Credit Writedowns Fri 2009-10-23 09:00 EDT

The next crisis is already under way

Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times wrote a very important comment piece in today's Financial Times. In it he said that central banks are targeting asset prices to avoid the brunt of cyclical downturns. This policy is inducing asset bubbles and creating a more volatile real economy with unpredictable negative consequences...Munchau invokes Hyman Minsky's model of financial instability to help explain how this sets us up for a volatile future because traditional macroeconomic theory is inadequate for understanding what got us to this point. In essence, the idyllic state of economic and price stability we know as ``the Great Moderation'' is really just a financialization of the economy. However, a large financial sector leads to excessive dependence on asset prices to fuel growth, which in turn leads to an accumulation of debt...

credit writedowns; Crisis; way.

Willem Buiter's Maverecon Sat 2009-10-10 13:13 EDT

I know I know nothing; but at least I know that

Willem Buiter

...Except for the important qualifier that the US dollar is a global reserve currency, and that the US government (and private sector) has most of its domestic and external liabilities denominated in US dollars, the pathologies of financial boom, bubble and bust in the US, the UK, Iceland, Ireland and Spain (and many of the Central and East European emerging market economies) track those of classical emerging market crises in South America, Asia and CEE in the 1990s, rather well. The emerging market analogy makes one less optimistic about a robust recovery, as typically, emerging markets whose financial sector was destroyed by a serious financial crisis took many years to recover their pre-crisis growth rates and often never recovered their pre-crisis GDP paths.

know; least; Willem Buiter's Maverecon.

zero hedge Sat 2009-10-10 11:57 EDT

The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet: An Update

Ben S. Bernanke

...the Federal Reserve has faced two historically unusual constraints on policy. First, the financial crisis, by increasing credit risk spreads and inhibiting normal flows of financing and credit extension, has likely reduced the degree of monetary accommodation associated with any given level of the federal funds rate target, perhaps significantly. Second, since December, the targeted funds rate has been effectively at its zero lower bound (more precisely, in a range between 0 and 25 basis points), eliminating the possibility of further stimulating the economy through cuts in the target rate. To provide additional support to the economy despite these limits on traditional monetary policy, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the Board of Governors have taken a number of actions and initiated a series of new programs that have increased the size and changed the composition of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. I thought it would be useful this evening to review for you the most important elements of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, as well as some aspects of their evolution over time. As you'll see, doing so provides a convenient means of explaining the steps the Federal Reserve has taken, beyond conventional interest rate reductions, to mitigate the financial crisis and the recession, as well as how those actions will be reversed as the economy recovers...

Federal Reserve's balance sheet; Update; Zero Hedge.

Tue 2009-09-22 08:32 EDT

From Bear to Bull: James Grant on Recession and Recovery - WSJ.com

James Grant

James Grant argues the latest gloomy forecasts ignore an important lesson of history: The deeper the slump, the zippier the recovery.

Bear; Bulls; com; James Grant; Recession; recovery; WSJ.

Tue 2009-09-22 08:18 EDT

Guest post: Regulation in Defense of Capitalism

Rick Bookstaber

Will regulation hobble capitalism? I think the opposite is true. Properly done, government regulation of the financial industry will move the industry closer to the capitalist ideal. By capitalism, I mean where those who take the risks and put up the money get the fruits of their labor. And, importantly, where those who take the risks and put up the money actually do take the risks, bearing the full costs of failure as well as success.

capitalism; defense; Guest Post; Regulators.

Rick Bookstaber Sun 2009-09-20 14:30 EDT

Regulation in Defense of Capitalism

Rick Bookstaber

Will regulation hobble capitalism? I think the opposite is true. Properly done -- and I think most of the financial regulation that is envisioned fits into this camp -- government regulation of the financial industry will move the industry closer to the capitalist ideal. By capitalism, I mean where those who take the risks and put up the money get the fruits of their labor. And, importantly, where those who take the risks and put up the money actually do take the risks, bearing the full costs of failure as well as success.

capitalism; defense; Regulators; Rick Bookstaber.

