The current financial mess is fixable, and even fixable quickly; but in order to gather political support for implementation of the right fix it is important to understand, and explain to the public, why the fixes applied since Lehman went bankrupt in September have not worked. The essential point to understand is that the 'modern' securities-based system of Wall St. finance was fatally wounded when Lehman Brothers went under, although this demise has not been accepted by many academics or Wall St. bankers. Like Humpty Dumpty, this system can not be put back together again. Geithner & Co.'s attempts to resurrect it, the latest misguided effort being TALF, will fail, and cause further delay in restoration of normally functioning private credit markets. We need to recapitalize the banks with massive amounts of new private capital, so they have the capacity to hold many more of the loans they make on their own balance sheets, and bank lending can supply the funding gap opened up by the demise of the securities-based credit system..
Flaws in the System
To begin, it is important to recognize how Wall St. has transformed the bank-based credit system, which existed in the 1930's and prevailed until the mid-1990's, into the 'modern' securities-based credit system we have today. Non-bank sources currently supply more than half the credit needs of businesses and consumers. This transformation in the way credit is supplied has made it difficult for the Federal Reserve to reignite credit growth through massive expansion of the Federal Reserve balance sheet, which was the supposed 1930's style antidote. The old-style banking system, in which banks kept the loans they made on their balance sheets, would have responded quickly to Bernancke's interest rate cuts and aggressive injections of excess reserves. But banks today no longer keep most of the credits they underwrite on their own balance sheets, nor do they keep them in the form of individual loans. Instead, banks gather credits together to form asset-based or mortgage-based bonds which they then distribute or sell to pension funds, insurance companies, banks, hedge funds, and other investors worldwide. (Banks do keep some of these newly created asset-backed bonds on their own balance sheets.)
It is also important to recognize the critical and pivotal role that credit rating agencies and the writers of credit default insurance played in the functioning of this 'modern' credit system. Many of the asset- backed bonds kept by the banks were rated AAA by Moody's, S&P, and Fitch. Importantly, the AAA rating was granted by the agencies because it was supported by the added protection provided by credit default insurance ("credit default swaps", or "CDS"), the largest provider being American International Group (AIG), which was the largest insurance company in the world. Based on the impressive strength of AIG's AAA rated balance sheet and the AAA rating granted to the bonds by the rating agencies, it was widely believed that there was almost no risk that the AAA rated bonds would default. Under Basel II bank regulations, banks were required to set aside little, if any, capital reserves against holdings of AAA credits. Thus, under the umbrella of the AAA rating, banks could add earning assets and leverage to their balance sheets without the added burden of allocating more regulatory capital. This same dynamic made the AAA asset-backed bonds attractive to many insurance companies and other regulated entities, including foreign banks. This ability to hold AAA rated bonds without setting aside additional capital led to a highly levered global financial system.
This 'modern' model of writing loans and distributing them has a serious, fatal flaw. It undermines the integrity of promises. It is the classic 'agency problem' identified and studied by countless economists, where the self-centered motivations of the agents conflict with the security interests of the principals. When lenders are separated from borrowers, intermediaries (such as mortgage brokers, home appraisers, loan packagers, rating agencies, or bond salesmen, as well as the top leadership of major banks), can be enticed by lucrative commission revenues to pursue sloppy or even fraudulent lending practices that, in the past, had been constrained by the old-fashioned model, where banks kept the loans they wrote on their balance sheets, and where banks were kept in check by close monitoring by the FDIC.
The Crash
Without confidence in the writers of credit default insurance and the rating agencies, the model of 'modern finance' can not function. In September, when Lehman Brothers went under and AIG was back-stopped by the government, confidence in the rating agencies and their AAA ratings collapsed. Credit default insurance prices went through the roof and the prices of the heretofore AAA bonds dropped by a corresponding amount. Hardly any sizable organizations were willing to continue writing credit default insurance.
The sharp decline in ABS bond prices and the jump in quotes for CDS immediately cut the value of bank assets and shrank, by the same amount, bank capital positions as calculated for regulatory purposes. This happened despite the fact that the banks had sold the bonds only in rare cases.
