A Mortgage Tsunami
From the Houston Chronicle. “On Wednesday, Senate Republicans ended their blockade to financial reform and filed their own proposal for preventing a repeat of the financial crisis. The dissipating cloud of political rhetoric revealed something surprising. The two plans aren’t all that different. The Democrats’ bill, sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., would tax banks to create a $50 billion bailout fund, while Republicans would use a structure similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Both plans also would provide more oversight to rating agencies, though neither offers many details. Neither, it seems, would change the current system in which rating agencies are paid by the firms whose securities they rate.”
“Then there’s the problem of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Dodd bill doesn’t address the increasingly expensive issue of the secondary mortgage firms. Democrats have said that needs to be handled separately. The Republican proposal would set up a separate regulator to oversee the government-controlled companies and ensure that they never again suck up taxpayer dollars.”
The New York Times. “Several prominent experts say that the legislation does not even address the right problems, leaving the financial system vulnerable to another major crisis, Binyamin Appelbaum and Sewell Chan report in The New York Times. Some point to specific issues left largely untouched, like the instability of capital markets that provide money for lenders, or the government’s role in the housing market, including the future of the housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”
“Critics say the government helped to seed the crisis through its efforts to increase home ownership, including the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in buying mortgage loans to make more money available for lending. The companies are now owned by the government after incurring enormous losses on loans that borrowers could not afford to repay.”
“Republicans have repeatedly criticized the administration for advancing legislation that does not address the companies’ future. The Obama administration says drafting a new housing policy is on its agenda for next year.”
“Lawrence J. White, a finance professor at New York University, said it made no sense to overhaul financial regulation without addressing the future of federal housing policy. He said he was trying to find the strongest possible words to describe the omission of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the legislation. ‘It’s outrageous,’ he finally said.”
From Investment News. “The hearings last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s behavior during the mortgage bubble was a show trial designed to deflect responsibility for the bubble and its aftermath from Washington. The real purpose of the hearing was to identify yet another scapegoat for the financial crisis and to reignite public anger at Wall Street, which had declined to a simmer in the aftermath of the rancorous debate over the health care reform bill.”
“If Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and others in Congress say ‘Wall Street greed’ often enough, the public might forget the roles played by members of Congress, the Federal Reserve Board, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and others. No one will point fingers at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who fought off efforts to rein in Fannie and Freddie as they helped finance thousands of subprime mortgages.”
“No one will ask if the efforts were blocked because 29 members of both parties received more than $40,000 each in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie between 1989 and 2009. No one will ask why regulators failed to identify and halt the fraudulent practices of mortgage brokers and many homebuyers. No one will ask about the enormous fiscal stimulus from deficit spending in which both parties were complicit and which helped spark the real estate boom.”
“No one will question the roles of Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke in keeping rates low and money too easily obtained, facilitating the boom.”
The Kansas City Star. “It’s hard to say which side looked worse in last week’s Goldman Sachs show trial. You had the suits from New York, squirming before the Senate inquisitors. And you had the politicians, preening themselves as guardians of financial rectitude — a display far from convincing.”
“The courts will decide whether Goldman Sachs was guilty of fraud. The main purpose of last week’s spectacle was to deflect much of the blame for the crisis from the political class to Wall Street. Yet bankers didn’t set the crisis in motion. Washington did.”
“The genesis of the debacle was a campaign, sustained over many years, to extend homeownership to people who manifestly could not afford it. Last year, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued the following findings: ‘The housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to a financial crisis can be traced back to federal government intervention in the U.S. housing market intended to help provide homeownership opportunities to more Americans. … Government intervention … created a nexus of vested interests — politicians, lenders and lobbyists — who profited from the ‘affordable’ housing market and acted to kill reforms. … The ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy.’”
“In the late 1990s, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the two government-sponsored mortgage giants — began buying up and guaranteeing subprime mortgages on a vast scale. By 2008, Fannie and Freddie held or guaranteed $1.6 trillion in dodgy loans, for which the taxpayers are now on the hook. Alarms had been raised earlier, to no effect. Efforts in the Bush administration to rein in the two mortgage giants came to naught.”
“Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut helped derail the reform effort with filibuster threats. Rep. Barney Frank declared Fannie and Freddie perfectly sound. ‘These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’ Frank said in 2003. ‘The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’
“Fannie and Freddie later went bust, with projected losses of more than $380 billion.”
“Meanwhile, Wall Street had discovered that buying up subprime mortgages and packaging them into bonds was highly profitable, mainly because the ratings agencies — outfits including Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s — were willing to give these securities their highest rating, triple-A.”
“The agencies’ blessing made possible the dizzying array of subprime-related products — mortgage bonds, collateralized debt obligations and all the rest — derivatives of derivatives of derivatives. Yet the financial reform bill now before the Senate does next to nothing about the ratings agencies, which operate as a government-sanctioned cartel.”
“Wall Street’s excesses sent the markets and the economy off a cliff, but the seeds of the debacle were planted by politicians and richly fertilized by their creations: Fannie and Freddie and the ratings-agency cartel. Now we have the politicians, frantically blaming the bankers for the whole shebang — a story, in other words, that’s woefully short of good guys.”
The Daily Tribune. “Discussion of the pending finance reform bill throws me into the deep end of the pool without my floaties. To help me understand what is going on, I posed three questions to a couple of local men who know a lot more about this subject than I do. Richard Perryman is Senior Vice President and Trust Officer with GB Financial. Larry Cannaday is owner of Cannaday Financial Services. Here is what they had to say.”
“What do you think of the financial bill and its restrictions on derivatives?”
Cannaday: To give a somewhat convoluted answer I do believe that meaningful financial services reform is needed. I have no problem with having more transparency and disclosure in the area of financial services. However, if you look closely at the ‘problems’ that are being played out in the news media, you will find that there are existing laws already in place that will and would have fixed the problems. What is really need is for the government agencies already in place to actually do their jobs and fulfill their obligations set forth when the agencies were created. The SEC / FDIC / FINRA / SIPC / FED, and on and on have the regulations already in place.”
“The major problem is that they are all subject to ‘political appointments’ which carries ‘political strings’ attached. Most of the major economic problems we are currently facing can find their origins in Congress. We really don’t need more government agencies that will not do their jobs any better than the existing ones. The current financial bill is primarily being used to simply establish more government agencies to ‘watch over’ the same things the current government agencies were set up to do. Maybe we should look at reforming the government agencies - No, that would make too much sense.”
“Perryman: I am not impressed. Yes, there are issues that need addressing and I do think some regulation of the derivatives market is in order; however, from what I have read about ‘the bill’ I do not think it properly addresses the causes of the recent financial crisis.”
“The financial bill does not address: The failure of monetary policy during this period n keeping interest rates too low for too long. The interference by politicians of both parties to press for more home loans for subprime borrowers, which both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack obligingly did.”
“The refusal to rein in Fannie’s and Freddie’s lending activities, even after Mr. Greenspan warned that Fannie and Freddie’s lending policies posed systemic risk to the financial system. The refusal in 2007 and 2008 to allow the regulators of these entities (Fannie & Freddie) to rein in their explosive underwriting of subprime mortgages. During the last years of the housing bubble some two trillion dollars of subprime mortgages were made.”
“The continuing problems with Fannie & Freddie’s operations which will only add to the cost of their failed policies to taxpayers.”
“The bill does address: Institutionalizing ‘too big to fail’ through a $50 billion resolutions fund putting the American taxpayer on the hook to bailout reckless activities, again.”
“The bill allows the government to stay in the ‘bailout game’ by letting the FDIC borrow as much as it needs to bail out failing financial firms if they “pose a threat to the country’s financial security.”
“Provide for a new federal agency that is funded ‘off budget’ and not subject to Congressional oversight. Funding comes from a surcharge on the earnings of the Federal Reserve.”
“My take on the solution: Yes, let there be regulation of the derivatives market that makes it a ‘real market’ with transparency; where there are no opaque side bets on future values of homes. Yes, clamp down on excessive bank leverage on and off balance sheet that allowed companies to become too leveraged. No to ‘too big to fail’ and the American taxpayer being on the hook for poor business practices.”
The Bennington Banner. “Alan Greenspan spent a few days testifying before the so-called Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (one of those public relations cabals that Congress is fond of convening after the horse has been stolen, even if no one ever proposes locking the barn in the future). Mr. Greenspan no doubt relished being called the ‘Maestro’ during his days as chairman of the Federal Reserve, when he wielded his deregulation baton the way Jack the Ripper worked his knife. He must have savored being regarded as the grand high wizard of American economics while the housing balloon was inflating and he concentrated on conducting the New World Symphony.”
“But someone neglected to inform Greenspan that a balloon is incapable of withstanding the infusion of too much air. It doesn’t seem a particularly difficult a concept to grasp, even if it may be rooted more in physics than in economics. Perhaps Mr. Greenspan should have stopped the first 7-year-old kid on the street and inquired.”
“None of the debacle that Greenspan left in his wake was his fault, you’ll be happy, if unsurprised, to hear. No, Mr. Greenspan was more right than wrong, he arrogantly asserted. Greenspan opines that he was right 70 percent of the time, but that figure involves mathematics to some degree, so you probably should take it with a grain of skepticism.”
“No, it wasn’t the Maestro. It was Freddie Mac, it was Fannie Mae, it was labyrinthine bank practices. It was that damn kid who knew about balloons hoarding nickels in his piggy bank. And Mr. Greenspan’s contention that the financial tailspin caught nearly everyone by surprise conveniently ignores one glaring problem: None of them was the head of the Federal Reserve.”
“They should change the national motto from ‘In God We Trust’ to ‘It’s Not My Fault.’ We certainly hear an awful lot more of the latter than we do the former. And while ‘In God’ smacks of that annoying intermingling of church and state that is anathema to a lot of people, ‘It’s Not My Fault’ has emerged as a verbal summation of the age in which we live. Passing the buck has become an activity that has supplanted baseball as the true national pastime.”
