Better Or Worse Than What We Are Facing Now?
Readers suggested a topic on how things might have been different. “Does anyone want to talk about what would have really happened if the banks hadn’t been ‘rescued’ in the manner they were all those years ago? My basic idea is what would have happened if, instead of giving Hank Paulson a completely blank check to save the banks, Congress had given him authority to split them up, sell off the depositor and solvent commercial lending bits, and then made the shareholders and unsecured bond holders and CDS counterparties and all the other speculators take their lumps to the extent necessary to wind it all down.”
“I think there was more than enough money sloshing around the system in hedge funds and private equity funds to take over the basic banking functions, though I don’t know if they would have wanted those businesses. Smaller banks could have taken the accounts relevant to their areas. It would have taken some time. They would have been nationalized for at least a few months.”
A reply, “We’d be dealing with a nascent civil war. A whole lot of government and private paychecks would be irredeemable, goods and services un-purchased or unpurchasable, and credit cards and retirement funds rendered useless. If no one accepts the coin of the realm, and no one is willing to grant credit, things could get pretty messy pretty quickly.”
“I suspect unemployment would be ahem, significantly higher than the 20% it is now. A whole lot of chronically ill poor folks and oldsters would be dead or in end-stage decline. Global exports (our food sources among them,) would dwindle, as would our supply chains. OWS would be armed. Tax revenues would be not only withheld, but uncollectible. De facto war lords, er volunteer peace officers would enforce the local order. Ta-taa to the court, contract, and title system. And what about that pesky unpaid military?”
“But Craig’s list and eBay would be thriving. And lawyers would be having a field day….”
Another said, “A replay of the Great Depression, with rolling large scale bankruptcies and an eventual bank holiday or nationalization. The question is, whether that is better or worse in the long run than what we are facing now.”
The St Augustine Record. “The recession has been brutal in Northeast Florida, according to Census data released today showing that income is down, poverty rates are up and more and more people are looking for help. ‘We’re seeing a new face on poverty that, quite frankly, we haven’t seen in the last 30 years,’ said John Edwards, executive director of the Northeast Florida Community Action Agency, which assists low-income people.”
“Bruce Ganger, executive director of Second Harvest North Florida, which supplies food banks, tells of a well-educated, professional woman who had joined her husband in the ranks of the unemployed and struggling. ‘She said to me, ‘Bruce, you have to understand, I stand in line now to get food, crying: How did I ever get here?’ Ganger said.”
“Comparing the report’s numbers to the 2005-2007 survey — just before the major effects of the recession hit — the affect of the downturn is easy to see. In the earlier report, just 14.2 percent of families in the area made less than $25,000 a year. In 2010, that jumped to 22.1 percent. Median household income dropped from an inflation-adjusted $70,984 to $68,189. The percentage of people living below the poverty line went from 11.2 percent to 13.4 percent. Unemployment in the civilian labor force jumped from an average of 6.1 percent to 9.7 percent.”
“More houses are vacant, and both homeowners and renters are spending a bigger chunk of their shrinking income just for shelter. ‘If anybody thinks this economy is improving, just look at those numbers,’ said Susan King, who starts Monday as head of the Beaches Emergency Assistance Ministry. ‘There are so many people coming out of the woodwork who’ve never needed help before.’”
US News and World Report. “Data from the Labor Department shows that the U.S. economy is a much changed place from past recessions. Despite small recent gains, manufacturing employment is down more than 37 percent since the last major recession, in the early 1980s. Healthcare is a bigger share of the economy than ever, and has continued to grow unfazed by downturns of any size. And construction has shrunk considerably, having experienced its biggest dip in employment on record since 2007.”
“The low interest rates that helped boost housing and the U.S. economy after the early-2000s recession (and eventually created the bubble that caused the Great Recession) have been ineffective this time around. ‘If you look back at, say, for example, recoveries that were more robust–following the recessions in the mid-1970s, the early 1980s–those were recoveries that were a lot more responsive to monetary ease,’ says Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics. When the housing market recovered after the 1980s recession, he says, that spurred a ‘very significant pickup in job growth.’”
“With the federal funds rate at near-zero for nearly three years now, not to mention historically low mortgage rates, the Federal Reserve has been scrambling to find ways to fix the economy from the monetary side, providing monetary easing and altering its balance sheet. However, such policy is proving ineffective. ‘[A monetary fix is] not going to happen this time,’ says DeQuadros. ‘It’s not the level of mortgage rates–that’s not what’s holding back housing market. It’s the excess supply of homes, the backlog of foreclosures. Those aren’t issues that can be addressed with monetary policy.’”
From RT.com. “With all eyes on the debt crisis engulfing America and Europe, few have noticed the depths to which Japan’s once-triumphant economy has sunk. With Tokyo reduced to wringing its hands, could Japanese economic dominance be dead in the water? Stagnant growth, the strong yen, and a massive national debt – some economists fear that Japan may only be a few years away from its own major economic crisis.”
“‘Japanese industry can probably endure the current 75-yen-to-the-dollar level for a little while,’ says House of Councillors member Yoichi Kaneko. ‘But if this situation doesn’t change over a longer period, I think we’re going to see Japanese factories and large companies move their operations overseas – to places like Vietnam, Thailand, or China. This would lead to a hollowing out of Japanese domestic industry and create unemployment. Japan is facing an extraordinary economic crisis.’”
“Japan has the highest national debt among major economies, owing almost twice as much as the economy makes in an entire year. Couple that with the funds needed to rebuild after the devastation unleashed by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year, and it seems Japan is fighting a battle it may not be able to win.”
If the banks had not been “rescued”, I think Greece/Spain/Portugal would have all ready been forced into insolvency by now and probably on the road to recovery (ala Iceland).
Don’t forget that some of the bailout money went to European institutions (including the Bank of Libya).
“economists fear that Japan may only be a few years away from its own major economic crisis”
There was a quote from that new biography on Steve Jobs that said Jobs had a “reality distortion field” which allowed him to drive his employees to do the impossible. Those Apple employees had to believe in Jobs and that pushed them to exceed even their own expectations.
So it’s all faith based economics eh? The truth is the math says most major world economies are technically in default. I could argue that belief in economies based on fiat money is like believing in organized religion. It has proved to be an effective means of expanding economies and controlling people. There is no proof of god yet the vast majority of Americans claim to believe in one.
Everyone wants to be a net exporter, just like all the children in Lake Wobegon are “above average”. So what will Japan do now that it has to compete with the Asian tigers? My understanding of Japan’s social safety net is that it makes the ones in the USA look generous by comparison. What will Japan do if it can’t even provide a convenience store job to its citizens?
We had these a-holes with “reality distortion fields” when I worked at an large aircraft repair shop. They put them in sales, and the scheduling office.
Their thinking was that if it took two guys 40 man/hours to do a job, the same job could be done by sticking 40 guys on it for two hours.
Asked them once how they could schedule 12,000 hours a week in labor sales, when there were only 150 guys in the shop.
I obviously wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand the math that all these Business and Accounting majors were using.
