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RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 07-13-2009
BANKSTERS LOVE CAP AND TRADE :
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE ABOUT TO ACCELERATE
The well-placed and well-connected are set to make trillions off new climate bill
James Corbett
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14209
The sweeping new bill which just passed the House last Friday, the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is ostensibly about climate change, but it is in fact a bill of staggering economic ramifications that is going to accelerate the takeover of the economy by the well-placed financiers who have already plundered the Treasury and the Fed of $12+ trillion and counting. It was rushed through the House in the tradition of such nightmarish legislation as the Patriot Act and the banker bailout of last October: hundreds of pages were added to it at the last minute and it was humanly impossible for anyone to have read it before they voted on it. This, of course, is exactly what Obama promised his administration would never allow to happen, and for good reason; bills passed in this manner are always the result of fear and panic and inevitably results in legislation that would never be passed upon sober second thought.
In this case, the rush to pass this new bill was an attempt to stop any scrutiny of a plan that is going to utterly transform the American economy, further centralize control of citizens' lives in the hands of unaccountable federal bureaucrats and complete the transfer of the American economy from Main Street to Wall Street. And all of this in the name of fighting a threat which itself is a demonstrable fraud. In short, the banksters and bureaucrats are sharpening their knives, preparing to butcher what's left of the carcass of the United States, and a good portion of the public are not only willing to allow it but are actually clamoring for it.
The first thing that needs to be understood about the brand new trillion dollar carbon-trading commodities market that will be brought into existence if this bill passes the Senate is that it is a ripoff designed by and for the very corporate interests the environmentalists claim to be fighting. For an historical precedent of what is being proposed under this cap-and-trade scam one can look to Enron, which immediately found ways to plunder billions of dollars from new energy market legislation passed by the Clinton Administration in 2000. They gave schemes for manipulating billions of dollars out of Californians funny little names like Death Star and even went so far as to rig up a completely fake trading floor in their offices in order to bamboozle investors who were interested in the company's remarkable success. They got away with it because they were The Smartest Guys in the Room, much brighter than the government bureaucrats who were supposed to stop them from committing such blatant fraud (assuming the regulators weren't simply paid to look the other way). And now supporters of this new bill are putting their blind faith in these same bureaucrats to regulate a scheme to create a vastly more complex market with hundreds of times as much money at stake. Is it any wonder Enron was a booster for cap-and-trade?
That the new carbon trading market can and will be manipulated by the very same financial oligarchs and government bureaucrats who have brought the world to the brink of economic Armageddon is laid bare in a must-read article by Matt Taibi in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. In "The Great Bubble Machine" Taibi meticulously documents how the amazingly well-connected Goldman Sachs has managed to manipulate and profit from every financial bubble since the Roaring Twenties and how they're getting set to do it all over again with the creation of a carbon trading bubble:
"The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utah-based firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There's also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in green-tech ... the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot."
In effect, this bill creates an entirely new commodity that is guaranteed to generate ever-increasing profit for those who have already spent millions preparing to get in on the ground floor. Here's a hint: that does not include your average mom and pop investor or your dual-income family struggling to make ends meet in a crashing economy. Here's another hint: it does include financial juggernauts like Goldman Sachs who have been investing in solar, wind, and biofuels for years and now just happen to find themselves in the perfect position to start reaping vast profits from their headstart in the new carbon credit economy (and you thought Paulson was into going green for any other reason than making green?). It also includes Obama, who was instrumental in helping set up the Chicago Climate Exchange for his political cronies like Al Gore, who already has a company which he uses to buy carbon credits from himself and who had made multi-million dollar investments in companies developing carbon tracking software that will be essential to the new carbon-swindle economy.
There are still those out there, however, who believe that this time it's going to be different. This time the government is going to set up a new trillion dollar industry overnight, make sure it is regulated by angels of unquestionable integrity and goodwill, prevent it from being manipulated by big business, and create scores of new "green" jobs in the renewable energy industry (presumably to replace the hundreds of thousands of jobs that the economy is already hemorrhaging or the hundreds of thousands more that will be shed when these carbon taxes and penalties really ratchet up in the next decade). Well, let's assume for a moment that we have crossed into just such a fantasy world. It still does not change the fact that the bill itself only offers phony solutions to a problem that doesn't exist.