“We don’t hear any words more frequently or more transparently, disgustingly self-serving. It isn’t, of course, that the rest of us don’t know precisely where the fault lies. It just would be nice, once in a blue moon, to hear someone in authority take some degree of responsibility. It might even inspire some kind of mass national catharsis once the shock had worn off.”
“‘They should change the national motto from ‘In God we trust’ to ‘ It’s not my fault’.”
Lol. Classic.
non est mea culpa
We should inscribe it on our money.
No…It should be, “In god we trust, all other must pay cash (or credit card, debit card, money order, wire transfer, cashiers check)
Or how about a favorite saying from a dear old friend of Slim’s:
Jesus saves. Moses invests.
Jesus saves - everyone else takes full damage.
–Geek.
And proud of it!
Jesus is the answer.
The question is name the younger brother of Matty and Felipe Alou.
How about “It’s different this time”?
That’s what they’ll put on Ameros.
“Critics say the government helped to seed the crisis through its efforts to increase home ownership, including the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in buying mortgage loans to make more money available for lending.”
Fannie and Freddie have to go. They are one of the biggest market distorters out there. Unfortunately, it should probably be a phase out as opposed to full stop. CMHC has to go too.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 13:38
Geithner Q&A: Housing Reform To Come After Housing Mkt Repaired
By Brai Odion-Esene
WASHINGTON (MNI) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Tuesday said the Obama administration has decided to approach the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in two stages.
Following questions on why an overhaul of the housing system is not part of the financial reform package, Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee the government has held off “because we thought frankly we’d get a better outcome, more thoughtful effort, more committment to reform if we were further ahead in the process of repairing the damage to the housing markets.”
The administration has begun to consider its options, soliciting public comment on the various proposals, he added, reiterating the government’s readiness to work with Congress to put in place a strong set of reforms to address the whole housing finance market.
“There are a range of things we are going to have to change in that process,” the Treasury Secretary said.
The purpose of the hearing was to discuss the Crisis Responsibility Fee that the administration is proposing to recoup the direct costs of the Troubled Asset Relief Program from large banks.
Geithner argued that TARP recipients Fannie and Freddie are not included in the levy because “they did not cause the crisis.”
…
“Wall Street’s excesses sent the markets and the economy off a cliff, but the seeds of the debacle were planted by politicians and richly fertilized by their creations: Fannie and Freddie and the ratings-agency cartel. Now we have the politicians, frantically blaming the bankers for the whole shebang — a story, in other words, that’s woefully short of good guys.”
So, you have these two organizations which are primary enablers of separating lenders from repayment risk, by buying up junk mortgages. The failure of these junk loans is the core issue which set in motion the credit crisis. And Geithner completely absolves them of guilt?
These folks are not serious about stopping the transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the FIRE sector.
I saw the stock market take a dip today, on Spain and Portugal fears. At some point - maybe not this time - too big to fail will become too big to bail. Perhaps in dramatic fashion. I wonder if that event horizon has been reached in Europe.
If that happens, then we will see real reform. Kabuki designed to keep the chattering classes entertained will no longer suffice.
“…too big to fail will become too big to bail…”
Too Big Has Failed
While the GSEs are far from innocent, they really weren’t the genesis of the RE bubble. They had minimal involvement in the sorts of batsh!t crazy loans that characterized the subprime debacle. While there certainly was a RE bubble by say 2004-5, it was still a normal sized RE bubble, the sort that we’ve had before. It took Wall Street rainmakers and unwary bond purchasers to inflate this to historic, economic collapse threatening levels.
IMO it started when the financial machinery evolved to a point where risk and reward was able to be disconnected from each other so the risk could be passed on and while the reward was kept.
Sadly, this mechanic is the basis of our entire fraud eCONomy.
Look at who gets the biggest rewards (and who claim to deserve it) and then see what happens when TSHTF. Suddenly, the people who messed up and who got the rewards are nowhere to be seen, and the risk of losing money, jobs, etc. rolls downhill onto the people who were barely involved.
i really don’t understand how you can say risk and reward were disconnected.
—–
Suppose a bank writes a mortgage loan, intending on selling it as a security.
The bank spends time and energy setting it up, but there is no guarantee any investor wants to buy it. This is one small risk the bank accepts.
If they can’t sell it, the bank retains all risk and all potential rewards from the loan.
If the loan does sell, the bank took a relatively small risk, was rewarded with a relatively small fee, and it’s out of the picture from that point forward.
———-
The investor, by purchasing the loan, willingly accepts the remainder of any risks.. the bulk of the risk.
And the investor has the rights to collect the bulk of the rewards. Seems like a fair deal to me..
The “rewards” in this case were the outsized fees being collected by mortgage originators (not even the banks per se, but independent or subsidiary entities trading on their paper). The rating agencies were paid off to turn this dross into gold and it was sold off to investors, who were blind or misinformed about the true “risks”.
yeah.. investors were blind.. blinded by opportunity to make tons of money as the bubble expanded.
If you told them hey.. this mortgage sucks and is really risky, you would have been mistaken, because there was no such thing. There was no risk. Prices were only going up.
Sure, after the bubble popped it all becomes clear to everyone.. but not before then.
Good Lord, you’re a tool.
But the problem, it was eminently apparent to many, many people. The Economist magazine had a cover story on the credit/real estate bubble back in 04/05. The internal company emails tell the sordid tale. A glimpse at the wizard behind the curtain. We were talking about the runaway lending for many years here.
To suggest doe-eyed naivete from the executives at these companies about the true nature of the products that were generating so much cash flow truly strains credulity. Of course they’re claiming ignorance now - I would expect no other. But to suggest this is the actual reality strains credulity.
neuromance.. The companies themselves were up to their necks in it.. Goldman was forced to go with Credit Default Swaps in an attempt to hedge their own bad bets.. Lehman was too far gone.
As for straining credulity, how does that square with the idea that they knew it would all fail? Were they feeling slightly suicidal at the time they loaded their own portfolios with it?
and don’t give me the exec bonus thing.. i’ll never believe they’d destroy their own companies for just another end of year bonus, as usual..
“Were they feeling slightly suicidal at the time they loaded their own portfolios with it?”
With Big Hank in the Treasury Secretary post, Gollum most likely knew the bailout was in the bag.
I told you before .. Paulson wasn’t treasury sec until the middle of 2006..
Go ahead and tell me that by way of their crystal ball, GS saw Paulson’s appointment 4 years into the future.. or that they forced Bush to appoint him..
“Go ahead and tell me that by way of their crystal ball, GS saw Paulson’s appointment 4 years into the future.. or that they forced Bush to appoint him..”
Really? You really think that Paulson had no idea? That the Goldman cronies that are everywhere in charge had no idea? Come on!
“and don’t give me the exec bonus thing.. i’ll never believe they’d destroy their own companies for just another end of year bonus, as usual..”
Then you don’t understand the types of people we’re dealing with; they’ll do ANYTHING for more money, including destroying their company.
Thank you very much Jim A because you are right on regarding the real untold story . F&F has been used as a scape goat . Doesn’t anyone remember that in 2005 it was a news item fact that CountyWide Lending was trying to talk F&F into getting more involved in the sub-prime crazy loans ? In fact F&F was involved in accounting fraud issues involving bonuses and they had taken a back seat to the Wall Street Lenders . They had a special called “House of Cards ” on
CNBC where they were interviewing one of the huge Mortgage outfits who later went BK ,where that owner explained what happened .
In essence it was explained that during that lull around the end of 2003 Wall Street Securities Lenders came in strong with the crazy connection with Main Street Lenders and picked up the slack with their crazy lending that got more crazy and fraudulent as time went on . Than we all know the story of what happened when than we bailed out the casino bet crazy credit default bet market . It was Wall Street Lenders that created the increasingly bizarre fraudulent Ponzi Scheme Market with their unregulated capital creations and casino side bets ,with no regards to lending standards and prevention of fraud .
So, if anyone has been following the history of this thing ,F&F than became the dumping grown for what the CDO dealers created . Later with the help of the Government taking over F&F much toxic waste loans were dumped on F&F by the acts of the Government clean up crew .
This Ponzi scheme had nothing to do with the normal Government mandates to attempt to provide financing to a broader sector of the
market and F&F was not Government owned or backed ,until Hank Paulson and BB needed to use F&F for the BAIL Out Plan . Greenspan was talking about that on National Television in the days leading up to Tarp .about how F&F wasn’t government owned or backed but became so with the emergency and it needed to be broken up eventually according to Greenspan on that interview . Another act that was done was when things were already melting down the clean up crew asked Congress to raised the limits of F&F to about 700k ,which never made sense in a declining market ,but it makes sense it F&F were to be used to pick up the lending dump problem and toxic loan transfer of bag-holders .
So , now you have reform on the table and everybody likes to play with the facts that lead up to the debacle . I mean lets get the true story about who was responsible for taking this housing bubble of faulty and fraudulent lending to the heights it reached from 2004 to 2007 .
‘lets get the true story’
Jeebus, let’s get the facts straight. The GSEs are secondary markets. The big lenders sold their loans to these guys. The former CEO testified (and I posted that here) recently, that they were then losing ‘market share’ and made a decision to chase the standards down.
But lets go back to early 2005. These 2 corporations were by some measures in the top 5 in size in the world, and they couldn’t produce financials! Hell, they were so mixed up thousands of accountants were brought in and couldn’t sort it out. Remember the 900+ offshore SPEs Fannie had (has - who knows?)?
And now these behemoths are in receivorship, and still making most of the loans in the US. So, instead of playing ‘it’s not my fault’, why don’t we get to the question of the week; why aren’t these companies on the table for reform? To me, somethink smells really bad when this is being allowed to happen.
Oh, and another thing; there IS STILL A BUBBLE OUT THERE. IMO, many of the loans these guys will insure TODAY will go into default. Are the GSEs TBTR (too big to reform)?
It’s a big stinking mess, and it should all be reformed, including DC.