Sun 2009-09-20 14:12 EDT

America's Exhausted Paradigm: Macroeconomic Causes of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession | The New America Foundation

Thomas Palley

This report traces the roots of the current financial crisis to a faulty U.S. macroeconomic paradigm. One flaw in this paradigm was the neo-liberal growth model adopted after 1980 that relied on debt and asset price inflation to drive demand. A second flaw was the model of U.S. engagement with the global economy that created a triple economic hemorrhage of spending on imports, manufacturing job losses, and off-shoring of investment. Deregulation and financial excess are important parts of the story, but they are not the ultimate cause of the crisis. Instead, they facilitated the housing bubble and are actually part of the neo-liberal model, their function being to fuel demand growth based on debt and asset price inflation. The old post-World War II growth model based on rising middle-class incomes has been dismantled, while the new neo-liberal growth model has imploded. The United States needs a new economic paradigm and a new growth model, but as yet this challenge has received little attention from policymakers or economists.

America's Exhausted Paradigm; Financial Crisis; Great Recession; Macroeconomic Causes; New America Foundation.

Wed 2009-09-16 19:21 EDT

Corrosive, stinking Chinese drywall may be radioactive - Los Angeles Times

The final years of the U.S. housing boom and a disastrous series of Gulf Coast hurricanes created a golden opportunity for Chinese drywall manufacturers. With domestic suppliers unable to keep up with demand, imports of Chinese drywall to the U.S. jumped 17-fold in 2006 from the year before. That imported drywall is now at the center of complaints of foul odors seeping from walls. Hundreds of homeowners, most in Florida, have also reported corrosion to their air conditioners, mirrors, electrical outlets and even jewelry. State and federal authorities have traced the problems to Chinese-made drywall but haven't yet fully determined the causes. Some Chinese experts, however, suspect that the culprit is a radioactive phosphorus substance -- phosphogypsum -- that is banned for construction use in the U.S. but has been used by Chinese manufacturers for almost a decade.(china, building materials, defective products, health hazards)

corrosive; Los Angeles Times; Radioactive; stinking Chinese drywall.

The IRA Analyst Sun 2009-09-13 12:14 EDT

House Testimony: The Trouble With Models Starts With Subjectivity

...we have now many examples where a model or the pretense of a model was used as a vehicle for creating risk and hiding it. More important, however, is the role of financial models for creating opportunities for deliberate acts of securities fraud..the widespread use of [VaR] statistical models for risk management suggest that financial institutions are subject to occasional "Black Swans" in the form of risk events that cannot be anticipated...We don't actually believe there is such a thing as a "Black Swan."...leaders in finance and politics simply made the mistake of, again, believing in what were in fact flawed models...Or worse, our leaders in Washington and on Wall Street decided to be short sighted and not care about the inevitable debacle...We need to simply ensure that all of the financial instruments in our marketplace have an objective basis, including a visible, cash basis market that is visible to all market participants. If investors cannot price a security without reference to subjective models, then the security should be banned from the US markets as a matter of law and regulation. To do otherwise is to adopt deception as the public policy goal of the US when it comes to financial markets regulation.

House testimony; IRA Analyst; models starting; subject; Troubles.

Bruce Krasting Tue 2009-09-08 12:06 EDT

Wallboard - China Inc.+$25mm, USA $-3.2b

Bruce Krasting

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece Tuesday on defective wallboard that had been imported from China . The LA Times had a more detailed discussion of this problem on July 4th. This article makes a case that the wall material may contain radioactive material. It provides the names of some of the companies involved. The problematic wallboard was sent to the US in 2006. These imports totaled $25 million. The WSJ estimates that the cost of repairing a home that has this material is $100,000. The LAT piece puts the number of homes involved at 32,000. Put those two numbers together. There are $3.2billion of losses relating to $25mm of wallboard.

25MM; 2B; 3; Bruce Krasting; China Inc; USA; wallboard.