The phony solution is the "Clean Energy" part of the Clean Energy and Security Act. What feelgood platitudes about pumping billions of dollars into solar, wind and alternative energy projects obscure is that throwing money hand over fist at inherently flawed technologies will not actually make them work, nor will it make the money-hungry charlatans who promote them any more honest. Just ask Albert Lanier. He's a freelance journalist who has been writing a series of articles about First Wind, a Massachusetts-based wind developer that is currently being investigated by the New York Attorney General's office. In a recent interview with The Corbett Report he revealed how the Mafia has been linked to the Italian wind farm industry, which might say more about the industry than it does about the mob.
Of course, the entire idea of "cleaning" the atmosphere of carbon dioxide seems a bit ridiculous when you realize that by historical levels we are living in a CO2-starved environment, that global surface temperatures are dropping, that global ocean temperatures are dropping, that key proponents of the manmade global warming theory have been caught faking data to support their arguments, that Arctic sea ice is expanding, and that sea levels are not rising. But why let actual science get in the way of a good scare story, especially when that scare story can be used to create a new trillion dollar industry for the banksters?
For those who cannot be convinced to consider an issue until it affects them personally, rest assured this draconian new legislation will reach into every American citizen's living room...literally. As Congressman Steve Scalise has already pointed out, this "climate bill" contains within it a new national building code that supersedes all existing state codes. If enacted, this legislation will create an entirely new class of federally-funded green brigades with the mandate to perform house-to-house inspections to look for violations of this new "green" building code. They would even be able to impose civil penalties for code violations (like having the wrong windows or lightbulbs). Watch Congressman Scalise's comments in the player below:
This bill is not only unnecessary, it is dangerous. It is not only economically reckless, it is economically suicidal. It's passage will be a particularly dark day in American legislative history, something almost unthinkable given the constitution-destroying atrocities passed during the Bush years. There is only one thing left for Americans to do: call their senators and let them know that it's time to make a decision: vote against the Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009 or join the unemployment line come next election.
The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 07-20-2009
HOW BAD WILL THE ECONOMY GET?
REALLY, REALLY BAD
Thomas Greco, Jr.
July 15, 2009 "AlterNet" --
Historically, every financial and economic crisis has been used to further centralize power and concentrate wealth. This one is no different, and in fact the moves being promoted by the Obama administration and the central banks of the Western powers will take the whole world to the pinnacle of financial despotism -- unless enough people wake up and claim their own "money power.”
In recent months, the Fed has expanded its "assets" from about $800 billion to more than $2,000 billion. Those so-called assets are securities it bought from financial institutions and loans made to central banks in other countries. But the Fed refuses to name the specific recipients of those funds, while admitting that by doing so they are manipulating the value of the US dollar on foreign exchange markets. (Congressman Alan Grayson Grills Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn.)
Where does the Fed get the money to buy those "assets" or to make those loans? Quite simply, it creates the money. Unlike you or me or any other economic entity, the Fed has the power to create Federal Reserve dollars by effectively writing a check against no funds. This is the function known as "Open Market Operations."
What is the economy experiencing now, and what is in prospect for the future? Despite unprecedented inflation of the money supply, we are now (mid-July, 2009) in a period of depression. How can we have simultaneous inflation of the currency and still have economic depression?
It is a matter of where the money is going. While the public sector (federal government) is being lavishly funded to maintain a global empire, and the banks are being bailed out to try to keep a dysfunctional and destructive financial system from collapsing, the private productive sector is being starved for credit. As a result, businesses are bankrupting, people are losing their jobs and their incomes, and lower levels of government are being squeezed because their tax revenues are shrinking.
There is also the matter of the real estate bubble that was created by the financial institutions as they loaded up the private sector with a debt burden that was way beyond its ability to bear. Now that burden is being shifted to the public sector as the government assumes those "toxic" loans. Unfortunately, it is not the poor suckers who were lured into the debt trap that are being relieved, but the predatory lenders who laid the traps. So mortgages are being foreclosed at an unprecedented scale, people are losing their equity as housing values plunge, and more Americans are being made homeless.
These are the factors that have so far kept the effects of monetary inflation from becoming extreme. Ultimately, however, such abusive issuance of political money shows up as rising prices.
When will the price effects of hyper-inflation begin to kick in? How will the government respond to it? What will be the social and political fallout? What can ordinary people do to protect themselves from monetary and legislative abuses? These are the questions that beg for answers.