This eventually led to my second discovery. People can pull off miracles every once in a while. The problems start when management sees a miracle, thinks it should be the norm, and starts writing schedules where miracles need to be pulled off on a regular basis.
This eventually led to my second discovery. People can pull off miracles every once in a while. The problems start when management sees a miracle, thinks it should be the norm, and starts writing schedules where miracles need to be pulled off on a regular basis.
I’ve seen that quite a bit in high tech. Sometimes they even get lucky and stumble onto something that works as a permanent increase in productivity. Mostly they just burn people out and the good ones leave for other jobs that pay more.
Their thinking was that if it took two guys 40 man/hours to do a job, the same job could be done by sticking 40 guys on it for two hours.
Have you heard that cliche about pregnancy? A woman can produce a baby in nine months, but that doesn’t mean that nine woman can get it done in one month.
Everybody laughs at that one, but they still keep trying to do it.
“Their thinking was that if it took two guys 40 man/hours to do a job, the same job could be done by sticking 40 guys on it for two hours.”
Got coordination failure?
What co-ordination failure? It doesn’t even have to be as complicated as people not being able to work with each other as efficiently as they can work alone or in pairs, though that is often true.
All you need is one 1 1/2 hour task that HAS to be finished before another 1 hour task can be started and you have failed.
Polly –
Speaking of coordination failures, I’m curious if you have checked out this book?
I sincerely recommend it…
Extreme Government Makeover
Impact How Well Government Serves the Public
This book reveals the tips, secrets, and strategies of working better with government
The house of government is broken, and it needs a serious makeover from top to bottom. In his latest book, management expert Ken Miller discusses how the processes of government became so complicated and inefficient – and how to start cleaning up the mess. With his typical irreverent and funny tone, Ken lays out the simple ways that public-sector leaders can tear down all the twisted, broken parts of government and rebuild it stronger, leaner and better equipped to help citizens. Full of clear, concise tips on increasing government’s capacity, Extreme Government Makeover is essential reading for everyone in government, from top-level executives to managers and employees on the front lines.
…
The biggest problem in my agency is worrying about getting things wrong. It is a legit worry, but it can become a real blockage when you want to get things done quickly.
But it isn’t really the same problem that most people think of when you think about getting something (anything) done. “Fast, good or cheap” isn’t the real issue because you can’t necessarily pick two when “cheap” and “fast” are essentially the same thing - many fewer layers of review. Might work if you are building a software product or a bridge, but it doesn’t work when you are trying to figure out a legal question.
And if the bosses insist on reviewing all the decisions when they are already run off their feet with the other work they have to do, you aren’t going to get a lot of stuff out the door efficiently, even if the worker bee part of it was done ages ago.
“The biggest problem in my agency is worrying about getting things wrong.”
That hardly seems unique to your agency; in fact, I believe that is pretty much the norm in FedGov.
These people have never heard of Gantt charts or critical paths. That is, task B can’t get done before task A is done. They run “serially”, not “in parallel.”
“These people have never heard of…”
Which people do you mean — everyone who works for FedGov?
I am highly doubtful this statement is true…
“My basic idea is what would have happened if, instead of giving Hank Paulson a completely blank check to save the banks, Congress had given him authority to split them up, sell off the depositor and solvent commercial lending bits, and then made the shareholders and unsecured bond holders and CDS counterparties and all the other speculators take their lumps to the extent necessary to wind it all down.”
The FDIC has perfected the art of the silent bank shutdown, announced to the press late Friday afternoon with the bank back in business under new ownership on Monday morning.
Why not extend this seamless transition processes to Wall Street Megabanks who throw away money on bad loans, as an alternative to taxpayer-funded bailouts with no strings attached?
The FDIC does not have the knowledge base to extend their seemless transitions to investment banks that also trade gigantic and essentially unregulated personal portfolios. They are very good at small commercial banks where the idea is to get the depositors and business loan portfolios to a new bank that can handle them come Monday morning.
Unwinding Bear Sterns or Lehman or Goldman is much, much more complicated.
“Unwinding Bear Sterns or Lehman or Goldman is much, much more complicated.”
Then how about if we break up the too-big-to-fail banks into smaller, non-systemically-risky pieces which are much, much less complicated to resolve, in order to relieve the American taxpayer of the burdensome unfunded liability created by implicit free bailout insurance for too-big-to-fail investment banks? The Sherman Antitrust Act comes to mind (again!)…
‘Unwinding Bear Sterns or Lehman or Goldman is much, much more complicated’
In 2008 I was interviewed by Time Magazine. A lot of it was about the competing actions the govt should take about foreclosures and I told the reporter what I thought. She said, ’so you wouldn’t do ANYTHING?
I replied that there was a lot the govt could do; like start locking up all these crooks. And your right, why didn’t they bring down too big to fail instead of entrenching it?
Polly, would you care to weigh in here by reminding me once again that I am clueless about the law, and particularly, about why the Sherman Antitrust Act cannot be invoked to bring down too-big-to-fail once and for all?
Happily clueless,
Cantankerous Professor “Don’t Get Stucco” Bear
You regularly invoke Sherman Anti-trust when you notice people doing simlar things at similar times. That isn’t enough evidence. Never has been. You have to have proof that they are conspiring to do the same thing at the same time. That means you need a snitch. If you can find a snitch, go to town, but all the potential snitched were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements before they started work, so good luck.
The bankers aren’t in jail because a huge amount of what they did wasn’t illegal. It was immoral. It was evil. It was destructive. How can you believe the bankers have essentially owned the government for decades and think that they haven’t managed to get almost all of their business practices protected from being illegal?
The top heads of the banks simply set up performance standards that made the robo-signing inevitable (do it faster, do it with fewer people, etc.). They didn’t order it to be done that way.
As for the toxic waste securities, they are legal too as long as the disclosure was adequate. If you looked at those disclosures, you would have seen all sorts of stats about what kinds of loans were in the package, what levels of underwriting (or not) the loans were subject to, etc. You even would have seen stats about how quickly similar loans paid off and how likely similar loans in the past failed to pay off. The answer would have been pratically never, because while the bubble was inflating no loans ever did fail to pay off because you could always sell or refi. You would even see warnings that previous performance is no guarantee that the loans in that package would behave the same way.
The very few instances when there is real information that people would want to know and was not disclosed (we let our client pick the loans in this package to fail so they could bet against it), there are prosecutions. They might not win as they will claim that the “sophisticated” buyers knew what they were getting into, but prosecutions are going forward.
The problem is much more that horrible, evil, destructive behaviours aren’t illegal. They should be.
I thought the point of the Sherman Act was to break up monopolies? Though I agree that throwing financiers who committed illegal acts into jail is also an attractive plan.
The banks are not monopolies. As much as it is nice to think they are, they are not. They compete with each other. They wouldn’t have so many damned tv commercials if they didn’t. They wouldn’t send me so many credit card applications. And that is just the commercial side. Believe me the investment banking parts compete for clients. All the time.
Being too big to fail is not the same as being a monopoly. It would be nice if we could make the law we already have fit the problem we have, but we can’t. We need new rules (or bringing back the old rules or both) if you want to get rid of too big to fail.
