The largest mortgage lender in the country, Countrywide Financial, is experiencing something that hasn't been seen since at least the Savings and Loan scandals of the early 80's and perhaps not since the depression; a panic by customers that is causing a run on its deposits: Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank. Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank. The mortgage lender said it would further tighten its loan standards and make fewer large mortgages. Those moves could make it harder to get a home loan and further depress the housing market in California and other...(Read Full Post)