Already there are rumblings and signs that the U.S. dollar is about to lose its status as the global reserve currency. When that happens, imports of energy and other necessities will become more expensive. The U.S.’s massive trade deficits will not be sustained into the future. China, the OPEC countries, and others that have been buying massive amounts of U.S. government bonds with their dollar earnings, are indicating that their appetite has been sated. Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements are being made that bypass the use of the dollar for international trade.
One thing is clear -- we cannot rely upon the government to act in the best interests of the people. Already, President Obama has moved to give the Federal Reserve even more power to control the people's credit and financial resources. According to a June 18 article in the Wall Street Journal, "The central bank would win power to monitor risks across the financial system, and sweeping authority to examine any firm that could threaten financial stability, even if the Fed wouldn't normally supervise the institution." This is not a new plan; it was floated as a trial balloon during the Bush administration. As early as March 2008, then Treasury Secretary Paulson was proposing to "give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system."
Ostensibly that would be done to prevent the errant financial institutions from repeating their sins of the recent past, but more likely it will have the effect of suppressing any private initiative that might compete with the financial cartel. The Fed is, after all, a private company run by the bankers for the bankers. A recent Reuters article is critical of Obama's move because of the Fed's lack of accountability. It is a plan that seeks to preserve at all costs the credit monopoly that exists under the central banking regime and to perpetuate the looting of the economy by monetization of federal government debts and other ultimately worthless "assets."
During the Great Depression, President Franking Roosevelt, upon taking office in 1933, declared a "bank holiday." He ordered all banks to close. Many of those banks never reopened and many people lost their savings. He also demanded that all Americans turn in their gold holdings in return for paper currency, which was one of the biggest robberies in history up to that time. Some pundits are predicting that another such bank holiday is being planned to put the brakes on price increases, once they begin in earnest, by depriving people of access to their savings, as was done in Argentina in 2002.
Governments that mismanage money invariably use the force of law to prevent the sheep from escaping from the shearing pen (or the slaughter house). So long as people are completely dependent upon political money and banks, they will docilely (or grudgingly) accept whatever "solutions” the political leadership puts forth, and do whatever the government demands of them.
Fortunately there is a way out. The primary purpose of money is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services in the markets. But it is possible to mediate the exchange process without using political money as the payment medium, and without borrowing from banks.
There is plenty of precedent for this sort of cashless trading. It involves a process of direct credit clearing among associated buyers and sellers. During the Great Depression the entrepreneurial middle class in Switzerland organized themselves into the WIR Economic Circle Cooperative. After 75 years, the WIR clearing circle continues to thrive with more than 60,000 member businesses trading the equivalent of about US$1.3 billion per year.
The past four decades have seen the emergence of a new industry comprised of commercial trade exchanges, sometimes called "barter" exchanges, that act as "third part record keepers" enabling the same sort of direct credit clearing for thousands of businesses in cities around the world. Efforts at the grassroots by social entrepreneurs to localize exchange and finance have been similarly widespread in many communities over the past twenty-five years.
Measures to properly reform the money and banking system by political means have about as much chance as the proverbial snowball in hell. However, what is possible, and what seems to be gaining traction to transcend the dominant system, is the materialization of voluntary, private initiatives that enable the cashless exchange of goods and services. As these systems continue to improve, proliferate, and scale up, they will provide a pathway toward a sustainable economy, greater local control, and a better quality of life for all.
Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is the director of the Community Information Resource Center, which he founded in 1992. CIRC is a nonprofit consulting organization and networking hub dedicated to economic equity, social justice, and community improvement, specializing in community currency and mutual credit design, development, and implementation. His newest book is The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 08-08-2009
GLOBAL BANKING ECONOMIST WARNED OF COMING CRISIS
THE MAN NOBODY WANTED TO HEAR
Beat Balzli and Michaela Schiessl
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14651
William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007's subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy.
William White had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life after shedding his pinstriped suit and entering retirement.
White, a Canadian, worked for various central banks for 39 years, most recently serving as chief economist for the central bank for all central bankers, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.
Then, after 15 years in the world's most secretive gentlemen's club, White decided it was time to step down. The 66-year-old approached retirement in his adopted country the way a true Swiss national would. He took his money to the local bank, bought a piece of property in the Bernese Highlands and began building a chalet. There, in the mountains between cow pastures and ski resorts, he and his wife planned to relax and enjoy their retirement, and to live a peaceful existence punctuated only by the occasional vacation trip. That was the plan in June 2008.
And now this.