Suddenly, many banks become undercapitalized, which froze the credit markets. Writers of credit default swaps had to post massive additional amounts of 'good' collateral, i.e. government bonds or cash. In order to raise this cash, writers of CDS sold anything and everything. The result was a stock, bond, and commodity market crash.
Under current accounting practices, called 'mark to market', accountants and bank regulators insist on using the observable prices available in public and private markets to determine bank capital positions. But these 'marks' are only available in what are now very thinly-traded markets for asset backed bonds and credit default swaps.
In hindsight, it is clear that writers of credit default insurance on individual securities under-reserved and under-priced their product. They failed to take into account systemic risk--that in financial markets, the risk of default of any one bond or counterparty is increased by the defaults of others. Simply put, in financial markets risks are correlated, not uncorrelated. It is also clear that only the government is big enough to underwrite systemic risk. The government can do this either as the 'lender of last resort', which it fully understands, or, given today's 'modern' securities-based credit system, it must act as the 'credit insurer of last resort.' This is, in effect, what the government is doing when it offers 'guarantees' to various capital markets, such as commercial paper and mortgages.
ABS Pricing and the Debate Over Bank Solvency
There is no doubt that banks have many bad loans and securities on their balance sheets. But the size of the losses is in dispute because the structure of the asset backed bonds is complex, and because the value can reasonably be assessed in more than one way. Markets for the heretofore AAA bonds and the corresponding credit default swaps are thin, with wide spreads between bid and asking prices. Nevertheless, transactions occur, and they occur at levels that banks contend are unrealistically low. Based on the 'marks' currently extant, many banks are grossly undercapitalized, and in several cases, if banks were required to sell their bonds at current prices, they would be insolvent.
The banks claim that reasonable estimates of discounted cash flow make it ridiculous to sell bonds at such low recent prices or to use these prices to determine bank capital requirements. They further contend that the potential returns on these asset-backed bonds are greater than the potential returns on new loans, so why sell them?
Accountants and many bank regulators insist that the quotes are the best available and should be used to calculate bank capital levels and solvency. Others make the valid point that it is in the interest of banks to lie about the true value of their assets.
But the banks have a valid counter argument when they claim that recent low price levels reflect a sizable 'uncertainty discount'. Because the bonds (or the various bond tranches) are comprised of a multitude of individual credits or mortgages, a potential buyer of the bonds has no way of assessing value without drilling down into the details. This research is intensive, expensive and time consuming. Only a few investors do it. And even then, value must be judged in light of assumed economic conditions, by region or generally, now and over the next few years. Because of this extraordinary complexity it is not unreasonable to accept that the banks, which have been holding these assets for some time and have large staffs, may have a much better idea of the discounted present value than nearly all potential bond buyers or CDS writers.
Another factor to consider when attempting to price these bonds is that some bond 'marks' reflect forced liquidation because of margin calls or regulatory pressures, or desperate attempts to obtain scarce and prohibitively costly credit default insurance.
Nobody disputes that banks will suffer large losses. Loss estimates range from $1 trillion to more than $3 trillion depending on whether one uses estimates of discounted cash flow or relies on the 'marks' of the thinly traded markets.
The essential point to come to grips with is that, because of their complexity, it is virtually impossible to establish an indisputable value of these asset- backed bonds anytime soon, and possibly not before the contractual maturity of the instruments in question. It simply cannot be done.
Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that, if the credit markets are to regain their normal working condition, the so-called 'toxic', hard-to-value asset-backed bonds must be removed from bank balance sheets, or 'ring fenced' by some form of government guarantee. With economic recovery dependent on the reemergence of normalized credit conditions, there is an obvious urgency to making this happen.
How Not to Fix the Credit System
Bank nationalization, the Swedish model of the early 1990's, is not the answer. There are three reasons why nationalization should be avoided. First, Sweden had only 5 banks and there were few if any derivatives and credit default swaps outstanding. We have 10,000 banks and lots of credit default swaps outstanding. Second, because the value of the 'toxic assets' is disputable, it is not clear that the banks are at present insolvent and must be taken over by the government. Other ways of dealing with the problem exist that avoid the well-recognized problems of government ownership. And third, under a government takeover, many outstanding derivative contracts--what Warren Buffett has memorably termed "financial weapons of mass destruction"--might have to be commuted. This would trigger events similar to those that followed the Lehman bankruptcy and have catastrophic implications for the financial and industrial entities around the globe, and could lead to a cascade of bankruptcies.