“These 2 corporations were by some measures in the top 5 in size in the world, and they couldn’t produce financials!”
Financials are so Twentieth Century.
But, because of the accounting scandal that was taking place
with F&F(which more-so involved the creeps that ran that joint wanting to make more money with faulty bonuses ) at the time the lull in the market allowed for Wall Street to step in and define the market and the lending with greater force .
Prior to this F&F accounting scandal ,F&F underwriting was more so the standard for the market and it was much more conventional ,and yes many lenders sold to F&F as a secondary market source of funds . When Wall Street could be more of a market definer in underwriting and loan product creation with their crazy securities and toxic loans with off the chart leverage ,they ran with it and took it to the bizarre heights it went to . Ben ,at least this is how it was explained on that special on TV ‘House of Cards “.But you can even look at the chain of events and know that’s what happened . I’m not saying that F&F didn’t end up buying into the CDO securities at some point as a competition thing ,but
by that time if was after Wall Street Lenders were defining Lending and the risk factors were based on bogus models like real estate always goes up and buyers don’t even have to qualify and the liar loans stated loan ,no down payment nonsense,qualify on low teaser rates ,more interest only loans and stuff like that .
It’s was the 30 to 40 x’s leverage in these unregulated markets that became so money making also ,and the insurance betting (CDS) that took place late in the game in
my opinion was based on the inside knowledge that the faulty lending inflated market was going to blow .
I think a lot of the reason why the Government or SEC could not control this thing is because at some point the money was being generated by unregulated markets with high leverage ability with of course their faulty bought off
ratings . So Hank Paulson comes riding in on his White Horse and tells Congress ,we have a little problem and I need a big gun and blank check .
And let’s not forget that Paulson demanded immunity to the law - that his actions could not be reviewed by any legal body, nor could he be held accountable for anything. And despite that criminal request, he’s still walking around a free (and very wealthy) man.
There will be no real reform, IMHO.
“And now these behemoths are in receivorship, and still making most of the loans in the US.”
Is Uncle Sam subject to the same laws against fraud which apply to Goldman Sachs?
Just askin’…
Oh, there’s plenty that went wrong with the GSEs, and I’m certainly not denying their propensity for fraudulent accounting in the beginning of the decade. And the fact that their reserve requirements were laughably insufficient. And then they invested said reserves in commercial MBS’s, thereby diversifying their risk NOT ONE BIT. But certainly in the early part of the bubble they weren’t buying the sort of poopy mortgages that WaMu was writing. Despite their fraudulent accounting, and regulatory capture, political invulnerability, and TBTFness, they were latecommers to the suicide loan insanity that turned this from a normal sized RE bubble into an insanely big and dangerous RE bubble.
The GSEs were largely responsible for the creation of the vanilla 30 yr ammortizing FRM in the US. And that worked reasonably well for about 50 years. It really wasn’t until Wall Street got ahold of the securitization process that things got completely wonky and stupid. And really, I suspect that most here want to go back to 20% down ammortizing FRMs, not the 3-5 year non-ammortizing mortgages that were prevalant before the GSEs were created.
Late, eh? April 2005:
‘CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said the housing market no longer needs the parts of U.S. law governing Fannie and Freddie that Wall Street interprets as a federal guarantee of the companies’ obligations. ‘Therefore, those entities could gradually be relieved of the responsibilities and benefits of their current status as GSE’s and required to operate as fully private organizations, which would reduce their risks and costs to the federal government.”
‘I’m not pushing for the total privatization of the GSEs,’ said Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. ‘The GSEs play a critical role in the housing market.’
Well I have to agree that the “implicit” guarantee was a problem. The government charter (with its taxpayer backing) and shareholder interests were at odds. In the end, the interests of short-term investors seems to have won out. Arguably, the problem is that as investment has become more speculative and less focused on dividends, investors have become fixated on short term speculative gains rather than long term returns. This is reflected in compensation packages, and F&F responded as other shareholder owned enterprises did. If anything, what we’ve discovered is that ANY entity as large as the GSEs, the major Wall Street “investment” banks, the automakers etc that is TBTF is politicly protected from liquidation, even if the shareholders take losses.
I’m not saying that F&F don’t need reform. Their history of shoddy accounting, insufficient reserves and the rest is AMPLE proof of that. Heck, one of the most precient predictions of the housing bubble was the report by the Armanto Falcon’s (chief of OFHEO) report on “systemic risk.” Of course his plea for greater oversight authority resulted in him being fired the same day that the report was released. http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/1641/sysrisk.pdf
But they were never in the vanguard of poopy underwriting with the likes of WaMu. Look at the percentage of “conforming” loans in the bubble central states. The bubble central states characterized by a SMALLER share of loans that F&F were willing to buy than other states. Jumbo, stated, option arm…its my understanding that these are all loans that the GSEs wouldn’t buy, although they DID make the serious mistake of buying bonds built from this poo. Made by who? Wall Street.
It was a big circular scam, and that’s why I can’t see anything here but tinkering around the edges. Look at this from January 2005:
‘This morning the global credit evaluation service, Fitch Ratings, held a conference call and issued a position paper titled “GSEs: Are the ‘AAA’ Ratings at Risk.” ‘Senior debt ratings…include an assumption of support from the US government that would be provided in the event of severe financial stress.’
‘If there was a major problem in their ability to issue debt, then the government would have to step in in order to support not just the GSEs but the overall economy as well,” said Fahey. “It’s very similar to support that we view in the money center banks in the United States.’
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/02/fitch-ratings-us-government-will.html
February 2005:
In a speech on Jan. 13, 2005, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis gave a detailed list of the risks facing GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (”F-F”). The following is a summary of the full text found here. William Poole said:
1. Credit risk-”Credit risk occurs because homeowners can and do default on mortgage loans”.
2.Prepayment risk-”..for many years F-F have been accumulating a portfolio of their own MBSs and directly owned individual mortgages. For the two firms together, these portfolios are very large, amounting to over $1.5 trillion at the end of 2003. Thus, F-F assume prepayment risk by holding these assets”.
3. Interest-Rate Risk-”Because of imperfect dynamic hedging, F-F may suffer a significant loss whenever there are unexpected and large interest rate movements in either direction…Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are (also)exposed to the counterparty default risk in their derivative contracts”.
4. Liquidity Risk-”Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must roll over roughly 30 billion dollars of maturing short-term obligations every week. At a time of disrupted financial markets, the credit markets might refuse to accept the F-F paper..Therefore, if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are unable to sell new debt, then they may also be unable to carry out sales of the “liquid” securities from their investment portfolio”.
5. Operational Risk-”In the past two years, there have been surprising news reports of accounting irregularities, first at Freddie and more recently at Fannie. In both cases senior executives have left the firms and audit attestations have been questioned. Both firms have been required to restate earnings for a number of years… The recent revelations are another example of our inability to predict shocks that will impact our financial system”.
6. Political and Regulatory Risk-”The bottom line is that there is substantial uncertainty over the future regulatory structure that will apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and over the likely behavior of the government should the solvency of either firm come into question…even if the federal government bailed out F-F, their obligations might be redeemed eventually but cease to trade actively in liquid markets. Finally, there is of course no guarantee that the federal government would in fact bail out F-F. Many observers, myself included, believe that a bailout would not be a good idea”.
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/02/fed-president-details-gse-risks.html
February 2005:
For years politicians and financial pundits have repeated the baloney that government-created Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank are NOT backed by the US taxpayer as banks are. That sounded fine when the going was good, but now that cracks have begun to appear the government is whispering about “receivership” and “systemic risk”. Get this; “”The potential for systemic risk arising from the GSEs’ size and their central role in mortgage markets combined with the difficulty of managing the risks inherent in a large mortgage portfolio raise fundamental questions about the value they add … relative to the risks their current operations pose,” the White House said Feb 7th.
A new regulator is called for with “expanded enforcement authority, the ability to place the businesses in receivership and “unambiguous authority” to set risk-based and minimum capital requirements, according to the budget document”.
This all sounds like the too-big-to-fail reasoning we hear when the establishment has its tail in a crack. If you read my post from yesterday and put it together with this announcement, it seems the administration is preparing us for a massive bailout of the GSEs. What other conclusion can one draw? If the government or its agency will be the “receiver” with “unambiguous authority” doesn’t that spell BAILOUT? After all, who could possibly shore up this multi-trillion dollar system but the government, which is what alot of people warned about going into this mess.
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/02/us-government-to-bail-out-gses.html
March 2005:
‘Translating actions taken by credit rating services can be as tough as those by the Fed. So lets try to make sense of todays downgrade of Fannie Mae by Moody’s Investors Service. “Moody’s Bank Financial Strength Rating measures the likelihood that a financial institution will require financial assistance from third parties, such as the government or shareholders.”
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/03/moodys-fannie-more-likely-to-need-bail.html
“President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis”
He most likely disappeared from the Fed system because his honesty- and law-based model of the economy didn’t mesh.
AND, of course, early on in the RE bust, (you know, back when things were “contained”) there was considerable congressional pressure to sweep the problem into the GSEs in the hope that they were big enough to absorb the losses and stabilize the market. Of course that ended up being the sort of “piling sandbags at the low tide line,” behavior that ensured that the would go Tango Uniform even more quickly. Look, I don’t think that ANYBODY woud argue that the GSEs weren’t part of the problem. I just don’t think that they were the WORST part of the problem by a long shot, even if they were the BIGGEST part of the problem.
From the FEB 2005 piece…
1. I’ve been argueing that they’re much better than the rest of the market in this.
2.& 3. Really part of the same thing IMHO. 3. is just an attempt to mitigate the risks of 2. It was attempts to “smooth” uneven earnings generated by 3. that were at the heart of their accounting scandals. And of course the direct cause of 2. was the extreemly low Fed interest rates in the wake of the tech bubble bust.
4.As we discovered, the entire origination system suffered from this. The GSE were just BIGGER than anybody else.
5.Absolutely.
6.As it turns out, they DID end up getting something approaching a “full faith” bail out.