Bruce Krasting Fri 2009-09-04 19:11 EDT

Debt Repudiation -- On the Table

Bruce Krasting

In the Week in Review section the NY Times had a piece by David Streitfeld titled ``When Debtors Decide to Default''. I thought it was an important story. The NY Times put the issue of Debt Repudiation on the table. Exactly where it belongs. The author also contributed a new adjective to describe many of America's troubled borrowers, ``Ruthless Defaulters''. This definition comes to us from the ``lending'' side of the equation. I think that is a misguided definition by the industry. I don't think they know what they are up against. Yet...Debt repudiation is the biggest systemic risk we face...the default rate on mortgages in excess of $500k is going to explode this fall...the CC numbers would follow. Broad based debt repudiation is a distinct possibility.

Bruce Krasting; Debt Repudiation; table.

Bruce Krasting Fri 2009-09-04 18:30 EDT

Open Letter to FHFA's New Director Edward DeMarco - A Proposal for the Agency REO/Preferred Shares

Bruce Krasting

Let me welcome you to your new responsibilities. You have a very important job. There are a significant number of people in the financial world who lie awake at night worrying about the mortgage lenders you are responsible for. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHLBs hold or guaranty $6.3 Trillion in residential mortgages. It is simply not possible for the US to get out of the mess we are in unless these Agencies are stabilized. Should those Agencies fail, all that has been done to heal the US financial sector will have been wasted. In a significant manner, your success or failure will determine the medium term course of the US economy.

Agency REO/Preferred Shares; Bruce Krasting; FHFA's New Director Edward DeMarco; Open Letter; proposed.

The Guardian World News Sun 2009-08-30 14:43 EDT

Iceland votes to repay UK savings

Iceland's parliament today approved a plan to repay Britain and the Netherlands £3.4bn they used to compensate depositors after the collapse of an Icelandic bank. Johanna Sigurdardottir, the prime minister, said the "Icesave" bill was an important step in her country's economic recovery, paving the way for it to receive financial help from the International Monetary Fund and other countries and keeping open the option to join the EU. "It's obviously best for all three nations to reach an amicable agreement on this for it is in no one's interest to see Iceland economically unable to meet its obligations," Sigurdardottir told Reuters after the vote, which followed an acrimonious national debate. Critics objected to paying for mistakes made by private banks under the watch of other governments and for...

Guardian World News; Iceland votes; repay UK savings.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 11:24 EDT

Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation

kollapsnik

This talk was presented at The New Emergency Conference in Dublin, on June 11, 2009. ``we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours'' ``Most of the wealth is in very few private hands right now. Governments and the vast majority of the people only have debt. It is important to convince people who control all this wealth that they really have two choices. They can trust their investment advisers, maintain their current portfolios, and eventually lose everything. Or they can use their wealth to reengage with people and the land in new ways, in which case they stand a chance of saving something for themselves and their children. They can build and launch lifeboats, recruit crew, and set them sailing.'' 1. Good morning. The title of this talk is a bit of a mouthful, but what I want to say can be summed up in simpler words: we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours. I will take as my point of departure the unfolding collapse of the global economy, and discuss what might come next. It started with the collapse of the financial markets last year, and is now resulting in unprecedented decreases in the volumes of international trade. These developments are also starting to affect the political stability of...

ClubOrlov; Definancialisation; Deglobalisation; relocalisation.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 10:59 EDT

The new new money

kollapsnik

It's official: The government in Beijing has announced that the Yuan can now be used in international trade. Their mouthpiece for this occasion was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a private entity, which made the announcement on their behalf. By the end of this year, it is expected that fully 50% of all transactions with Hong Kong will be denominated in the Yuan. In turn, Hong Kong re-exports 90% of its Chinese imports. Importer #1 is the European Union; importer #2 is the United States. Some of these countries may soon find themselves hard-pressed to earn enough Yuan to continue importing Chinese-made products. This is only the next small step in Beijing's "policy of small steps." Already the Chinese government has ramped down its purchases of US... US dollar losing reserve status; yuan-denominated accounts available in Hong Kong.

ClubOrlov; new new money.

Thu 2009-07-30 00:00 EDT

Will The Dollar Standard Collapse?

By John Carney; Sahm Adrangi opines ``Abandoning the gold standard has gradually resulted in a very overvalued US dollar, and that the dollar is headed for disaster. The dollar standard is inherently flawed and increasingly unstable. Its collapse will be the most important economic event of the 21st century.

Dollar Standard Collapse.