White is wearing his pinstriped suits again. He has just returned from California, where he gave a talk at a large mutual fund company. Then he packed his bags again and jetted to London, where he consulted with the Treasury. After that, he returned to Switzerland to speak at the University of Basel, and then went on to Frankfurt to present a paper at the Center for Financial Studies. From there, White traveled to Paris to attend a meeting at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Finally, he flew back across the Atlantic to Canada. White is clearly in demand, including in North America.
Since the economy went up in flames, the wiry retiree has been jetting around the globe like a paramedic for the world of high finance. He shows no signs of exhaustion, despite his rigorous schedule. In fact, White, with his gray head of hair, is literally beaming with energy, so much so that he seems to glow.
Perhaps it is because someone, finally, is listening to him.
Listening to him, that is, and not to his rival of many years, the once-powerful former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, who was reverentially known as "The Maestro," was celebrated as the greatest central banker of all time -- until the US real estate bubble burst and the crash began.
Before then, no one in the world of central banks would have dared to openly criticize Greenspan's successful policy of cheap money. No one except White, that is.
'A Disorderly Unwinding of Current Excesses'
White recognized the brewing disaster. The analysis department at the BIS has a collection of data from every bank around the globe, considered the most impressive in the world. It enabled the economists working in this nerve center of high finance to look on, practically in real time, as a poisonous concoction began to brew in the international financial system.
White and his team of experts observed the real estate bubble developing in the United States. They criticized the increasingly impenetrable securitization business, vehemently pointed out the perils of risky loans and provided evidence of the lack of credibility of the rating agencies. In their view, the reason for the lack of restraint in the financial markets was that there was simply too much cheap money available on the market. To give all this money somewhere to go, investment bankers invented new financial products that were increasingly sophisticated, imaginative -- and hazardous.
As far back as 2003, White implored central bankers to rethink their strategies, noting that instability in the financial markets had triggered inflation, the "villain" in the global economy. "One hopes that it will not require a disorderly unwinding of current excesses to prove convincingly that we have indeed been on a dangerous path," White wrote in 2006.
In the restrained world of central bankers, it would have been difficult for White to express himself more clearly.
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: The curse of cheap money
Now White has been proved right -- to an almost apocalyptical degree. And yet gloating is the last thing on his mind. He, the chief economist at the central bank for central banks, predicted the disaster, and yet not even his own clientele was willing to believe him. It was probably the biggest failure of the world's central bankers since the founding of the BIS in 1930. They knew everything and did nothing. Their gigantic machinery of analysis kept spitting out new scenarios of doom, but they might as well have been transmitted directly into space.
For years, the regulators of the global money supply ignored the advice of their top experts, probably because it would require them to do something unheard of, namely embark on a fundamental change in direction.
The prevailing model was banal: no inflation, no problem. But White wanted central bankers to take things a step further by preventing the development of bubbles and taking corrective action. He believed that interest rates ought to be raised in good times, even when there is no risk of inflation. This, he argued, counteracts bubbles and makes it possible to lower interest rates in bad times. He also advised the banks to beef up their reserves during a recovery so that they would be in a position to lend money in a downturn.
If White's model had been applied, it might have been possible to avoid the collapse of the financial system -- or at least soften the fall. But there was simply no support for his ideas in the singular, and highly secretive, world of central bankers.
Prima Donnas of the Banking World
The BIS is a closed organization owned by the 55 central banks. The heads of these central banks travel to the Basel headquarters once every two months, and the General Meeting, the BIS's supreme executive body, takes place once a year. The central bankers -- from Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke, to German Bundesbank President Axel Weber and Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) -- are fond of the Basel meetings. When they arrive, the BIS's dark office building at Centralbahnhof 2 in Basel suddenly comes alive. Secretaries inhabit the otherwise deserted offices of the governors, stenographers and chauffeurs stand at the ready and dark limousines wait outside.
The penthouse at the top of the building, with its magnificent view of Basel, is decorated for the annual dinner, the nuclear shelter in the basement is swept out and the wine cellar is restocked with the best wines. At the BIS's private country club, gardeners prepare the tennis courts as if a Grand Slam tournament were about to be held there. The losers of matches can find comfort in the clubhouse, where the Indonesian guest chef serves up Asian delicacies à la carte.
"Central bankers can sometimes be prima donnas," says former BIS Secretary General Gunter Baer. He remembers the commotion that erupted at one of the annual events when it became known that a certain vintage of Mouton Rothschild was unavailable.
