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Paulson's Panic

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Paulson argues that relieving banks of dubious mortgage-backed securities will "unclog" the financial system and encourage essential business and consumer lending. Maybe. It's true that these securities, because they cannot easily be valued, have created immense uncertainty. Banks and other financial institutions reduced routine lending to each other; everyone worried that the other bank might be in trouble. Having the Treasury buy these mortgage securities, on which losses have already been booked, might minimize these fears.

The trouble is that fears extend beyond mortgage securities. It wasn't just home mortgages that were bundled up into bonds and sold to institutional investors (pension funds, insurance companies, college endowments). Auto loans, credit card debt and commercial real estate loans have been similarly packaged, $900 billion worth in 2007. Naturally, doubts about the value of these securities have also increased. "Securitization" may survive, but this lending is already down (80 percent in 2008), reports Thomson Reuters. Credit is tightening across the board; issuance of high-quality corporate bonds is down 22 percent, while riskier "high yield" bonds are down 65 percent.

What we are discovering is that all the complex securities, combined with ever-greater international investment flows, have created a global financial system "so arcane that few people can understand its workings," David Smick writes in "The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy." The difference between now and two years ago is that financial managers then thought they understood the system; now they know they don't. Ignorance breeds risk-aversion and fear.

Like wage-price controls, Paulson's plan is no panacea. Banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and others are trying to reduce risk by "deleveraging"—selling stocks and bonds to raise cash, increase capital and cut their own debt. The rush to cash is a hallmark of financial crises. But what makes sense for one may be ruinous for all. Heavy selling depresses prices; lower prices then increase losses, deplete capital, prompt more selling and heighten fear. At best, Paulson's plan might preempt this spiral by allowing investors to unload their least attractive securities.

But it wouldn't automatically stimulate new lending, revitalize "securitization" or prevent more "deleveraging." Time is needed. The rescue is being constructed so hastily that it may include all manner of flawed provisions: too much power for the Treasury secretary; authority for bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages. Congress faces a wrenching dilemma, imposed on it by financial markets and Paulson. If it dawdles, it may invite the panic that Paulson has brazenly predicted. But if it acts too quickly, it may create a monster whose full implications emerge only with time.

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Posted By: taylor1940 @ 10/14/2008 11:37:31 PM

Nice article through which i got to know the inside story and the facts.
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Taylor
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Posted By: Davole @ 09/30/2008 7:13:59 PM

A Proposal to Resolve the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Financial Fiasco

In order to solve what has been termed the financial crisis, it is necessary to identify the cause of Fannie Mae???s and Freddie Mac???s catastrophic failure.

The cause of their downfall is the partisan democrat pressure put on those companies to grant sub prime mortgages to persons who would be unable to repay those loans.

The democrat senators and representatives, who mandated that financial background checks be considered unnecessary and unwarranted, facilitated that irresponsible granting of mortgages to those unable to repay. The motive of the democrat members of Congress was strictly and blatantly partisan - to buy votes, and to maintain years of party support.

In 2005, John McCain co-authored a bill to investigate and regulate the faulty business practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but that was opposed and defeated by the democrats in Congress.

On many occasions, President George W. Bush introduced proposals to regulate the mortgage lending companies, but those calls for regulation were opposed, obstructed, and defeated by democrats who were obsessed with the continuance of faulty lending practices.

In order to reform the financial sector, it is necessary that the sleazy politicians and top administration of those 2 mortgage companies who perpetrated fraudulent activity be publicly identified, investigated, and severely punished for their undermining the national economy.

It is only reasonable to expose the corrupt financial practices and their facilitators, and to remove them from any further activity, before any effort can be made to resurrect the American economy.
Otherwise, any attempt to do so will be useless, because the problems and perpetrators would still be present to frustrate and obstruct any meaningful remedial action.
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Posted By: Davole @ 09/30/2008 7:12:31 PM

Continued - A Proposal to Resolve the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Financial Fiasco

The first step toward economic recovery would be to isolate all sub prime mortgages from the assets of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, and to group the remaining viable ones into several stock options to be offered for sale to the public, and also as a bailout measure.

That would result in an immediate infusion of cash into the banking sector, thereby ensuring that credit could be granted to qualifying loan applicants.

Individuals or organizations who choose to buy those stock options should benefit additionally from any profits later realized by their investments.

Also, any profits resulting from the bailout option should be refunded to the INCOME TAX PAYERS only, since they would be the ones who would have financed the bailout.

Likewise, but separately, the various questionable sub prime mortgages should be bundled together into other stock options which would be structured to contain a mixture of both somewhat and less redeemable loans.

Those sub prime mortgage packages should be offered first to democrats, especially wealthy ones, who might be attracted to them by their being valued at a price of 80 cents on the dollar, based on the face value of the mortgages.
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That would afford them the option to support what democrats viewed to be a noble cause (home ownership for the unemployed), and besides, it might enable the stock option buyers to profit by 20 percent if all of the sub prime mortgages would be somehow repaid by the homeowners.

Thus democrats, especially the likes of George Soros, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Charlie Schumer (who supported the granting of sub prime mortgages irrespective of demonstrated ability to repay) would be able to ???put their money where their mouths are???!

Lastly, there should be a guarantee that no further sub prime mortgages be granted.
Home ownership is a GOAL for many financially responsible Americans - it is not a government sponsored RIGHT for all persons living legally and illegally in the US!