with most people. Add in Bank of America's tanking stock price and its decision to arbitrarily raise rates on credit card customers who did nothing wrong, and you have to wonder: Isn't this kind of like Enron changing its name to WorldCom?