To this you can add
7.The were allowe to operate with even lower reserve requirements than depository insitutions. And then they invested those minimal reserves in the same class of assets as their primary business. Buying MBSs with your reserves when you’re in the mortgage business means that you have effectively NO reserves.
Nobody sane doesn’t want a real overhaul of their business model, especially since we’re all on the hook for their losses now. But I don’t think that we want to go back to the pre-GSE world of 5 year ballon mortgages either. Or even to the “only ARMs” market that characterizes most of the world.
Look, I’m NOT arguing that they haven’t augered in spectacularly over the last decade. But you can’t claim that’s an inherrent result of their character as a government market intervention without at least trying to explain why that took more than 50 years. Two whole generations had their mortgages bought and sold in a market created by the GSEs.
“why aren’t these companies on the table for reform? To me, somethink smells really bad when this is being allowed to happen.”
Well said, Ben.
The obvious answer is that the federal government cannot manipulate the housing market adequately without pouring tons of money through the Fannie/Freddie fire-hose.
Reform of them would require prudence by them, which is something that cannot be tolerated.
Ok .its on the record on the internet ,on F&F web sites (I saw it myself )
where it stated that they were not Government Backed
and they were a Private Company that was originally formed by the Government ,with a Government Mandate to extend lending . Greenspan in essence said F&F had a “implied backing from the Government .” They made a big point of telling the investors on this web site that it was a private company as a disclaimer . Greenspan in that same interview at the time went on to say which one was back by the Government and I forget the name now ,but it was a much smaller entity called Fannie …something . I guess the VA loans had some kind of a backing from the Government .
Why is this important . Because there is a lot of misstating of the facts by Senators and the PR machine to tell a tale ,I think to rationalize their actions ,or lack of actions ,especially when it comes to the rip off of the Bail Outs .
Ginny Mae is the other entity
So how is GNMA doing? They seem to sail right along with nary a mention by anyone.
Thanks jbw the name escaped me for the moment .
But yes you don’t hear to much about these entities Montana .
Well my recollection is that unlike F&F, GNMA bonds have always had EXPLICIT “full faith and credit” backing. IMHO that the main reason that they haven’t gotten a lot of press is simply that compared to F&F, they’re pretty small cheese.
What about the public taking those crazy loans and sucking equity out of their houses to live high on the hog? Public has to be willing to take some blame.
I am part of the 85% or so of the public that did not do any of those things. We may not be good at taking the blame but we sure as heck are going to be the ones required to pay for it (or at least my great grandchildren).
‘While the GSEs are far from innocent, they really weren’t the genesis of the RE bubble. They had minimal involvement’
March 2005:
‘”Fannie’s Regulator Says Problems Not Yet Resolved, the worst may be yet to come.” The Wall Street Journal gave us an update on the Fannie Mae fiasco today. Some tidbits: “‘Fannie’s problems are worse than those of sibling Freddie Mac and that a hefty fine could be in the works’. said Armando Falcon, director of OFHEO.”
As it became known last week, Fannie employees have been “falsifying signatures and altering information in databases” and Mr. Falcon says such problems were “not isolated incidents.”
“Moreover, he adds, ‘there are additional issues that we still haven’t looked at yet,’ and these issues could haunt Fannie for some time.
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/03/wsj-fannies-problem-persist.html
You are addressing accounting problems, not the terrible underwriting that underpinned the bubble… most of that came from private-labels. I would agree that F&F have some serious underwriting problems at present, but their looser standards came later trying to reclaim some market share very late in the game and more importantly as Congress demanded that they keep the money flowing in 2008/09 when everything was collapsing.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/fannie-freddie-phony/
“Fannie/Freddie did some bad things, and did, it turns out, get to some extent into subprime. But thanks to the accounting scandals, they were actually withdrawing from the market during the height of the housing bubble — the vast majority of the loans now going bad came from the private sector.”
Rating Agencies = “TrueSerialEnablers™”
“The agencies’ blessing made possible the dizzying array of subprime-related products — mortgage bonds, collateralized debt obligations and all the rest — derivatives of derivatives of derivatives.
Federal Reserve Inc. (person) = “TrueWizardCorporation™”
“…And Mr. Greenispent’s contention that the financial tailspin caught nearly everyone by surprise conveniently ignores one glaring problem: None of them was the head of the Federal Reserve.”
“The two plans aren’t all that different.”
1. Neither plan would end TBTF.
2. Both plans would serve to plant the seeds for future financial crises.
Therefore, these plans will pass, ensure that the crooks stay in charge and that they’ll have future crisis to use to impoverish larger and larger amounts of the population while buying up the wreckage for pennies on the dollar.
The silver lining inside this dark cloud: Like a Haitian building that was subject to no building code when it was constructed, the lawless, collapsing U.S. economy will bury the crooks along with everyone else.
“It was that damn kid who knew about balloons hoarding nickels in his piggy bank.”
Don’t forget those damn Asian savers, who forced our mortgage lenders to make $729,750 loans to American households with no verifiable income.
“Neither, it seems, would change the current system in which rating agencies are paid by the firms whose securities they rate.”
Both, it seems, would continue the current system where captured ratings agencies would face a conflict of interest driven by the choice between porcine beautification and unemployment.
Good questions; let’s turn to Moodys Mark Zandi for the analysis of the Friend-of-Angelo Senator Dodds bill.
Do firms have an option NOT to pay for Moody’s and S&P’s services? Those two have 80% of the market..
Where are firms going to go to get favored treatment?
Bond #224.
Moody’s rating: “Unknown.. they wouldn’t let us rate it.”
Standard & Poor’s: “Unknown.. they wouldn’t let us rate it either.”
Jack’s Rate While You Wait Service: “Aaa”
Seems like investors ought to pay for the ratings, the way Dunn & Bradstreet’s subscribers pay to get ratings of suppliers etc.
Investors are paying now.. indirectly. Everything is paid for with money provided by the end purchaser.
Same way Dun & Bradstreet’s subscribers pass the subscription cost along to their customers, or from them it goes on down to the consumer.
Everyone in the chain has an interest in honest ratings. Poorly rated things cause trouble for everyone.
In our search for the reason things like CDO’s were badly rated, and when formulating a cure, we might be wise to consider the housing mania itself.. the craziness..
for instance.. I got this CDO packed with crap mortgages.. the home buyers have no income, and it’s based on way overpriced houses… but for some reason, the mortgages keep get paid, month after month, and year after year.. Why? Because real estate is going up.. and up.. and up..
How can a bad mortgage even exist when prices are rising to the moon?
Investors can’t get enough of the stuff.. banks can’t find enough people to lend to and resort to rummage around in the homeless shelters for recruits.
People can’t find enough property to buy, so they convert out-houses into “cottages” and then flip them for twice what they paid.
What’s some frickin rating agency expected to do in that situation.. be the one sane voice of reason in the madhouse? Who the hell would listen to them anyway.. everyone’s too busy making tons of money.
Anyone in the chain could have said wait a minute.. this is crazy.. refused to participate and it would all have come to a screeching halt.
But since nobody did, we are free to blame it on any one of them. Banks.. rating agencies.. govt.. investors.. GSEs.. appraisers.. hedge funds.. take your pick.
Once again, I can’t see what your point is.
‘Poorly rated things cause trouble for everyone’
‘What’s some frickin rating agency expected to do in that situation.. be the one sane voice of reason in the madhouse’
That is exactly what raters are supposed to do. It is their only real function. I read long ago that these guys are supposd to be the ‘white coats’ in this process. They failed, and if they hadn’t, the damage would have been much lower.
‘Who the hell would listen to them anyway’
Many of the buyers of AAA securites can by mandate only do so IF they are rated AAA. We’re talking pension funds, etc. So yeah, little old ladies, among others, were counting on these guys and they blew it. You don’t have a problem with that?
The posts on the HBB in 2005 show, that Moodys and FItch had statistical data that showed this might blow up, but buried CYA statements about the government ’supporting’ the GSE securites deep in the PDFs. (I was reading those 90 page monsters at the time, thus those old posts.)
This to me is their biggest crime; they openly stated reasons these mortages might fail and still rated them AAA.
I don’t see pension funds as innocent victims. Pension fund managers, like everyone else, found some excuse to risk little old ladies milk money for the sake of bubble profits, despite all the warnings.
Here’s a 2005 story..
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/business/yourmoney/27hedge.html
Pension Officers Putting Billions Into Hedge Funds
Faced with growing numbers of retirees, pension plans are pouring billions into hedge funds, the secretive and lightly regulated investment partnerships that once managed money only for wealthy investors.
The plans and other large institutions are expected to invest as much as $300 billion in hedge funds by 2008, up from just $5 billion a decade ago..
[snip]
Pension officials who have been shaken by market downturns and persistent deficits are attracted by hedge funds’ promise of richer, or more consistent, returns. But the trend has caused some consultants and academics to voice cautions. They question whether hedge funds, with risks that are hard to measure, are appropriate for pension funds, whose sole purpose, by law, is to pay out predetermined benefits to retired workers.
——-
we gotta keep in mind that the whole world went crazy.. everybody..
Rating agencies had to be amazed at the sorts of garbage that was being sold and resold, but still making lots of money for investors, while demand for more and more MBS, regardless of quality, far exceeded the supply.
The mania had to have an impact on their ratings. Nobody was immune.
Keep in mind that Fitch, Moodys and S&P are PAID by the entities who needed a rating. That is the way the system works, right or wrong.
We’re not talking about reforming pension funds today, BTW, so let’s stick to the subject shall we?
‘Rating agencies had to be amazed..the mania had to have an impact’
Fitch and Moodys were saying in early 2005, buried in their corporate communications, the defaults on some of this stuff is way out of projections; we might have a problem here. Keep in mind, AAA MBS should have a tiny default rate, so statistically if any of it was going bad, it was all questionable.
IMO, at some point, you just have to say these rationalizations aren’t good enough.
exeter,
Suppose Moody’s et al refuse to bend the rules and call it like they see it. “This is junk.”