The public/private scheme, announced February 10th as part of the Capital Assistance Program, is another less-than-optimal option. It is basically TARP 1 warmed over and obfuscated. Like TARP 1, it is designed to enable banks to remove the 'toxic' assets from their balance sheets at prices above those quoted in the current thin markets. Private investors would buy asset-backed bonds from the banks, on a leveraged basis, perhaps 10 to 1, with borrowed money lent to them by the government on a non-recourse basis at near government rates.
Even though this public/private scheme could help recapitalize the banks by paying above recently quoted prices, it is misleading (to say the least) to claim that the elevated values for the 'toxic' assets will be established by the 'private market.' Let's remember that it is government credit that will underpin the leveraged transactions. More important, the scheme is unfair to taxpayers because they would be the ones supplying the credit and would, therefore, be on the hook for the losses. The government could just as well buy the assets, or guarantee them, at the same elevated prices that the leveraged private investors might be comfortably paying. Any prospective profit that the private investors hope to make would then accrue to the taxpayers. Why concoct a subterfuge that subsidizes prospective profits for Wall St. fat cats? Who are the authorities trying to fool?
Finally, any program that attempts to avoid mortgage defaults, or requires a re-write of mortgage payment terms has serious problems, both legal and financial, and is likely to be counterproductive in re-establishing confidence.
Although re-writing debt contracts is standard practice in bankruptcy, it creates uncertainties when it is done outside standard bankruptcy proceedings.. In the case of mortgage-backed bonds, re-writes of payment terms can trigger rating downgrades and lower mortgage-backed bond prices. This will negatively impact bank balance sheets and necessitate increased collateral obligations for writers of credit default swaps, such as AIG. In other words, an attempt to directly help homeowners by cutting payment terms may increase the losses recorded by AIG, which the government has committed to make good, and make it more costly for banks to recapitalize. It will also make investors more wary of making new mortgages, and necessitate an expanded role for government owned FNM and FRE.
The recent well-intentioned attempts to prevent foreclosures by reducing payments are also patently unfair to taxpayer homeowners who keep current on their own mortgage payments but will be required to pay subsidies to others who are delinquent on their payments.
The Way Forward
The best way to reestablish confidence in the financial system is the following:
Part #1. The 'uncertainty discount' in asset backed bond pricing should be dealt with by fixing a floor under the asset side of bank balance sheets. But this should be done without buying the toxic assets from the banks (the TARP plans). Instead, it can be done by a government guarantee, or re-insurance, that limits the losses any bank can incur from further decreases in asset backed bond prices. In effect, the government would act as 'credit default insurer of last resort', or as the re-insurer of systemic, or aggregate risk. The government, with its unlimited balance sheet, is uniquely positioned to capture 100% of the market for systemic credit-default insurance.
Under this scheme, a bank would be required to 'buy' credit default insurance from the government in exchange for preferred stock which would be convertible into 10% to 15% of common equity after the recapitalization outlined in Part #2 below. The basic model is similar to that used for Citibank last year. In that agreement, CITI takes the first 10% of a $300 billion package of 'toxic' assets, and 10% of any losses below that first $30 billion. The taxpayers foot the bill for all other losses. This was a good idea, and it turned around the stock market in mid-November. But the insurance scheme was not made systemic and it did not incorporate the growing risk of losses from an extensive, severe economic contraction. In addition, it was not accompanied by a recapitalization of the bank. In other words, its scope was too limited, too timid.
Part #2. Once the government underwrites systemic credit default insurance, the asset position of the bank is stabilized. The upper limit of losses becomes firmly established. This makes it possible to raise private capital in large amounts, although it will entail dilution of current common stock shareholders. Bank stock prices have fallen to levels that already assume massive dilution, if not nationalization. In any event, concerns about
the extent of the dilution should not stand in the way of recapitalizing the banks, which is essential to restore confidence. The banks should be required to recapitalize by raising, in the private markets, enough common equity capital to satisfy FDIC regulators.