“The banks are not monopolies.”
The sector is currently organized as an oligopoly with a competitive fringe. The lack of competition in the majority oligopoly sector is what gives rise to systemic risk and ripe conditions for too-big-to-fail bailouts.
As this article correctly asserts, too much concentration of a sector into the hands of too few firms increases the risk of crises. I suppose this is just fine from the standpoint of the managers of too-big-to-fail firms who are guaranteed bailouts when a crisis strikes.
High market concentration increases risk of crisis
By NADAV SHEMER
10/06/2011 00:06
Bank of Israel report outlines the lessons to be drawn from the crisis and how they can be applied to monetary, fiscal and economic policy.
The control a small number of companies hold over a large portion of the economy is unhealthy, and the collapse of one of those companies would rock the Israeli financial system, the Bank of Israel said in a report released Wednesday on lessons from the 2008 global financial crisis.
The lengthy report, co-edited by Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, Deputy Governor Karnit Flug and former deputy governor Zvi Eckstein, outlines the lessons to be drawn from the crisis and how they can be applied to monetary, fiscal and economic policy.
“The Israeli economy is stricken by the high concentration of the business sector, both in the non-financial and financial sectors, and by the control by only a few companies of a sizable portion of the sector’s activities,” the report said, referring to the fact that 20 companies control some 25 percent of firms listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
“This high concentration raises the risk to the financial system, in that these controlling companies pose the biggest risk to the banks, and the collapse of one of the companies is likely to rock the entire banking system,” the report said.
…
You are going to have to explain how you think that article about a different country and that doesn’t even mention monopoly pricing power is relevent. Can’t respond unless I have some idea of what you think about the article is important.
I have said that the too big to fail situation is evil and destructive and all sorts of other things. I’ve also said that we need new (and old) rules to fix it. Being bad doesn’t mean it should violate existing law, no that it does.
Sorry. Being bad means that it SHOULD violate existing laws, not that it does already.
And I don’t drink coffee.
“You are going to have to explain how you think that article about a different country and that doesn’t even mention monopoly pricing power is relevent.”
Sure. The article was about how excessive market concentration in the hands of too few firms increases the risk of crises. A case in point would be that of excessive concentration of the U.S. banking sector into the hands of J P Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — you know, the ones always mentioned in articles about the robo-signing scandal.
Any more questions?
Three comments on the recent WSJ Op-Ed by Jon Huntsman:
1) I would seriously consider voting for him if he made it through the Republican candidate vetting process.
2) Wall Street Megabanks will do everything within their power to ensure he will not make it through the Republican candidate vetting process.
3) I marked the passage relevant to yesterday’s exchange with Polly in bold italics.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
OPINION
OCTOBER 19, 2011, 12:04 A.M. ET
‘Too Big to Fail’ Is Simply Too Big
There is no evidence huge banks add sufficient value to offset the systemic risk they pose.
By JON HUNTSMAN
Is Dodd-Frank an appropriate regulatory response to the 2007 financial crisis? Tragically, no. That legislation ignores the government’s pervasive role in causing the crisis, assures future transfers from taxpayers to bankers by institutionalizing a government backstop for “too big to fail” firms, and imposes massive new regulations and unreasonable compliance costs on smaller banks. As a result, lending to small businesses from small banks suffers.
The government helped bring on the recession by distorting the housing market through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, touching off financial bubbles driven by excessive credit creation by the Federal Reserve, granting a privileged position to toothless rating agencies, and allowing the capture of regulatory agencies by the biggest Wall Street players. The largest banks were pushing hard to take more risk at taxpayers’ expense.
Today we can already see the outlines of the next financial crisis and bailouts. Mitt Romney admitted as much at last week’s debate in New Hampshire. While he gave lip service to opposing bailouts, when asked how we would avoid bailouts he offered no solutions other than implying he would participate in a bailout of Greece. The Obama and Romney plan appears to be to cross our fingers and hope no “too big to fail” banks fail on their watch.
More than three years after the crisis and the accompanying bailouts, the six largest American financial institutions are significantly bigger than they were before the crisis, having been encouraged to snap up Bear Stearns and other competitors at bargain prices. These banks now have assets worth over 66% of gross domestic product—at least $9.4 trillion, up from 20% of GDP in the 1990s. There is no evidence that institutions of this size add sufficient value to offset the systemic risk they pose.
The major banks’ too-big-to-fail status gives them a comparative advantage in borrowing over their competitors thanks to the federal bailout backstop. This funding subsidy amounts to roughly 50 basis points, or one-half of a percentage point in today’s market.
The big banks’ advocates claim that eliminating the too-big-to-fail subsidy would disadvantage American banks against global competition. But U.S. banks’ major competitors in the United Kingdom are facing more sweeping regulatory curbs than any yet proposed here, including the possibility that the investment banking businesses of the large banks would indeed be allowed to fail. The big competitors in Switzerland, another large financial center, are being forced to hold significantly more capital to offset their risks to the government.
The U.K. is absolutely right to attempt to take away this implicit bailout subsidy, and it should be supported by the U.S. We need a level playing field, in which all banks on both sides of the Atlantic achieve solid footing without relying on the implicit guarantee of a government bailout. Experts agree that small and medium-size businesses would benefit if their lenders faced lower regulatory burdens and fair competition with the too-big-to-fail firms.
There is more than one fix. The best would be to eliminate Dodd-Frank’s backstop. Congress should explore reforms now being considered by the U.K. to make the unwinding of its biggest banks less risky for the broader economy. It could impose a fee on banks whose size exceeds a certain percentage of the GDP to cover the cost they would impose on taxpayers in a bailout, thus eliminating the implicit subsidy of their too-big-to-fail status. Congress could also implement tax reform that eliminates the deduction for interest payments that gives a preference to debt over equity, thus ending subsidies for excess leverage.
Eliminating subsidies would encourage the affected institutions to downsize by selling off certain operations or face having to pay the real costs of bailouts. We need banks that are small and simple enough to fail, not financial public utilities.
Once too-big-to-fail is fixed, we could then more easily repeal the law’s unguided regulatory missiles, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. American banks provide advice and access to capital to the entrepreneurs and small business owners who have always been our economic center of gravity. We need a banking sector that is able to serve that critical role again. Otherwise the sector’s endgame will be continental Europe—an unsustainable socialist state and the death of entrepreneurship.
Hedge funds and private equity funds go out of business all the time when they make big mistakes, to the notice of few, because they are not too big to fail. There is no reason why banks cannot live with the same reality.
Mr. Huntsman, formerly a governor of Utah, Huntsman Corporation executive and ambassador to China and Singapore, is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
He published a reasonable, intelligent opinion based on fact. There’s no way he’ll get the nomination.
Really, really big is not the same as a monopoly. A single INDUSTRY being a great risk to the economy isn’t a monopoly.