Do the entities who require their services have a choice? Will you or I as investors put our faith in some rating agency(ies) we never heard of?
—–
Ben,
Why would ratings agencies deliberately and falsely rate stuff? What did they have to gain by risking their reputations? A few fees?
If they knew something was going to fail, is it even remotely reasonable to think that they would set themselves up to take the fall?
I never tried it, but rating financial stuff seems like it would be anything but an exact science. That some people in the company would have differing opinions is expected, imo. How many factors are taken into account, and how many of them are pure guesswork and estimation?
….the mania had to have an impact..
Are market trends one of the factors?
Because, as the system existed, they stood to lose money if they rated poorly, and stood to gain money if they rated well.
More of the perverse incentives that drove the mania.
Removing perverse incentives is the most basic action that must be taken if we hope to stop this hemorrhage of wealth from the taxpayer to the FIRE sector.
‘Why would ratings agencies deliberately and falsely rate stuff?’
The abnormal failure rates were being observed after the fact. This told them something was wrong with their models regarding the underlying asset. As I said, they continued as if nothing was wrong, quietly assuring the institutional investors that the govt would bail them out.
‘If they knew something was going to fail, is it even remotely reasonable to think that they would set themselves up to take the fall?’
They covered their ass, as I said above. Notice that none of the raters failed. They really had no skin in the game. None of the 3 has been even seriously investigated either, BTW.
‘rating financial stuff seems like it would be anything but an exact science’
It really is an exact science. I spent months reading everything they put out on the web, and for AAA, they had it broken down to every level you can imagine. And they tracked the trends in detail, so there were no surprises on this. The defaults went over the line in class after class. They knew something was wrong with AAA MBS at least by spring 2005.
‘Are market trends one of the factors?’
Housing had been an very stable price factor for decades. That was the trend their models relied on. But AAA defaults were setting off alarms while prices were still going up in most US markets. This was probably a result of poor underwriting, etc, which was also supposed to be rock solid for AAA.
..quietly assuring the institutional investors that the govt would bail them out..
Who has proof of that?
I do. I said they would put out these communications that probably very few read. But I did, and I provided two examples in these comments today.
neuromance.. ..they stood to lose money if they rated poorly, and stood to gain money if they rated well.
I am asking How… how would they lose.. or gain.
I read what you posted today and either missed it or…
From one of the MarketWatch links:
Moody’s downgraded its bank financial strength rating on Fannie from A- to B+, with a stable outlook. The rating is a measure of the likelihood that a bank or other institution will require “assistance” from third parties, according to Moody’s.
The company may be forced to restate $11 billion worth of earnings from 2001 to mid-2004 following an accounting scandal. Fannie Mae’s stock has fallen about 27 percent since this time last year, and the company’s troubles have sparked congressional inquiries.
——-
Is that an example of proof that Moody’s was assuring them the govt would bail them out? Saying:
“..will require “assistance” from third parties..”, and a third party could be government?
Or were there incriminating inter-company communications..
Sorry for being so dense, but the idea someone has proof the rating agencies were sure govt bailouts were in the bag is news to me.
Why anyone who had big money at stake would believe it, while Moodys had no skin in the game is another question… and maybe I’m not thinking straight.
“The bill does address: Institutionalizing ‘too big to fail’ through a $50 billion resolutions fund putting the American taxpayer on the hook to bailout reckless activities, again.”
This bill sucks. They should just scrap it rather than pass sham financial reform that won’t fix any of the problems.
Look ,the proposed bill does not address the unregulated gambling casinos and money creation casinos and insurance casinos of the
Wall Street Investment Banks who call themselves lenders and their power to make markets and break markets ,while lacking transparency .
To try to insure crazy Hedge funds and non=transparent investment markets with a FDIC type of thing is absurd ,especially when their leverage is 30 to 40x’’s verses more conventional banks . They just have to have new laws limiting their
game playing or bar them from residential lending . Who cares if Wall Street has less ways of potentially ripping off the public with their high risk betting and leverage . It wasn’t enough that they make millions ,they wanted to make billions ,and not the good old fashion way . The point is we bailed out Hedge Funds and Insurance Companies from non -transparent unregulated markets ,and this isn’t exactly the same as a regulated banks that is limited at 9x’s
leverage .However the fact that regulated banks could go and play in these casinos that aren’t regulated (thanks to de-regulation ) was the additional problem as well as the fact that regulated FDIC type banks could sell to that market. Pensions funds should be barred from those Casinos ,as well as 401k’s and even have the illusion that that paper could be AAA investment grade on the risk .
Also ,apparently, they can duplicate securities in those unregulated markets and increase gains or losses which is a even more high risk leverage game that should be banned . Wall Street can’t be a lender ,they are to much into high stakes gambling and Ponzi-scheme creation and crazy insurance bets . We are allowing Lenders to
make bets against their own loans and we wonder why the lending
had no standards and the loans were faulty and crazy ,yet they were rated AAA investment grade . Lets get real here .
“Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut helped derail the reform effort with filibuster threats. Rep. Barney Frank declared Fannie and Freddie perfectly sound. ‘These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’ Frank said in 2003. ‘The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’
Let’s hope the history books give Barney Frank and Chris Dodd their fair and large share of the blame in planting the seeds for the Great Recession.
It gives me some comfort knowing Barney is takin’ it in the rear just like much of the general public is right now.
I mean with this terrible economy and all
“If Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and others in Congress say ‘Wall Street greed’ often enough, the public might forget the roles played by members of Congress,…”
* The Wall Street Journal
* BUSINESS
* MAY 3, 2010
Congress Members Bet on Fall in Stocks
By JASON ZWEIG, TOM MCGINTY And BRODY MULLINS
Some members of Congress made risky bets with their own money that U.S. stocks or bonds would fall during the financial crisis, a Wall Street Journal analysis of congressional disclosures shows.
Senators have criticized Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for profiting from the housing collapse. And Congress is considering legislation to curb Wall Street risk-taking, including the use of financial instruments known as derivatives and of leverage, or methods that amplify returns.
According to The Journal’s analysis of congressional disclosures, investment accounts of 13 members of Congress or their spouses show bearish bets made in 2008 via exchange-traded funds—portfolios that trade like stocks and mirror an index. These funds were leveraged; they used derivatives and other techniques to magnify the daily moves of the index they track.
There’s no evidence the legislators and their spouses used privileged information or failed to follow rules on disclosure. Congressional rules permit lawmakers and their families to invest in—or bet against—publicly held companies they oversee through committee assignments, as well as broader markets or indices. While some made money, others lost.
Some of these legislators have publicly criticized practices such as short-selling, or betting on a security to decline. In February, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R., Ga.) argued on the Senate floor that “we don’t need those speculating in the marketplace to take unfair advantage of the values of equities that are owned by Americans all over this country for the sake of making a buck on a short sale.”
…
Congressional rules permit lawmakers and their families to invest in—or bet against—publicly held companies they oversee through committee assignments…
Well that sounds reasonable- for a frickin’ banana republic.
‘Come mr. tallyman, tally me banana…’
“He said he was trying to find the strongest possible words to describe the omission of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the legislation. ‘It’s outrageous,’ he finally said.”
Whoa!
Ben Bernanke Content to Sacrifice American Savers to Recapitalize Banks and Benefit Debtors
By Trader Mark
31 March 2010 @ 12:23 pm ET
Finally someone is speaking up on a theme we’ve been promoting for a long while - one of the many “arbitrages” currently going on in the US. In this case, throwing America’s savers under the bus, so that (a) any 4 year old may run a bank successfully simply by turning on the light in the morning [Apr 20, 2009: How Banks will "Outearn" their Losses] and (b) so that debtors may benefit.
What is sad to see is the potential for the desperate American saver - who has been hit by multiple Federal Reserve induced bubbles, being set up to have her monies swiped away yet again. Many who have been hit by two stock crashes and a real estate crash - all within a decade’s time mind you (3 Black Swans - what are the chances with a Federal Reserve gone crazy) - now have fled into bonds. [Sep 16, 2009: Mutual Fund Investors Cling to Safety of Bonds, Missing Stock Rally] Why bonds? Because they are “safe” and offer some yield over and above the (almost nothing) offered in saving accounts or CDs. But safe is a relative term - interest on bonds and prices have an inverse relationship. At some point, rates will go up … and prices of said bonds shall fall. Which from my anecdotal discussions and readings on the intertubes - is going to be a shock/surprise for many of our savers who are simply trying to find any product that generate even modest returns over and above inflation rates. Surely within 3-5 years we will be reading story after story of the individual investor “shocked” they have taken losses in their bond mutual funds.
But no worries about that - the savers of America are here to subsidize the spending culture and to make sure our oligarchs are fed, fat & happy. (remember who the Fed reallys “works” for) All signals go. [Rhetorical questions - with all this "recovery" around us, why won't the Fed move off "emergency" levels of rates?]
Ben Bernake should be arrested & prosecuted for selling out ordinary, responsible Americans.
The last 4 years has been designed to re-capitalize the culprits ,at the expense of Main Street . It doesn’t matter what they did to Main Street and how much money is loss to certain sectors of the
populations ,the idea was to save the systems as faulty and corrupt and unsustainable as they were and still are (they have not been successful in re-inflating real estate )
Lenders are private Companies ,thats the first point .I think one of the reasons why it became a issue of TBTF is because with the
credit that was extended to the American people ,they created a market economy that was so tied in to everybody operating on credit ,rather than wages ,and real estate was to be the wealth creation that was suppose to pay for this . To go back to a market in which people are only extended credit they can afford and they can’t buy shit they can’t afford would be a big upheaval ,especially when you can’t inflate real estate to pay for it .
The increase in profits to the Financial Industry by this increase in credit that people couldn’t pay ,and the increase to Corporation America profits was fake ,in terms of sustainability and the lending and credit given was absurd . They inflated real estate and this was to be the wealth creation that was suppose to pay for all this folly of spending by leverage/credit ,because real estate always goes up . What is to big to fail is a Ponzi-scheme that never should of happened to begin with .