The positions of the bondholders and preferred stock holders should not be crammed down or diluted, even though, in a strict capitalistic sense, the bond and preferred holders may deserve a haircut. But given the opaque, hard-to-value nature of many of the bank assets, it is not clear that the bond and preferred stock holders deserve it. In any case, cram-downs are not necessary to perform the recapitalization. They can be disruptive to the credit-default insurance market, and disruptive to holders of the preferreds--fiduciaries such as pension funds and insurance companies.
In summary, the Part #1 government systemic reinsurance 'ring fences' the bad assets, or the bad part of the bank, and the new equity capital raised in Part #2 creates a 'new bank.' This all takes place within the legal and physical infrastructure of the legacy bank. There is no need to create and staff a new government bank or 'RTC' to hold and to manage the bad assets. There is no need for large up-front government expenditures to buy the asset-backed bonds from the banks. There is no need to underwrite hedge funds to buy toxic assets. The convertible preferreds issued to pay for the government insurance give taxpayers a stake in the recovery of bank prosperity. Concern about the risk of large losses on the systemic insurance should be calmed by the fact that pricing of the insurance will be bench-marked near current quotes. Taxpayers will be on the hook, in any case, for even greater government expenditures if action to 'ring fence' the toxic assets is not taken, and normal credit conditions are not restored.
Changes in top management and directors are probably required in many or even most cases. The existing leadership mismanaged the banks, and the common equity holders must pay the price via dilution.
One final and important note: despite support from academics and Wall St. bankers, it must be accepted that the era of 'modern' securities-based credit markets is over. (Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.) Confidence in the rating agencies and the credit default swap counterparties was shattered by the Lehman bankruptcy. This destroyed the private market model of 'modern finance', and it cannot be resurrected in its old form. Buyers of asset-backed bonds have been badly burned, and like the cat that sat on the hot stove top, they will not return. The recent attempt by the government to reactivate the asset backed bond market (TALF), which employs government guarantees and government financing,, and relies on the discredited opinions of the rating agencies. is an ill-conceived imitation of the private market model of 'modern finance'.
Normal credit conditions can only be restored by returning to the former, 'old fashion' model where banks keep the loans they make. Bank capital positions must be built up sufficiently to enable them to keep many more loans on their own balance sheets. This implies that the size of the bank recapitalization, outlined above, must be very large.
Follow David K. Richards on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Ricardo
And as the whole charade deflates we will notice that the real growth of the US between maybe 1990 or 1995 and today was close to 0. But then, wasn't that obvious?
No happy with the progress so far .
Go appy for the job !!!!!!
Government is run by those who show up .
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1764, to the directors of the Bank of England
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1764, to the directors of the Bank of England
The outstanding private debt was based assumptions of real estate market conditions that no longer exist and won't return in the foreseeable future. That debt has to be renegotiated to account for the sharp correction in real estate prices. The key idea is that writing down the face values of debt instruments should actually increase their market values in present conditions.
It's very risky to buy a $500K bond backed by a home worth $400K and falling, so the market value of the bond might be $100K or less. But there exists a discounted face value such that the market is willing to buy the bond at face. Perhaps if the face value of the bond were $300K, then the market value would also be $300K.
This price can be found by having bond traders ask and bid on the face value instead of on the market value, providing a mechanism for adjusting debt principal to account for declining asset prices. As the bonds are traded, the market resets the principal owed in pursuit of a maximum value that balances a minimum risk of default.
The government acting as last resort acts at discretion, only the most treacherous government would sign with a banker that it will act as last resort by enforceable insurance contract.
Let them go bankrupt, let them be nationalized, let them be thrown in jail, but don't swallow it again, don't let them hand off all risk to the government while privatizing all reward.
GrahamInCanada and martin2 represent the public. Public money will not become available until they are happy.
Next Richards should apply his ingenuity to figure out what will make GrahamInCanada and Martin2 happy. Would they be satisfied with banker's heads @ $10 million apiece? Can Richards devise an auction that will determine a better price?
Given the way things are going, the bankers might be well advised to cut a deal and draw straws to see who has to walk the plank. Or some could volunteer. Then we could have the heads of all the rest.