“A monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος (alone or single) + polein / πωλειν (to sell)) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity”
We need other rules to protect us from the power of the big banks. Right to break them up if they are large enough that politicians could be intimidated into bailing them out is one way, but you can’t do it under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Getting the play money officially separated from the commercial banking needed to write checks and give business loans is also needed, but you can’t do it under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Better accounting rules so that they can’t hide any risk no matter how large in a SIV as long as they only own 49% of the corporate entity would be very helpful, but you can’t get it under the Sherman Anti-trust Act.
You can’t just say that something is so big and interconnected that it is dangerous and then conclude it is a monopoly. The world doesn’t work that way.
Governments always have to “do something” to show the sheeple how proactive and essential they are. Because if they did nothing and the universe set itself right on it’s own, people might begin to question why we need such a large, costly, and all-encompassing bureaucracy.
“Really, really big is not the same as a monopoly.”
My concern is not ‘being a monopoly,’ but rather exercising excessive market power, which is what the six surviving Wall Street Megabanks now do, more than ever, thanks to their excessive share of the banking sector, coupled with the continuance of implicit too-big-to-fail insurance.
I don’t believe this is as hard to grasp as you are pretending it is, Polly.
I have an editorial suggestion for something Polly said above:
“You can’t just say that something is so big and interconnected that it is dangerous and then conclude it is
a monopolytoo-big-to-fail.”Great ideas for fixing the too-big-to-fail problem have been floated. Now all we need is politicians who are willing and able to do what is best for American than for Wall Streets’ narrow and corrupt interests.
Fair Game
How Mr. Volcker Would Fix It
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: October 22, 2011
AMID all the minutiae of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, it’s easy to lose sight of the big question: will consumers, investors and the economy be safer?
That’s why a recent speech by Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and a voice of reason on matters financial, is so timely and important. Presented last month to the Group of 30, an organization devoted to international economic issues, the speech outlined crucial work that still must be done to safeguard our financial future. “Three Years Later: Unfinished Business in Financial Reform” was the title.
“By now it is pretty clear that it was faith in the techniques of modern finance, stoked in part by the apparent huge financial rewards, that enabled the extremes of leverage, the economic imbalances and the pretenses of the credit rating agencies to persist so long,” Mr. Volcker said in this remarkably candid talk.
The real treasures were found in his to-do list for further reforms. That heavy lifting includes addressing capital requirements (make them tough and enforceable), derivatives (make them more standardized and transparent) and auditors (ensure that they are truly independent by rotating them periodically).
He also spoke of the perils of institutions that are too large or interconnected to be allowed to fail. Calling this the greatest structural challenge facing the financial system, he said we must shrink the risks these companies pose, “whether by reducing their size, curtailing their interconnections or limiting their activities.”
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horrible, evil, destructive behaviours aren’t illegal. They should be.
Nothing should be illegal because free markets always police and regulate themselves.
Here is some suggested reading, Polly:
My lovely wife just handed me the latest addition to my library of books about the financial crisis. The final chapter is entitled “The American Oligarchy: Six Banks.”
13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (Google eBook)
Front Cover
Simon Johnson, James Kwak
Random House Digital, Inc., 2010 - Business & Economics - 304 pages
Even after the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, America is still beset by the depredations of an oligarchy that is now bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six Megabanks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—which together control assets amounting, astonishingly, to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, these financial institutions (now more emphatically “too big to fail”) continue to hold the global economy hostage, threatening yet another financial meltdown with their excessive risk-taking and toxic “business as usual” practices. How did this come to be—and what is to be done? These are the central concerns of 13 Bankers, a brilliant, historically informed account of our troubled political economy.
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Oligopoly is not monopoly.
Exactly Montana. There are problems. The law doesn’t address those problems. Wishing that the laws we have would address those problems doesn’t fix the mismatch.
Why can’t we just reinstate Glass-Steagall? I mean, it worked pretty damn well from the 1930s until 1999. Our big banks were profitable, and able to compete internationally. What did repealing it give us as a benefit? Nothing that I can see. Like Volcker said, the ATM is the last banking innovation that benefited the average joe. What would reinstating it hurt? It would surely end most if not all of the TBTF problems, without worrying whether or not they were monopolies.
“What did repealing it give us as a benefit?”
Too-big-to-fail coupled with too-big-to-bail.
Well, I think Volker is wrong. On-line bill payment systems are awsome.
Glass-Steagall is a good start. Not sure it is enough at this point, since even the commecial banks have to hold triple A bonds as reserves and if anyone is out there making bogus triple A bonds, there is a huge risk to the system. It doesn’t really matter who is making them; it matters who is holding them and thinking they are safe.
“Why not extend this seamless transition processes to Wall Street Megabanks who throw away money on bad loans, as an alternative to taxpayer-funded bailouts with no strings attached?”
Haven’t you noticed that the little-fish banks that fail are almost always sold to somewhat larger banks (who frequently wanto expand their geographic footprint)?
That model only works for smaller banks. Who is the larger fish who will buy the biggest-fish bang when it fails?
wanto = want to
bang = bank
Note to self: more coffee required before posting.
“Who is the larger fish who will buy the biggest-fish bang when it fails?”
Since the Fed-turned-hedge-fund snaps up MBS and any other asset class it damn well chooses, why couldn’t it just as well snap up failing Megabanks and sell off the pieces? It would make sense to have the Fed do this, as they own the fiat money printing press, and hence are not constrained by “too big to resolve.”
Another reason the Fed might buy MBS
Posted by Cardiff Garcia on Oct 28 20:47.
If you’ve been following reports of what might happen at next week’s FOMC’s meeting, you probably know that the Fed is contemplating further purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities.
And there are least two, somewhat obvious justifications for it:
1) Housing market activity continues to languish, and buying MBS will further shrink the spread of mortgage rates over US Treasuries. Hopefully more homeowners that currently pay above-market rates will refinance.
2) Buying MBS is a complement both to the earlier Operation Twist and to the Administration’s latest housing proposal, which is meant to help previously ineligible homeowners refinance and therefore could produce higher mortgage rates as prepayments lead MBS investors to drive them up. The Fed’s buying more agency MBS could act as an offset.
(It’s also just a straightforward way for the Fed to expand its balance sheet.)
Fine, and although we don’t know how effective this would be as economic stimulus, at least it’s a coherent rationale. But if the committee does proceed with QE3, here, from Credit Suisse economists, is an additional explanation for it that the Fed probably won’t mention (our emphasis):
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The global financial system currently has a too-big-to-be-stable problem. The solution for all this systemic risk is to break up large financial firms into smaller pieces, then let Darwinian competition winnow out those which make stoopid decisions (e.g. approving $700K mortgage loans to strawberry pickers making $30K in income). Without competition, the rest of the world is perpetually stuck with the stupidity tab for too-big-to-fail gambling losses.
Making $700K loans to $30K a year borrowers won’t bring down a small bank if they sell all the risk to a set of bond holders who are assureed their investment is triple A. All that loan would do for the small bank is bring in a great big fat fee. Just like it did for the big bank or non-bank mortgage originator.
Making something small doesn’t help if the risk is still externalized. Then you will just have a few thousand entities making the same dumb decisions that a few hundred used to make. And they don’t have to get together to decide to do it. They are all capable of coming to the same conclusion independently.