The fake creation of wealth is what is TBTF,but it is anyway .
What is to big to fall is fake real estate prices that result from faulty lending and credit given . What is to big to fall is Americans living off credit . What is to big to fall is Financial
Companies and Wall Street Investment Banks making untold profits off of the public going into massive debt to make ends meet or buy what they can’t afford .What is to big to fail is Corporate America screwing Main street by outsourcing and loss of jobs and manufacturing going to other countries .What is to big to fail is a
economy that centers around Wall Street and stock market gains
rather than Wall Street being a reflection of a well run economy
that is productive with a rich job base .
With pay cash housing money set aside, we’ve been paid almost nothing in interest. (S/B minimum $20K/yr) Yet, if we were credit card revolvers, we would pay north of 22% in interest.(820+ FICO’s, too). This economic model stinks.
I agree that this economic model is a real stinkaroo.
However, being a saver has enabled me to generate the seed money for my entry into the world of professional photography. I just used some of my savings to buy a pro-level camera, and it got heavy work at this past weekend’s Tucson Folk Festival. (I was the official Folk Festival photographer.)
I’m now in the process of editing the photos — got some good ones, if I may say so myself. Once I post them for the musicians who requested shoots of their performances, I’m going to start earning back the money I put out for the camera.
I love how we all justify the purchase of our toys
I have to commute between two different airports. Just think how many more hours I could bill, if I had a Corvette……
Actually, I’m with Slim……….sometimes, that Snap-On tool works a whole lot better than the ones you get from Harbor Freight.
Actually, I’m with Slim……….sometimes, that Snap-On tool works a whole lot better than the ones you get from Harbor Freight.
That’s why I’ve been using Nikon equipment since the 1970s.
Ah, Bubbles Ben Bernanke!
Gotta keep the punchbowl spiked, even while denying that the punch even exists!
Right… how are these clowns still allowed to set policy?
And, yes, they are herding people to bonds in an effort to sheer them there, too. After all, it’s not “fair” until the top 0.1% controls all the wealth!
The incredible part to me is just how willing the bond market bovines are to enter the slaughterhouse without a lick of protest.
January 2005:
‘USA Today reported that Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich publicly warned that subprime lending may be a problem. “The subprime incidence of mortgage brokers without a lot at stake in the game is getting pretty high,” the Fed official said. ‘
‘He backed off of earlier statements that “that portion of the subprime industry was veering close to a breakdown”, later stating that “phrasing too strong”. But he did point out the higher delinquency with subprime borrowers.’
‘Gramlich addressed the bubble issue, “It’s certainly possible it’s a bubble, but it’s also possible, for various reasons, the cost of housing has shifted.”
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/01/fed-gov-knocks-subprime-risks.html
February 2005:
‘Forbes.com reports that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan raised the spector of “systemic risk” in testimony to congress. He is once again speaking about the two GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The risks of something going wrong “are almost inevitable” Greenspan said.
He suggested the two mortgage giants be forced to reduce their portfolios in order to prevent unspecified “problems”. “It is the time to act to fend off the problems that are almost inevitable” he said, injecting a sense of urgency to the situation.
“Greenspan also noted that Fannie and Freddie both have unlimited access to capital far below normal market rates, giving them unlimited growth prospects. Since the two have very low regulatory capital requirements, the companies have to “engage in very significant dynamic hedging to hedge interest rate risks,” he said. Their role in creating the housing bubble has been clear. Maybe the Fed is looking to blame a coming crash on the GSE’s and therefore congress.
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/02/greenspan-warns-unlimited-access-to.html
‘He backed off of earlier statements that “that portion of the subprime industry was veering close to a breakdown”, later stating that “phrasing too strong”.’
Too strong, or too prophetic?
And they say that dead men tell no tales…
When the Ponzi scheme blew up ,I was beside myself that the very culprits that created the mess ,including the bought off Politicians
were the parties cleaning up the mess, and we wonder why Obstruction of Justice and cover-ups and lack of accountability
became the bail out plan . And these clowns just wasted a bunch of money on attempts to re-inflate Ponzi-scheme markets that were the result of a faulty lending mania . Oh and no doubt the Wall Street bonuses that were flaunted in our face were a byproduct of this wonderful bailout plan . The government ended up being the one that provided the funds for the new lending anyway .
And Hank Paulson ,who must of been one of the biggest conflict of interest parties in the history of history ,plays a big role in the BAIL OUT and who the money goes to .
I just don’t like waste and the sooner the faulty systems are corrected ,the better . Until that time we are going to Witness
nothing but policy ,laws ,proposals that don’t make sense .
“When the Ponzi scheme blew up ,….”
I don’t think the Ponzi scheme has blown up; it is just headed in a different direction.
Here’s something to add to your coffee this morning:
Greenspan Wanted Housing-Bubble Dissent Kept Secret
As top Federal Reserve officials debated whether there was a housing bubble and what to do about it, then-Chairman Alan Greenspan argued that dissent should be kept secret so that the Fed wouldn’t lose control of the debate to people less well-informed than themselves.
“We run the risk, by laying out the pros and cons of a particular argument, of inducing people to join in on the debate, and in this regard it is possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand,” Greenspan said, according to the transcripts of a March 2004 meeting.
http://tinyurl.com/33ve3vb
I thought no one at the Fed could see it coming?
Oh, yeah - imagine the horror if facts were leaked to the public! How can the Fed blow bubbles and keep only the insiders informed if the sheeple (er, citizens) can also get their hands on this info? Man, this here internet makes it harder to scam people - it’s just not fair!
Unreal… so much for The Maestro.
Decision makers make the decisions. That’s their job description.
If it’s actually someone else’s job, then give the job along with the title to someone else.
If some decision maker’s decisions are not appreciated, fire them and hire someone else.
If, instead, we prefer open debate and community involvement, then set things up that way… but you can’t have it both ways.
Here’s another ingredient for that cup of coffee:
Rahm Working With Fed To Beat Back Audit
The White House, Federal Reserve and Wall Street lobbyists are kicking up their opposition to an amendment to audit the Fed as a Senate vote approaches, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the lead sponsor of the measure, said on Monday.
Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who is shepherding the bill through the Senate, told Sanders Monday afternoon that “there’s a shot we’ll be up tomorrow,” Sanders told HuffPost.
http://tinyurl.com/2f9po6f
What do the White House and the Federal Reserve have against transparency?
“Rahm Working With Fed To Beat Back Audit”
How does the news that the White House and the Fed chiefs have banded together to fend off pressure for an audit square with the Fed’s much-vaunted monetary policy independence?
Fed’s Regional Chiefs ‘Fight’ for Monetary Policy Independence
By Scott Lanman
Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve regional bank presidents are trying to ward off congressional efforts to weaken their clout, saying the moves may jeopardize monetary policy independence.
Kansas City Fed president Thomas Hoenig is circulating a book titled “The Balance of Power: The Political Fight for an Independent Central Bank.” Charles Plosser of Philadelphia said on Sept. 29, “we must preserve” the Fed’s structure.
…
I think many factors contributed to this eventual FRAUD mania over-inflated market in real estate ,but I would like to bring up
a couple of the factors .(Most of us know this ,so its a repeat)
In 2000 the dom-com bubble crash occurred . Wall Street Investment houses were losing business on stocks and the e-trade business was taking a market share from the big Wall Street Investment Firms also. People were turning away from the stock market investments ,or putting less of a percentage in it and starting to turn to real estate . Than 9-11 hit and Greenspan brought down the rates and money started flowing toward real estate . It was justified at first because the real estate market had been flat and dead for a while .The lending was ok to begin with and the lower rates were creating favorable costs for real estate purchases …but it quickly changed . Greenspan continued to keep the interest rates low and the incentive to save stopped and investing in real estate gained momentum .
Combined with this in 1998 they had changed the capital gains
laws on real estate ,making it possible to have up to 500k for a couple in tax free gains on real estate every 2 years .This is a big incentive to become a short term flipper .
Than the story goes that Greenspan kept the rates low and
the real estate market became a mania of fraud and inflated values in part due to the crazy lending thanks to Wall Street Investment firms that got into the game heavy because of the money that was being generated by them being middlemen for lending in the residential markets .
The thing about real estate is that it usually requires a loan because the purchase is so big . Also real estates values are tied to property taxes .
The principals of lending are prudent and are based on ability to pay the loan and the value of the property being accurate at the time of the loan ,while investing is more of a betting type enterprise in the growth of something . Loans can’t be based on the eventual ability of a borrower to qualify or a projection of future value of a property .Everybody in lending knows this .
Glass-Steagal was created in the 1930’s because they figured out that lending and investments were different principals and they
needed to be separated . A person could buy real estate for long term investment purpose ,but they better be able to afford the loan based on lending principals .
Wall Street middlemen again, like they did with lending on stock margin lending in 1929 ,confused lending with investing
and casino games and they created a bubble in the stock market that crashed ,and this real estate market that crashed .
What Wall Street middlemen Lenders did this time was off the charts with leverage and breach of duty to make proper loans and just like in 1929 they inflated the real estate market and created a mania by faulty lending . This time the lending was done by securities that were rated AAA investment grade aside from them being based on proper lending or valuations of property ,but crazy toxic loan product that avoided true
qualifying .
Corporate America was prospering from this faulty lending in that people were buying tons of products based on this false wealth creation and equity money and the government coffers were growing based on this faulty easy money lending, riddled with fraud .The easy credit was creating jobs and it was off-setting the fact that in the private sector wages weren’t increasing and more and more jobs were being outsourced and
more and more manufacturing was going overseas . All the jobs that were created by real estate wealth creation crashed along with the false market .
Than we all know that crazy lending just continued unstopped .it crashed ,than Wall Street wanted to be Bailed Out,while everyone was walking around in a trance wondering what happened .