Caveat; I am quite happy with my bank in my little corner of the world (well, for a bank, banks have never been my favorite consumer service), so far it seems to be weathering the storm just fine, along with all of its peers, every single one.
But like I said, for those other banks and bankers, the ones we are talking about here, let them go bankrupt, let them be nationalized, let them be thrown in jail, but don't swallow it again, don't let them hand off all risk to the government while privatizing all reward.
Given those caveats, we do seem to agree on Richards, though...
It's hard to think of lending unless the lender trusts the borrower. It helps if the borrower is honest & trusts the lender.
Banks do not do anything, bankers do and they did it to us.
The best way to reestablish confidence in the financial system is the followiing.
Part#1 Punish --Jail all the crooked bankers. This will restore confidence in our
banking system, and our political system also our news media will regain some
credibility.
BANKERS DID IT NOT BANKS!!!!!!!!
Let them eat cake.
And you think your halo will save you if your country falls?
It is the good faith purchasers of instruments of the bank that need to be protected. If a party in good faith purchases a CDS from a failed bank, this party should be protected.
We can restructure insolvent bank liabilities or we run a trillion-dollar fiscal deficit. We can't do both.
1. SMALL BUSINESS IS THE KEY TO JOBS!
Up to 6 million jobs and 4 million small businesses can be created by A Human Investment Tax Credit Program.
This was missing from the stimulus package.
One component, a jobs tax credit, became law for one year and generated more jobs in less time than any legislation in our history.
Two versions of the 2009 Report can be downloaded free at: aesopinstitute.org
The full Report contains a post Keynesian economic analysis.
The short version includes only what can be done, as well as an outline for Congress to launch this urgently needed Program without delay.
2. REVOLUTIONARY ENERGY BREAKTHROUGHS
Unconventional energy conversion systems will tap a never previously commercialized, renewable, abundant source of energy. These revolutionary new energy conversion devices are inherently cost-competitive. They can eventually power and make practical cars, trucks and buses that need no engines or banks of batteries.
A generator under development will provide sufficient power to demonstrate replacement of the plug needed by a plug-in hybrid car. This will be a harbinger of automobiles that need no conventional fuel or recharge. Skepticism is anticipated, therefore we plan Independent Laboratory validation, Demonstration Devices and toys. Who will not want to own an electric car that never requires fuel or recharge? Car companies will see demand in excess of production capacity. A beacon of hope can be found here for the entire world economy.
See: magneticpowerinc.com
including Shorts that caused the great depression.
Put the FED under control of the Treasury.
Audit all banks and investment firms.
Break them up into smaller pieces and never allow them get too big to fail again.
Re regulate the bankers and wall street.
FDR and Kucinich know what to do.
Not one more penny for banker bailouts.
The 600T$+ derivatives debt CANNOT BE PAID. EVER. (look it up.)
We need to return to sanity. Humpty cannot be put back together again, nor should he be. Credit default swaps aren't a "financial instrument", they're just a fancy way to gamble and speculate with other people's money, and they should be banned.
When a person needs to borrow money for a home, business, college, etc. they should write their loan on Main Street and it should be held on Main Street. Wall Street should only be allowed to play with stocks based on things that actually exist. There once was a time where a person could buy stock in Sears, and they would get returns based on whether or not Sears could build and sell a good washing machine. Real products tied to real value. Imagine that! Before deregulation, we used to have rules that kept banks, investment firms and insurance companies separated. Those rules were there for a reason. We need to bring them back.
Understand the "fix" for this should not be to reward those who made bad decisions.
The other thing that stressed me a little was the idea that banks could sell off some of the bad debt but don't want to. In your words "transactions occur, and they occur at levels that banks contend are unrealistically low ... and further "The banks claim that reasonable estimates of discounted cash flow make it ridiculous to sell bonds at such low recent prices or to use these prices to determine bank capital requirements. They further contend that the potential returns on these asset-backed bonds are greater than the potential returns on new loans, so why sell them".
From my perspective ... if I owed these same banks 5000 dollars and had a classic mercedes I could sell off to pay the debt would they worry that I might not want to because it might be worth more in the future.