“Making something small doesn’t help if the risk is still externalized.”
Agreed. However, making something small does help alleviate the systemic risk that might otherwise be created if the small something is forced to internalize the bad risk it created and subsequently croaks.
Not if all of them croak together. They were all making the same bad loans. You can’t let the whole banking system fail over a few years anymore than you can let it fail over a few weeks. It is the externalized risk that is the real problem.
Lots of little entities externalizing risk or just a few big entities externalizing risk and you still have lots of externalized risk. And that means you have pension funds and insurance companies and mutual funds and all the other big pools of money finding out all of a sudden that their “safe” investments weren’t and they have lost it all.
And it makes no difference at all how many organizations originated the loans or securitized them or service them or anything. The externalized risk is the problem.
“Not if all of them croak together.”
But with a bunch of small-enough-to-fail lenders, they don’t. Witness how the FDIC only shutters a small handful of small-enough-to-fail banks each Friday…
“But with a bunch of small-enough-to-fail lenders, they don’t.”
What about the S&Ls?
That is because they are generally small banks having problems with small bank lending portfolios. If those banks behaved like the big ones by holding a lot of toxic waste bonds and writing CDS contracts without any back up and putting risky assets in SIVs so they didn’t have to put the actual risk on their books and all of that, they would all fail at once when a big credit crisis hit.
You are claiming that it is the smallness that matters. It isn’t. It is the slight difference in the business model that matters. If they all went at once, then the FDIC wouldn’t be able to take care of them all in a weekend.
And alpha-sloth has provided a good example.
Again, a lot of small entities with a disasterous business model is just as bad as a few huge entities with a disasterous business model. It is taking on too much risk and losing that matters.
“What about the S&Ls?”
That is a completely different story. Let’s just say that the FSLIC saga points up a big problem with government-provided insurance. And getting rid of the too-big-to-fail problem is no guarantee federal housing regulators won’t find another way to destroy the effective operation of lending markets.
“…a lot of small entities with a disasterous business model…”
The advantage of a lot of small entities is that even if some of them have disastrous business models, there is a good chance others will not. And those without disastrous business models are far more likely to continue in operation compared to the disastrously-modeled operations, especially if those who run the organization get to suffer as a consequence of the disaster their business plan creates.
With too-big-to-fails, all it takes is a few Megabanks all copying each others’ disastrous business model for the whole sector to collapse.
The Swedish took a different road in their 1992 banking crisis than the U.S. took with its TARP. Perhaps it makes a difference if your finance minister is a former investment bank CEO? Crony capitalism tends to be very beneficial to crony capitalists.
Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way
By CARTER DOUGHERTY
Published: September 22, 2008
A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic. Sound familiar?
It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent.
But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United States Treasury. And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing.
Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.
That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.
“If I go into a bank,” said Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s minister for fiscal and financial affairs at the time, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”
…
I guess its good to have a king?
It certainly is for those who are in good with the king…
You mean we don’t have one?
King Obama?
Published: 29 June, 2011, 01:02
Edited: 29 June, 2011, 17:56
As the ICC puts out a warrant for one world leader — Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi — some US lawmakers are beginning to feel like President Barack Obama is becoming a bit of a monarch himself and less of the voice of the people that elected him.
…
He’s a puppet. Nothing more.
Socialism!
Socialism!
Lost its impact…
Obama is a Bolshevist. (just like Hitler was)
“The low interest rates that helped boost housing and the U.S. economy after the early-2000s recession (and eventually created the bubble that caused the Great Recession) have been ineffective this time around.”
Has it occurred to the Fed leaders yet that they are pushing on a string? Or do they still have an unlimited number of other tools in their kit, just waiting to be implemented at the right moment?
It seems to me that every course of action known to man, regardless of what it involves (health, diet, financial, social, political remedies, whatever) reaches a point of diminishing to negative return.
A major part of being both wise and effective, no matter what your world view or endeavor, is understanding this fact, and realizing when one needs to swallow their pride and stand down or at least give things a rest for a while.
I’m glad the no-bailout hypo was addressed. yopu know damn well if they hadn’t done, back in 2008, that the experts and public would be screaming why didn’t they dooo something to prevent this??
‘if they hadn’t done, back in …’
Couldn’t you say the same thing now? Have you heard the ‘We can’t wait’ rhetoric this week? Wait for what, another ‘plan’? Actually, you could make that claim at any point at any time.
The proof is in the pudding. It’s not good enough to say, well unemployment is at modern highs, the future looks weak, we’re drowning in debt, people are protesting in the streets all over the nation and the world, but you better thank your lucky stars we DID something!
I should point out that the govt borrowed that money. Just like Japan borrowed to paper over their bubbles, and look where they are now. At some point, we have a right to ask for results, and to me the actions taken in 2008 didn’t result in a darn thing except more debt and a bunch of moral hazard.
“…but you better thank your lucky stars we DID something!”
Just imagine how many unemployed broke people would be out on the streets protesting now if they hadn’t!
how many unemployed broke people would be out on the streets protesting now if they hadn’t?
Argentina ??
They’ll be along presently. Nothing was fixed, only delayed.
Yup, either way, no one’s satisfied. It’s hard to prove something would have happened that didn’t or hasn’t yet happened.
The 50% bond haircut bailout path taken in the eurozone should make for a good comparative economic study in a few decades: Was moral hazard in the international banking system more successfully eliminated by the no-strings-attached TARP or by the share-the-pain eurozone bailout?
Fitch Says EU Agreement on 50% Greek Bond Haircut Would Be Default Event
By Jennifer Ryan - Oct 28, 2011 7:29 AM PT
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, right, speaks during a press conference with Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, held at the end of a Eurozone summit at the Justus Lipsius building, EU headquarters in Brussels, on October 27, 2011. Photographer: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images
European leaders’ agreement on a 50 percent haircut on Greek bonds may create an event of default if investors accept it, Fitch Ratings said in a statement today.
“The 50 percent nominal haircut on the proposed bond exchange would be viewed by the agency as a default event under its Distressed Debt Exchange criteria,” the statement said. While the accord is “a necessary step to put the Greek sovereign’s public finances on a more sustainable footing,” Greece will face “significant challenges” including ratios of government debt to gross domestic product at “well over 100 percent even in a positive scenario.”
European officials concluded their 14th crisis summit in 21 months early yesterday in Brussels with an agreement that persuades investors in Greek government bonds to write down half their holdings. Fitch said today that more details are needed on the accord, which includes an increase in the region’s rescue fund to 1 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion).
“It’s highly likely that all three rating agencies will classify this restructuring as a technical default,” said Padhraic Garvey, head of developed debt-market strategy at ING Groep NV in Amsterdam. “Even if it’s voluntary, investors are left with a product that’s lower in value to what they originally agreed.”
…
Matt Taibbi on moving the derivatives to the FDIC insured bank holding company, but a lot of the background info talks about the benfits the big banks have received recently:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-weapon-for-ows-pull-your-money-out-of-b-of-a-20111028
It’s almost like people who have found themselves deeply in debt, going to the casino with their last dollar, hoping to win enough to pay everything off.
