Why the Crisis Isn’t Going Away
by ilene - November 5th, 2009 1:21 am
Why the Crisis Isn’t Going Away
By MIKE WHITNEY at CounterPunch
Size matters. And it particularly matters when the size of the financial system grossly exceeds the productive capacity of the underlying economy. Then problems arise. Surplus capital flows into paper assets triggering a boom. Then speculators pile in, driving asset prices higher. Margins grow, debts balloon, and bubbles emerge. The frenzy finally ends when the debts can no longer be serviced and the bubble begins to crumple, sometimes violently. As gas escapes, credit tightens, businesses are forced to cut back, asset prices plunge and unemployment soars. Deflation spreads to every sector. Eventually, the government steps in to rescue the financial system while the broader economy slumps into a coma.
The crisis that started two years ago, followed this same pattern. A meltdown in subprime mortgages sent the dominoes tumbling; the secondary market collapsed, and stock markets went into freefall. When Lehman Bros flopped, a sharp correction turned into a full-blown panic. Lehman tipped-off investors that that the entire multi-trillion dollar market for securitized loans was built on sand. Without price discovery, via conventional market transactions, no one knew what mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and other exotic debt-instruments were really worth. That sparked a global sell-off. Markets crashed. For a while, it looked like the whole system might collapse.
The Fed’s emergency intervention pulled the system back from the brink, but at great cost. Even now, the true value of the so-called toxic assets remains unknown. The Fed and Treasury have derailed attempts to create a public auction facility--like the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC)--where prices can be determined and assets can be sold. Billions in toxic waste now clog the Fed’s balance sheet. Ultimately, the losses will be passed on to the taxpayer.
Now that the economy is no longer on steroids, the financial system needs to be downsized. The housing/equities bubble was generated by over-consumption that required high levels of debt-spending. That model requires cheap money and easy access to credit, conditions no longer exist. The economy has reset at a lower level of economic activity, so changes need to be made. The financial system needs to shrink.
The problem is, the Fed’s "lending facilities" have removed any incentive for financial institutions to deleverage. Asset prices are propped up by low interest, rotating loans on dodgy collateral. While households have suffered huge losses (of nearly $14 trillion) in…
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DiggWhat is the Main Cause of Residential Foreclosures?
by ilene - September 11th, 2009 12:46 pm
Welcome George!
What is the Main Cause of Residential Foreclosures?
Courtesy of Washington’s Blog
The foreclosure problem in American is not just subprime mortgages. True, banks have been holding on to their foreclosed properties for months, but now they’re getting ready to release them onto the market, which could depress prices for existing homeowners, further driving them underwater. But that’s not what I’m talking about.
There are huge tidal waves of defaults on option arm, alt-a, and other types of loans coming (see this and this).
But even that is arguably not the main problem.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that the crash in real estate and rising unemployment together form a negative feedback loop. As McClatchy and the Associated Press note, foreclosures rise as jobs and income drop.
As former chief IMF economist Simon Johnson points out, there is a vicious cycle also exists between unemployment and property foreclosures:
Unemployment is always a lagging indicator, and given the record low number of average hours worked, it will turn around especially slowly this time. Until then, people will continue to lose their jobs and wages will remain flat, and any small rebound in housing prices is unlikely to help more than a few people refinance their way out of unaffordable mortgages. So unless the other part of the equation – monthly payments – changes, the number of foreclosures should just continue to rise.
Indeed, the Washington Post notes:
The country’s growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind.
And see this.
Some economists give 5% as the magic number: when unemployment declines to 5%, then unemployment will no longer be such a huge contributor to foreclosures.
But Moody’s forecasts that unemployment will not go back down to 5% until 2014.
Similarly, the the chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Martin Regalia – "thinks that it could be five years before the U.S. economy generates enough jobs to overcome those lost and to employ the new workers entering the labor force", according to McClatchy.
Indeed, unemployment could be a problem for many years to come.
The Great American Bankruptcy
by ilene - August 9th, 2009 12:25 pm
Here’s an excellent documentary video called "The Great American Bankruptcy." H/t Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge, who h/tipped Ian. William K. Black, a white collar criminologist, discusses the financial crisis and our pseudo-capitalistic fraud-ridden system. - Ilene
William Kurt Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator. Black’s expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of "control fraud", in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a "weapon" to commit fraud.
On April 3, 2009 Black appeared on "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS and provided critical commentary on the U.S. banking crisis. In the interview with Bill Moyers, Black asserted that the banking crisis in the United States that started in late 2008 is essentially a big Ponzi scheme; that the "liar loans" and other financial tricks were essentially illegal frauds; and that the triple-A ratings given to these loans was part of a criminal cover-up.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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