All attempts to RE re-inflate the market have been unsuccessful because it was fake to begin with and the values were based
on faulty lending and qualifying based on real income ,which created faulty demand .No down loans and bogus loan products (liar loans )also helped the unqualified get in to the mania ,
This wasn’t a mania that was about getting borderline people into homeownership ,It became all about gambling and flipping and having a ATM machine and funding ones retirement and avoiding capital gains and it became a Ponzi-scheme .
When is everybody going to realize that Wall Street middlemen are going to abuse lending every time and they need to be put back in their box .
great summary
From the WSJ:
Jonathon and Brandy Miller of Boynton Beach filed a lawsuit in April in Palm Beach County, blaming flippers, or buyers who plan to resell quickly for a profit, for the neighborhood’s downfall. They want to be reimbursed for their purchase price and closing costs. They also want a jury to determine further damages.
A complaint is subject to dismissal, and the attorneys that filed it usually have to pay the other side’s legal fees, if it fails to state a legal cause of action. I have not seen one stated.
Good luck proving to a court that a having a percentage of homes up for sale and purchased ‘led to neighborhood downfall’ and is worthy of compensatory damages.
I’m pretty sure the lawyer’s brief is going to be something like the trial portrayed in Animal House.
“They want to be reimbursed for their purchase price and closing costs.”
This is the dumbest idea I have ever heard, bar none.
Hmmm….there’s a little joinder-of-parties problem here. How are they going to round up all the defendants? Will each defendant be accused of the same tort? Or will each defendant move to be part of a separate case?
Oh yes.
You must prosecute others for using the free market.
Genius.
Fannie and Freddie, as government agencies, simply purchased mortgages that met strict guidelines and securitized them. That’s all.
Later, they started buying and holding mortgages, including those that didnt’ meet those criteria, increasing their short term profit and long term risk. $billions were siphoned off. And folks like me didn’t even realize this, because the public was never told.
But why should we have been? After all, these were private companies risking private money. Bwaahaa–wahh!
The reason Fannie and Freddie reform is being delayed? Because the reform will be to turn them back into what they were supposed to be in the first place. But in the short run, they want them to keep buying crap to support the housing market and thus the banks.
February 2005:
‘The regulator of mortgage giant Fannie Mae has notified its board of directors that additional accounting issues “raise safety and soundness concerns.” The issues seem to focus on internal control and manipulation of income and expense. The regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), had no direct comment on the matter. OFHEO did have a release on its web site proposing new regulations requiring Fannie and Freddie Mac to report mortgage fraud.
“This rule will ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do their part to help combat mortgage fraud,” said Armando Falcon, Jr., OFHEO Director. “The Enterprises will now have a clear obligation to report fraud and help prevent a repeat of cases like the First Beneficial matter,” Falcon said.
First Beneficial had sold mortgages to Fannie, and bought them back when it was discovered the homes were problematic. First Beneficial then sold them to Ginnie Mae, a government agency. More on that story here.
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/02/more-accounting-problems-at-fannie-mae.html
“First Beneficial had sold mortgages to Fannie, and bought them back when it was discovered the homes were problematic. First Beneficial then sold them to Ginnie Mae, a government agency.”
Sounds like the mortgage lending equivalent to a game of Hot Potato.
This cup of coffee today, keeps getting richer and richer:
Fed Privately Lobbying Against Audit, Documents Show
The Federal Reserve is privately lobbying against a bipartisan Senate amendment that would open the central bank to an audit by the Government Accountability Office, according to documents distributed to Senate offices by a Fed official.
The effort to beat back the audit relies on playing two members of the same caucus — Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — off each other.
http://tinyurl.com/26j65se
“Fed Privately Lobbying Against Audit, Documents Show”
How can a government agency privately lobby? Talk about your oxymoronica…
Dumb question of the day: Can the Fed use freshly-created liquidity to pay private lobbyists to oppose the Congressional audit? And wouldn’t this be tantamount to bribing Congress?
Oh, sorry… I keep forgetting our Fed operates above the rule of law.
Well, an audit of what the Fed does with our money (gives it out to bankers, devalues it, uses it to bribe Congress) would harm their “independence.”
The only thing the Fed is independent from is accountability.
“…uses it to bribe Congress…”
Never confuse campaign contributions with bribes.
The Federal Reserve is a government agency like I’m an astronaut getting ready for my next space mission.
Right.
Under crony capitalism, there is no separation of state from private industry whose lobbyists hold bribe money in hand.
“Dumb question of the day: Can the Fed use freshly-created liquidity to pay private lobbyists to oppose the Congressional audit? And wouldn’t this be tantamount to bribing Congress?”
It would seriously disturb me if the Fed were spending money on lobbyists. This is the one organization in the country with what is essentially an unbounded budget—think about that for a minute, in terms of how much influence they could potentially buy.
“…—think about that for a minute, in terms of how much
influencefree speech they could potentially buy.”Sell in May and Go Away
Bob Moriarty
Archives ~ May 4, 2010
Wall Street has some pet sayings they use now and again to impress the rubes. Sell in May and go away is one such buzz phrase. There is some truth to it. Often, especially in market crash years, the market tops in May or so and drops until October or so.
I think the general market is set up for The Perfect Storm. I think a crash started in Mid-April and lots of people called it, including Martin Armstrong from his prison cell, way in advance. I think bonds are topping and when interest rates go up on Sovereign Debt, the game is over. I am not good at picking prices but the overall market crash this year could easily make 2008 look like a kid’s party.
There is $600 trillion dollars outstanding in derivatives. I have been shouting at the top of my voice for years about the dangers of derivatives. They are all fraud. It’s not possible to have a market that large supported by rational investments. It’s a giant casino run by crooks and the suckers are playing with Monopoly money. The game of musical chairs is over and there are no chairs.
“They are all fraud. It’s not possible to have a market that large supported by rational investments. It’s a giant casino run by crooks and the suckers are playing with Monopoly money. The game of musical chairs is over and there are no chairs.”
Luckily for Wall Street banksters, financial reform is going to let this Ponzi scheme continue.
All derivatives are fraud? $600 trillion in derivatives as if that number means anything?
come on .. these guy selling gold all sound alike.. Everything is a fraud and the world is going to hell.
Bob Moriarty
President: 321gold
Exactly .
Wait, I was saying “exactly” about wmbz’s post and CBCIBT’s post .
Right Joey ,everything is just wonderful . You know I really am
wondering if your paid to make your diverting remarks . I have seem data that states that the derivatives markets are that big …and that is really scary if you ask me . But you don’t have to believe it Joey .
i saw who you were replying to.. follow the lines upward and it’s pretty easy to do that..
That big derivative number is scary to you and a lot of people, and that’s why gold bugs and others like to use it. It has no real meaning, but it’s scary as hell.
Right Joey ,nothing has any meaning anymore . They can’t rate securities because they are to exotic to understand and they can’t define Wall Street casino games and derivatives or really expose the risk because the public just wouldn’t understand .
In my lifetime I have noticed that the things which one doesn’t want to explain are that which is kinky, or crooked, or highly leveraged .
ok Wiz.. What does $600 trillion in derivatives mean?
Forget that..
What does $100 worth of derivatives mean?
I hope there’s a simple answer..
Didn’t see you post until now Joey but to answer you question
there are many different kinds of derivatives ,but the ones that provide leverage ,or ones that hedge risk ,or the exotic ones ,are a form of casino game or leverage game . They create a bet or counter bet on a underlying asset without really having the underlying ownership of the asset . Almost like a ghost bet on nothing .Like making a insurance bet on a asset you don’t even own . It’s a new fangled form of leverage with no reserves .
$100 in derivatives means nothing ,600 trillion in derivatives
could be something that could be to big to fall . We paid AIG
160 billion in CDS derivatives ,and you don’t see where those casino games are just casino games . Never mind ,don’t
answer because your just going to go into the small value they have and whats wrong with counter bets and you are going to forget that this is part of what makes everything to big to fail .
actually i like your answer. “..Almost like a ghost bet on nothing.”
We all take advantage of huge leverage when covering ourselves with insurance of any sort. Similarly, for a few dollars worth of stock options (derivatives) I can protect my whole portfolio from a market decline.
While insurance premiums costs us customers a tiny fraction of our coverage, some insurance company is taking the risk of a huge payout. They could go broke. A lot of companies could go under. A big enough default might even destroy an economy, or be considered TBTF by government.
Call me selfish but I’m grateful someone is willing to sell me car insurance..
But what about a insurance company that sold you car insurance on a car you didn’t even own ,or sold you a security that was just a duplicate of the real security ? I don’t think you getting that this is just casino betting which increases the risk because there isn’t any reserves involved with this sort of betting or insuring . It’s just a way of creating a bet on nothing . In law it would be that your not really the Real Party of Interest .
…there isn’t any reserves involved with this sort of betting or insuring…
No reserves.. ok.. Lets think about that one aspect of the problem. It would be best if any sort of insurance company was backed up by genuine reserves to cover any losses.
——-
State Farm insures auto, property, life and different types of general casualty.. It’s got near 77 million policies.
77 million policies. Lets assume the average policy has coverage of a maximum of $500,000.
77 x 5 = 385, and add 11 zeros: 38,500,000,000,000.
Just one company.. State farm.. is on the hook for $38 trillion dollars? Is my math correct?
Does that much money even exist on Earth? How can they get away with insuring such a large amount?
In a worst case scenario, they’d be broke in a heartbeat, and half the people in this country would be left high and dry. Is that an example too big to fail.. or what?
OK, so the credit raters, GSEs, etc, are not being taken to task, but our congress people are going to whip derivatives into shape, right?
‘What a difference a word makes. Because of the deletion late last week of a single word from the Senate’s version of financial reform legislation, trading in over-the-counter derivatives like credit default swaps could continue to be conducted by phone. The language covers interest rate and credit default swaps, which without the change appeared headed for trading only on electronic platforms or exchanges.’
‘Senators last week dropped the word “trading” from the phrase “trading facility” in the definition of “swap execution facility” from the version of derivatives reform put forth by Senate Agriculture Committee Chair, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, according to Bloomberg News.’