Question for Polly:
Polly, I agree with you that what the banksters did was immoral and evil, but I think since it is tied to mortgage fraud, it is quite in our face that it should be considered illegal. Look at this statement by Alan Greenspan when he appeared before Congress and admitted he was wrong:
Mr. Greenspan, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, placed far more blame on the Wall Street companies that bundled subprime mortgages into pools and sold them as mortgage-backed securities. Global demand for the securities was so high, he said, that Wall Street companies pressured lenders to lower their standards and produce more “paper.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html
This quote and Dr. Michael Burry’s article show the collusion and what you say about invoking Sherman Anti-trust “when you notice people doing simlar things at similar times.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-201004
Is it too difficult to interrogate the people named here to get to the bottom of this mess and charge those who are guilty with perpetrating this fraud and aiding and abetting fraud?
Securities do not have to be safe to be sold. The only requirement is that the information that a reasonable investor would want to know be disclosed. And that is for publicly sold ones. For a private placement, the standards can be less, since they only allow people allegedly sophisticated enough to understand what could be wrong to buy them.
Getting more paper through lower standards is not mortgage fraud. Pressuring people to generate more loans is not mortgage fraud. Giving loans to people who can’t pay off the terms as written isn’t mortgage fraud. It is evil. It is tragic. It is horrible. But it isn’t illegal.
You only get to illegal when they don’t follow the rules in place for disclosing what is in the loan package.
And while Greenspan was constantly lowering interest rates, he was also increasing the amount that people could borrow at a given amount of “how much a month” payments. So they could even put in stats about there not being any bad loans in the packages from the previous 2 or 3 years. Because refinancing was always available due to the lower and lower interest rates.
Setting up an evil system that will inevitably have to lead to economic collapse is not illegal. If that were the case, getting into two ground wars (off book) while passing a giant tax cut would also have been illegal (except it was a law, at least in part). Just the little bits that actually violate the statutes we have are illegal.
That is why we need the consumer protection bureau. Why we need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate.
And we also need to remind this country that banks aren’t there to serve you. They are there to serve their shareholders. I get why people took out the impossible loans. For decades the rule in this country was that bankers were stingy with loans and if they weren’t really convinced you could pay it back, you wouldn’t get one. But that changed when the banks stopped holding the loans they originated. My father has an MBA and he completely missed the transition. How the heck is a plumber or a supermarket clerk supposed to have noticed? What if they told you as you sat down to sign the papers that the bank has no idea if you can pay it back the loan you are taking out, but they are going to give it to you because it earns them thousands of dollars in commissions and someone else will have to worry about getting paid? Would you think twice about taking it?
The originator of the loan or the packager of the securities (my preference) needs to be REQUIRED to keep the most risky part of the package as an equity stake to fix this. The riskiest. And any losses need to come directly from the shareholders and impact the pay of the executives that run the bank. They need to have to evaluate the benefit of increased volume vs. lending to people who can’t pay. No selling off that risk or insuring it. I prefer 10%, but 5% will do for a start. Put their money where their loans are.
You could also say Vietnam was a fraud and 50K people died for following orders. You could have been a dissenter and would up in jail or fleeing the country.
Similarly if you were on the front line of a mortgage storefront and you had either a brain or a conscience you would have been FIRED for being the lowest producer. That is exactly why there were so many airhead chicky-poos and gamer guys frontin the business….
Polly, I agree with you that what the banksters did was immoral and evil, but I think since it is tied to mortgage fraud, it is quite in our face that it should be considered illegal
“That is exactly why there were so many airhead chicky-poos and gamer guys frontin the business…
They weren’t necesarily airheads, they just didn’t have a moral compass. The whole “chicky-poo” and “gamer-guy” image was to make “customers” feel at ease when signing on the dotted line. FWIW, I’ve met a few of these folks over the years (one recently was a head hunter) and while they might look and act like bimbos they are a lot sharper than you might think.
Always remember, they are salesdroids, and salesdroids get you to sign on the dotted line by winning you over. A chicky poo with big boobs can certainly do that with a lot of guys.
I was but putty in chicky-poo’s hands.
Yeah i guess so …I knew a salesgirl a WHTZ z 100 who slept with the married owner of the dj company i worked at just to make sure she got paid for the commercial time he bought
They weren’t necesarily airheads, they just didn’t have a moral compass
“With the federal funds rate at near-zero for nearly three years now, not to mention historically low mortgage rates, the Federal Reserve has been scrambling to find ways to fix the economy from the monetary side, providing monetary easing and altering its balance sheet. However, such policy is proving ineffective.”
The ol’ fighting the war with the last war’s methods.
And I havent seen a dime in monetary easing on Credit cards… have you?
“I havent seen a dime in monetary easing on Credit cards”
I have. I think my variable rate cards are at something like 6 or 7%. Of course, I never carry a balance, so it doesn’t do anything for me, but the interest rate is a lot lower than it used to be.
true it did go down a few years ago…but QE1 2 3 and all the other easing did nothing……
My take on this is the money should have gone to the thousands of small banks and credit unions to take the business from 5 giant banks and today we would have truly competitive banking. Let the bond holders eat the RISK they took entertaining high interest rates and we would be on the road not only to recovery but prosperity!
Ive always said we should have bailed out CIT and not AIG .. CIT provided loans to small business and when the market seized up …small business ran out of cash and credit and had to close up en mass.
“Does anyone want to talk about what would have really happened if the banks hadn’t been ‘rescued’ in the manner they were all those years ago? My basic idea is what would have happened if, instead of giving Hank Paulson a completely blank check to save the banks, Congress had given him authority to split them up, sell off the depositor and solvent commercial lending bits, and then made the shareholders and unsecured bond holders and CDS counterparties and all the other speculators take their lumps to the extent necessary to wind it all down.”
Nothing cataclysmic. Surprise. They were NOT in a mortgage meltdown and still are not - F&F have seen to that with more than 90% of all mortgages insured - now by gov.
What they were in trouble with was their gambling accounts - yes they sold their mortgages to Wall Street and in turn managed them for a fee — but when they found how incredibly profitable this reselling was, and on such ultra high values, they traded heavily in mortgage backed securities buying and selling. Their problem was the exchange that was set up in Montreal to handle these transactions crashed ! No more market for their junk. The only values they were on the hook for - hence losses - were for the amount they owned on “crash day”.
And since those mortgages had, and still have a value, they were not in any way set to go under. Your own banks and insurance companies became the biggest buyers of this junk and got stuck holding an uninsured BAG - - which they have already written off ! Entirely ! Others held a miniscule amount and are being made out as the biggest losers. Hogwash, you Americans are.
The biggest travesty will be known as the BB nonsense - by forcing interest rates low he has destroyed the productive side of the economy in favour of lowering the cost of government and HIS perceived impending failure of the banks — he just didn’t understand what the problem really was.
Higher interest rates will return insurance companies with whole life policies to profitably (majority). Higher rates will ensure more disposable income for the massive retirement community. Return on investment within ALL manufacturers, service companies, agricultural, and resource endeavours will be forced into economies of efficiency and scale not possible with low rates.