‘Using “facility” as the single-word definition of “swap execution facility” means that if the bill were to be passed into law, swaps trades could be made by phone, not just on an electronic platform or exchange. All swaps considered by regulators to be “standardized” or “clearable” – terms that remain undefined by the bill – would be executed through the so-called “swap execution facilities.”
‘An electronic mandate, however, would make it likely that banks which already use e-broking services to execute trades with other dealers or buy-side firms, would use these same venues to execute those trades via the screen. Because the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act defines “trading facility” as prohibiting phone trading, some lobbyists and lawmakers have reasoned that defining swap execution facilities as “trading facilities” would force swaps transactions to be traded electronically, only.”
‘Lawmakers are still hammering out exactly what the derivatives portion of the financial reform bill under debate will say; language differs among several different versions put forth by various senators and committees. The Senate Banking Committee has its own version, and senators can draw up final legislation from any iteration. Legislators could choose to define exactly what “standardized” or “clearable” swaps mean in the bill, or leave it to regulators to hash out. Whether regulators or clearinghouses will determine whether a swap is “clearable” or not, is also unclear.’
http://www.securitiesindustry.com/news/-25233-1.html
Paul B. Farrell
May 4, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT
6 reasons ‘Goldman Conspiracy’ must kill reforms
Derivatives-bonus culture needs neo-Reaganomics resurgence to survive
Six investing rules for a worst-case scenario
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Remember Nietzsche? “God is dead.” Let’s translate that 19th century Germanic philosophy into modern economics. In Adam Smith’s 1776 capitalism, God was the Invisible Hand, a mysterious force running the economy from the shadows.
Flash forward to 2010: Capitalism is dead. The economy has a new Invisible Hand, the Goldman Conspiracy of Wall Street bankers.
Advisers face fallout over Goldman issues
Regulatory concerns surrounding the recent Goldman Sachs hearings leave financial advisers with some explaining to do. Steve Stahler, an independent adviser and President of The Stahler Group, explains how advisers can go about having these difficult conversations with clients.
This transfer of power happened suddenly. As recently as late 2008 the Invisible Hand was on life support, near death. Suddenly, miraculously the Treasury secretary, Goldman’s former CEO, transferred the power into a new Invisible Hand of God, the free-market ideology of Reaganomics … a power absolutely essential to the survival of Wall Street’s mega-bonus culture.
Yes, that’s why the Goldman Conspiracy must kill financial reforms … why they will kill effective reform with the backroom support of Obama and Dodd. This was predicted back in late 2008, even before the bailouts, back when we thought Reaganomics dead. “Shock Doctrine” author Naomi Klein warned:
“Free market ideology has always been a servant to the interests of capital … During boom times it’s profitable to preach laissez faire, because an absentee government allows speculative bubbles … When those bubbles burst, the ideology becomes a hindrance and goes dormant while big government rides to the rescue,” then a neo-Reaganomics “ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis,” setting up a new bubble, bigger meltdown, and the Great Depression 2 the world narrowly avoided in 2008.
…
“The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis.”
The problem is obvious, spending, and the solution is obvious, cut spending. But not on today’s seniors. And not on the military. And not interest payments, which will become a soaring share of “spending.”
Can everything else go below zero? If not, we’ll have to raise taxes on wages and nothing else, because otherwise we’ll discourage savings and investment and kill economic growth.
And not on education. And not on health care. And not on … and not on … and not on … and on and on and on ….
Whip derivatives into shape?
Legislators could choose to define exactly what “standardized” or “clearable” swaps mean in the bill, or leave it to regulators to hash out.
Who expects politicians to be expert at any of this stuff?
We should consider ourselves lucky if there’s still food in the stores and gas at the pumps after they’ve finished “fixing” the financial markets.
Oops — I did it again!
The administration’s FinReg scorecard
As I mention in Wonkbook, my colleague Brady Dennis has a great story this morning limning lobbyist concerns that financial regulation is turning against them. He quotes Sam Geduldig, a financial lobbyist and former Republican staffer, saying, “You’ve got an environment, six months before an election, where politicians are acting like politicians They are viewing any vote as a potential campaign ad. And that might not be good for any of us.”
The White House is pressing its perceived advantage. Dan Pfeiffer wrote a blog post this morning called “The 10 Most Wanted Lobbyist Loopholes,” where he gets very specific on what the White House wants — and doesn’t want — out of the amendment process. The White House doesn’t usually make such concrete demands, in part because when you give the media metrics to use to judge whether you won or lost, it’s harder to spin a loss.
As for the demands themselves, they’re pretty good. For instance, Pfeiffer advises us to watch for efforts to fight exchange-trading for derivatives. “The big derivatives dealers make big profits by charging end-users extra spreads and hidden fees,” he writes, “and they don’t want that to change.” Pfeiffer also notes that there will be efforts “to make the resolution process so unwieldy that it can never work” (though I think you could say that about the bill as currently written) and “to take away the [consumer protection] bureau’s source of funds.” It’s worth reading the whole thing to see what the White House is fighting for.
It’s also worth reading the whole thing to see what didn’t make the cut. The big omission from the list of demands: the Volcker rule, which the president announced with Paul Volcker at his side but which the White House has seemed considerably cooler toward in recent weeks.
By Ezra Klein | May 4, 2010; 9:04 AM ET
I have to admit to feeling shaken today. I am thinking that all the modern finance textbooks (efficient market hypothesis, blah blah blah) should be thrown onto a ginomous pyre and burned. What we need is a new theory of finance to explain how economies function with the rules written and enforced to enable fraudulent accounting and systemic theft.
Shaken???
Au contraire, I’m starting to have a sense of HOPE again today; maybe it is not possible to manipulate markets forever after all?
Heck, I’ve got more of a sense of hope than Barack Obama his own self. So far, my month of May has truly been merry, and June will soon be bustin’ out all over.
Go back to Glass-Steagal( in the separation of lending from investment ) and maybe some additional rules and put lending in its proper place and
that will go a long way toward creating a more stable market .
Look,Wall Street Investment Banks wants to keep their highly leveraged casino games going and Credit Default Swaps and manufacturing duplications of securities and insurance bets ,anything to increase the profit margins . Just keep any Pension Plans and 401K’s from those markets altogether .
I don’t know what they are going to do about the fact that the Rating Agencies are in conflict of interest ,but thats another variable that has to be corrected .
The Wall Street King Pins want to have their cake and eat it to . They want to be lenders ,they want to be Insurance policy betters ,they want to be stock players ,they want to be money generators and
market creators ,even if those markets are fake . They want to create a high risk situation by low reserves and big leverage ability and that is what is creating the risk . Intermingling the regulated with the unregulated ,just makes it all unregulated . Wall Street Money firms also on top of everything else don’t want to be
transparent about their undercover bets and money games . Wall Street wants to be able to create exotic financial instruments like CDO’s with their trenches and things like cloning securities and insurance bets ,while nobody knows how to rate this stuff or just how risky it is .
All this intermingling of markets is also a set up for insider trading
and set ups ,much like the deal that Goldmans is being accused of misrepresentation on .
They whole financial markets became corrupt in terms of any sense
of fiduciary duty or restraint on greed and risk in the handling of other people money including Pension Plans and 401k’s, or duty for proper lending .
We either correct these financial systems that became corrupt with a greed that knew no bounds ,or be die from the fall out from the corruption .
People love to say that it was the American people who could not accept restraints on spending ,but the real truth is that Wall Street thugs could not accept how their profits were going down after the dot-com bust and they stood to lose more and more action/shares in the money/investment game . Than you look at the different forces that were occurring to create conflicts between the different
Monopolies for the ever-increasing shares of the money from the Majority on Main Street ,while Main Street was being tapped out even before they got into the use credit to fund their lifestyle game ,while there was a undercurrent movement to change all the systems and structures relied on before ,(think Globalism ).
I’m sorry but I like to look at the grand picture .
If the stock market is reacting this way to a fiscal problem in Greece, how will it react when New Jersey goes bust?
Or when California goes bust?
Or a number of other states.
May all 57 of them.
If someone actually owns up to their mistakes and claims responsibility for what’s been going down–yeah, catharsis would be a good way to describe how our nation would be affected. Is it ever going to happen? Absolutely not. People have luxury cars to fuel, after all–luxury cars, man!
our fiat money system has broken down.
just as its central-banker-creators knew that it would (some day …)
governments are trying to force the pyramid to grow more.
by resorting to more and more creative and illegal measures.
but deflation will have its way.
the money supply - to the private economy - is falling dramatically.
with no new cash to feed them, all the bonds and rents MUST collapse.
DEBT IS NOT MONEY.
at this point, a 20 year deflationary depression is unavoidable.
learn to live on just 15% of your income, and you’ll be okay.
that goes for people, businesses, and governments too.
understand that “financial assets” have no value in ZIRP.
God bless us, everyone.
And that’s the good news …
This is interesting it seems the bombing suspect in the NY lost his house to foreclosure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36934331/ns/us_news-security/
Are we going to see more of this?
I have a close friend who’s weighing the decision to let her house go into foreclosure. Right now, she’s getting opinions from real estate agents. They’re of the mind that she has to do a major remodel before putting the place on the market.
And y’all can pretty well guess the rest. Agents have a whole stable of remodeling people to refer potential (and actual) clients to. And those remodeling contractors kick back a portion of their proceeds to the real estate agents. That’s how real estate people operate. They make cockroaches seem like honorable creatures.
I told my friend what I just wrote in the last paragraph.
I also said that the house just needs a good inside and out scrubbing (spring cleaning time!), a good going-over in the yard (like pulling weeds?), and maybe a fresh coat of interior and exterior paint.
Then she should get the darn thing listed, sell it for what someone’s willing to pay for it, and be done with it. She lives in a snooty neighborhood anyway. She’s not a snooty person, so she’ll be better off outta there. And, once freed of this house, her expenses will drop like a rock.
As for remodeling, let the next owner do that.
Agree with the advice you gave your friend .