Why is the president fooling around with nonsense subsidies when he should be looking at the holistic picture? The few trees he sees are not a forest.
Don’t even get me going on the industrial ripoffs of our technologies and the selling back to us of inferior products as a result. Those occupy wall street guys should be picketing Walmart, Costco, etc to force them to stop buying foreign goods. Our politicians are too gutless to do it.
Patrick:
You miss the next big default Credit cards…In order to circumvent the new credit cards law tens of millions were issued as Variable rate cards…so when the fed hikes the prime rate the credit cards companies can pass it through on THE WHOLE BALANCE….
Right now they can only raise rates on future purchases and balances,
Unless they can figure out how to get your account into a default status in which case all bets are off.
Or.. If you hold a business card in which case the CARD act does not apply. Millions of small businesses use credit cards as business loans to get through jobs etc.
That said I have noted credit card balances are ticking up again and it is more likely a combination of high balances and job loss will impact default rates than waiting for the Fed to raise rates…
It only takes 6 months of unemployment to send most Americans to FICO jail, and along the way 30% APRs etc…
That’s why i advice everyone to get sued and go to court, if you cant pay , well you cant pay….judges here as a gift to the CC companies will reschedule your court date 6 months or even a year in advance, and make it Final.
To give the CC companies another bite at you, in case you do get a job or money….or better yet you Forget to show up and they get the judgment for the whole amount and all the fees.
THE WILLIAM TAYLOR MEMORIAL LECTURE
PAUL A. VOLCKER
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 23, 2011
THREE YEARS LATER:
UNFINISHED BUSINESS IN FINANCIAL REFORM
Fair Game
A Deal That Wouldn’t Sting
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: October 29, 2011
AFTER months of back and forth, a deal that is supposed to punish large financial institutions for foreclosure misconduct may be nigh.
While the exact terms remain under wraps, some aspects of this agreement — between banks on one side, and the federal government and a raft of state attorneys general on the other — are coming into focus.
Things could change, of course, and the deal could go by the boards. But here’s the state of play, according to people who have been briefed on the negotiations but were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Cutting to the chase: If you thought this was the deal that would hold banks accountable for filing phony documents in courts, foreclosing without showing they had the legal right to do so and generally running roughshod over anyone who opposed them, you are likely to be disappointed.
…
Too big to fail
Avoiding regional resentment
Oct 26th 2011, 20:57 by M.S.
THE 2012 election cycle is likely to feature plenty of inveighing against government underwriting of “too big to fail” financial institutions. From the left, the rhetoric will concentrate on the big bad financial industry, which demands that government bail it out or the economy gets it. From the right, it will concentrate on big bad government, which demands that the financial industry take its money in order to consolidate socialist control over the economy. Or something; I’ve never entirely understood how that argument runs.
In any case, one line of argument the election cycle won’t feature is candidates for senator from Nebraska, say, arguing that Nebraska taxpayers have no business bailing out New York banks. Or candidates for senator from Massachusetts, say, arguing that Massachusetts taxpayers have no business bailing out Georgia banks. That kind of argument, however, is now preventing the German political system from assembling the necessary political capital to save the euro, reports Quentin Peel.
‘Why don’t you tell the German taxpayers the truth?’ he demanded of Ms Merkel. ‘They are being asked to pay for the losses of the French banks’. The chancellor looked pained and irritated.
Breakingviews
Italy: Too big to fail, too big to bail
HUGO DIXON
Reuters Breakingviews
Published Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 1:00PM EDT
Last updated Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 7:37PM EDT
The issue dwarfing all others in the euro crisis is how to save Italy. Financial engineering of the sort discussed at Sunday’s summit will, at best, buy time. Ultimately, Rome needs to save itself.
As has often been said, Italy is too big to fail but also too big to bail, with its near 2-trillion-euro debt – equivalent to 120 per cent of gross domestic product. That hasn’t stopped the rest of Europe trying all sorts of financial gymnastics
…
Spoiler alert: Brace yourself for a shocking revelation…
The European Debt Crisis: The Creditors are America’s “Too Big to Fail” Wall Street Banksters
by Bob Chapman
Global Research, October 26, 2011
International Forecaster
We address this European issue, because soon it will debut in the US. The comprehensive policy response, which we have been told existed, really doesn’t exist. We found that out last Friday. All the lies of the past two weeks by various European governments and bureaucrats, as well as Mr. Sarkozy and Mrs. Merkel, were just more delaying tactics to attempt to find a solution to Europe’s financial dilemma. As part of this display of smoke and mirrors, these hopeful signs, generated large gains in US and European stock markets, of course, with the assistance of the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.” At the same time as usual gold, silver and commodities markets were attacked viciously. This is how markets and economies are manipulated when in control of our corporatist fascist government.
…
Economy Alters How Americans Are Moving
By JENNIFER MEDINA and SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: October 27, 2011
LOS ANGELES — The continuing economic downturn has drastically altered the internal migration habits of Americans, turning the flood of migrants into the Sun Belt and out of states like New York, Massachusetts and California into a relative trickle, an analysis of recent federal data confirms.
Essentially, millions of Americans have become frozen in place, researchers say, unable to sell their homes and unsure they would find jobs elsewhere anyway.
…
Maybe its also because there are no jobs in the sunbelt?
And the sunbelt sucks?
Unless you love crossing six lane, arterial “roadways” for your $8/hr. telemarketing job (plus commission!).
Barclays joins serial bottom callers brigade: “The housing recovery will begin next year.”
Housing: Been Down So Low, It Looks Like Up to Me
…
Tight loan standards and weak job markets in recent years have sharply reduced people’s willingness and ability to start a household, which continues to weigh heavily on home demand. Since 2006, the rate of household formation has slowed dramatically. The current number of U.S. households is about 4.9 million below what the trend prior to the recession would have predicted. “Until the labor market shows sustained strength, the pace of household formation is likely to languish around current levels,” say Barclays analysts in their latest outlook for 2012 home prices.
In the second quarter, less than 66 percent of households owned their homes, the lowest rate of home ownership since 1998. Renting is the fast-growing trend, especially among the financially strapped, those facing foreclosure, and young people, according to the latest outlook from Freddie Mac. In the year through the second quarter, the Census Bureau says 800,000 new households were formed, but that reflects a mix of 600,000 fewer homeowners and 1.4 million new renters. The drop in homeownership has been the steepest for heads of households under 30 years old.
The Barclays outlook expects prices to end 2011 close to 2 percent below a year ago and then increase modestly by about 1.5 percent in 2012. Those projections are similar to most, but with one key assumption: The U.S. doesn’t relapse into a recession, caused by the failure of policymakers in Europe to prevent a full-blown financial crisis or by actions of U.S. policymakers that would impose excessive budget tightening next year. In a recession scenario, the analysts project an additional 7 percent drop in house prices, accompanied by a 12 percent jobless rate.
Barring that, 2012 is set to be the first year of the housing recovery, but it may not feel like one until mortgage restrictions ease and the labor markets are strong enough to offer more support.
Judging from the U.S. stock market, it appears the crisis* is now over, along with the impetus to implement QE3.
Investors to shift focus from Europe to US economy
By Christopher S. Rugaber and Daniel Wagner
AP Economics Writers / October 30, 2011
WASHINGTON—Encouraging news from Europe helped ignite stock prices in October. This week, investors will shift their focus to U.S. economic data, which might temper their exuberance.
Three events this week will command attention: the U.S. jobs report for October, the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quarterly news conference.
A report Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a solid 2.5 annual rate in the July-September quarter. That helped ease concerns that another recession might be nearing. Yet the news may have also raised unrealistic expectations about the economy. Investors could end up disappointed.
“There’s a big difference between avoiding recession and stronger growth,” said Eric Green, chief U.S. economist at TD Securities. “The economic data will be OK, but it’s not going to be a catalyst to move stocks up” significantly.
Last week, investors were cheered by the deal European leaders reached Thursday. European banks agreed to take a 50 percent loss on their holdings of Greek government bonds. They will also set aside more money to cushion against future losses.
Leaders also pledged to expand the European Union’s bailout fund.
The announcement catapulted U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average rocketed 339 points Thursday and appears headed for its sharpest monthly gain since 1987.
…
*Whichever facet of the crisis you care about, that is…
I had to work today, Sunday, and I started with a wheat half-stack at the local cafe. Several of the regulars were talking about looming cuts, state funding for programs administered by the county. This was likely what I overheard a few ladies discussing last week at the coffee shop. Family supporting jobs with benefits are real tough to come by in this hard scrabble area, so this will be felt immediately. I browsed over to the Seattle Times: apparently the drop in consumer spending is responsible for a drop in tax revenues according to the governor who must trim nearly $2-billion worth of services. Yikes! The governor blames Wall street, the regulators, and congress for the current demise.
IN THE WAKE OF THE Bubble [Mortgage Banking]
October 25, 2011 | Proquest LLC
Trying, but failing, to escape Pollock’s Law.
The dominant financial and economic fact of 2011 is that we are still living in the wake of the great 21st-century bubble.* The dominant problem with being in the wake of the bubble is that we cannot escape Pollock’s Law of Finance, which states: Loans that cannot be paid will not be paid. Because they will not be paid, the loans will default and impose losses. * In the wake of a bubble, the losses are unavoidably massive. This applies both to the American housing and commercial real estate bubble, and to the European sovereign debt bubble. * Because this iron law and its implications are highly unpleasant, financial actors and politicians strive mightily to escape them in spite of the fact that they cannot, with scheme after scheme. All to no avail, of course. The massive losses must ultimately be taken.
So the questions are not: Will the loans default? They will. Or: Will the losses be huge? They will be. The only real questions are: What form will the defaults take? Who will take the losses? And when will the losses be recognized by those who are going to take them? These real questions provide plenty of room for lawyers, accountants and politicians to operate.
Guided by these insights, we can make more sense of financial crises and their accompanying rhetoric.
Obviously, who will take the losses is open to vast amounts of debate, negotiating, whining, politics, fingerpointing, lawsuits and subterfuge. Naturally, each party would prefer that losses be moved to someone else. Of course, one notable move is from unwise or unlucky investors, lenders and borrowers - by way of governments - to taxpayers.
But losses are also moved among lenders by way of deposit insurance; by way of legal wrangling, from investors to lenders; or by way of politics, from borrowers to investors.
Much financial ink and discussion have been spent trying to ensure that in future market busts, significant losses can be moved to the bondholders of financial companies; for example, by designing contingent convertible bonds, or “co-co’s.” But what an odd discussion this is, to be sure. Of course bondholders should take losses ahead of taxpayers. Who could argue with that as a fundamental principle?
And yet, the bondholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will get 100 cents on the dollar of all principal and interest on time, experiencing not a single penny of credit loss. The losses have been moved to the taxpayers, who will take a trimming of $160 billion or so.
…
Wall Street is not the only corner of the globe where the 99%ers are protesting:
China Housing Market Crash, Shanghai Homeowners Smash Showroom in Protest of Falling Prices
Housing-Market / China Economy Oct 28, 2011 - 06:01 AM
By: Mike_Shedlock
The property bubble in China has finally burst. Denial has turned to anger as Shanghai Homeowners Smash Showroom in Protest Over Falling Prices
A group of around 400 homeowners in Shanghai demonstrated publicly and damaged a showroom operated by their property developer after the company said it cut prices. Home buyers had wanted to speak with the developer to refund or cancel their contracts but were unsuccessful, according to local media. One report said the price cuts exceeded 25% per square meter.
The local media reports said an unspecified number of people were injured.
Chinese media separately reported that another group of Shanghai homeowners gathered on Saturday to speak with Longfor Properties Co., after it dropped asking prices to 14,000 yuan per square meter from 18,000 yuan per square meter at a residential development in the city’s Jiading district.
The Shanghai property-owner demonstration found little support on China’s Internet, where most still expressed worries that housing prices are too high.
22% Drop Overnight
The drop from 18,000 to 14,000 yuan is a 22% overnight drop and that is just a down payment on the carnage that is coming.
Housing Math in China
18,000 Yuan per square meter is about $2,835 per square meter
One square meter = 10.7639104 square feet
Cost per square foot = $2,835 ÷ 10.7639104 = $263.38 per square foot
In downtown Shanghai, the price is 48,000 yuan per square meter or roughly $696.77 per square foot.
I am told these are for roughly finished units (no carpeting, appliances, etc), just stark bare units.
For more on absurd Downtown Shanghai property prices, please see Property Developers Hurting in China; New Homes Sales Down 50% in Shanghai; Preposterous Prices Won’t Last; Commodities to be Hit in Building Slump
Protests Hit China as Property Prices Fall
Yahoo! Finance has additional protest details in Protests hit China as property prices fall
Hundreds of angry home buyers launched a series of protests in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai this week, as owners decried falling prices for their properties, state media said Thursday.
In the latest incident, some 200 home owners on Wednesday besieged the sales office for a project of leading developer Greenland Group, demanding refunds.
“We require a refund because the loss we are suffering now is too great for us to afford,” the Shanghai Daily quoted a protestor as saying.
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An awesome aspect of the incipient Chinese property crash: The number of all-cash Chinese buyers of U.S. real estate is about to dwindle, quite similarly to the dwindling of California real estate investors snapping up properties in flyover country after the U.S. real estate bubble burst.
About Japanese multinationals moving abroad….
It is already happening. In the past, small companies moved to cheaper places like China & Vietnam. Now the big ones are moving a part of their headquarters overseas.
Panasonic just moved its parts aquisition department to Singapore according to Mainichi Daily News….I’m thinking it’s a beginning of a trend.
hero
I can tell you all for a real fact there is NO recovery and at least in Southern California we continue to spiral around the porcelain bowl. I am still doing OK having expanded my advertising as far east as Palm Springs and as far north as Ventura County all the way to the Mexican border. North San Diego county used to fare as well.
95% Of my customers are trying to get a home on the market or get a rental deposit back. There is virtually no discretionary spending at all
folks are hurting and it is not getting better at all.