The corridors of the BIS headquarters buildings are lined with retro white leather chairs and sofas from the 1970s. The round table where the delegates address the problems of the global economy is polished to a high gloss. But the most impressive space of all is the auditorium, with its modern armchairs in white leather and chrome, the thousands of tiny LED lights, the booths in the back where the interpreters sit behind one-way glass, and the console where the financial masters of the world do their work, centrally positioned at the front of the room. The room is evocative of the control room in "Star Trek." It was supposed to be the hub from which the financial world was to be guided through every possible hazard.
Naturally, the building is largely bugproof, the goal being to prevent anything from leaking to the outside and any unauthorized individuals from penetrating into its interior. There are no public minutes of the meetings. Everything that is discussed there is confidential. The word transparency is unknown at the BIS, where nothing is considered more despicable than an indiscreet central banker.
Central bankers, proud of their independence, are intent on holding themselves above all partisan influences while taking all necessary measures to keep the global economy healthy.
These traits make the BIS one of the world's most exclusive and influential clubs, a sort of Vatican of high finance. Formally registered as a stock corporation, it is recognized as an international organization and, therefore, is not subject to any jurisdiction other than international law.
It does not need to pay tax, and its members and employees enjoy extensive immunity. No other institution regulates the BIS, despite the fact that it manages about 4 percent of the world's total currency reserves, or €217 trillion ($304 trillion), as well as 120 tons of gold.
"Our strength is that we have no power," says BIS Secretary General Peter Dittus. "Our meetings are generally not oriented toward decision-making. Instead, their value consists in the exchange of views." There are no across-the-board agreements on the order of: "Let's raise the prime rate by a point." Opinions take shape in a much more subtle fashion, through something resembling osmosis.
Central bankers are not elected by the people but are appointed by their governments. Nevertheless, they wield power that exceeds that of many political leaders. Their decisions affect entire economies, and a single word from their lips is capable of moving financial markets. They set interest rates, thereby determining the cost of borrowing and the speed of global financial currents.
Their greatest responsibility is to prevent a bank or market crash from jeopardizing the viability of the financial system and, with it, the real economy. It is no accident that central bankers are also in charge of bank supervision in most countries.
But this time they failed miserably. How could this community of central bankers, despite its access to insider information, have so seriously underestimated the dangers? And why on earth did it not intervene?
"Somehow everybody was hoping that it won't go down as long as you don't look at the downside," William White told SPIEGEL. "Similar to the comic figure Wile E. Coyote, who rushes over a cliff, keeps running and only falls when he looks into the depth. Of course, this is nonsense. One falls, because there is an abyss."
But why did they all refuse to recognize the abyss? Why did the central bankers, of all people -- those whose actions are above profit expectations, shareholder pressure and the need to please voters -- keep their eyes tightly shut? Did they too succumb to the general herd instinct?
"As long as everything goes well, there is a great reluctance to (make) any kind of change," says White. "This behavior is deeply rooted in the human mind."
White calls it the human factor. And that factor had a name: Alan Greenspan.
The Killjoy Vs. the Party Animal
Greenspan was long a member of the BIS board of directors and was effectively White's superior. As a fervent champion of the free market, he advocated the model of minimal intervention. In his view, the role of central banks was to control inflation and price stability, as well as to clean up after burst bubbles. Because no one can know when bubbles are about to burst, he argued, it would be impossible to intervene at the right moment.
In his eyes, the instrument of sharply raising interest rates to counteract market excesses routinely failed. Leaning "into the wind," he argued, was pointless. He could even cite historical proof for his thesis. Between the beginning of 1988 and the spring of 1989, the Fed raised the prime rate by three percentage points, the goal being to curtail lending by raising the cost of borrowing. The textbook conclusion was that this would be toxic to the markets, but precisely the opposite occurred: Prices continued to rise.
This supposed paradox repeated itself five years later. Once again, the Fed raised interest rates and, again, the market shot up.
These experiences only strengthened Greenspan's conviction that raising interest rates was an ineffective tool to counteract bubbles. However he never tried raising interest rates to a significantly greater degree than had previously been done, to see what would happen.
The question of who was right, Greenspan or White, didn't exactly lead to a power struggle in Basel. The forces were too unevenly distributed for that. On the one side was the admonishing chief economist, with his seemingly antiquated model that advocated the establishment of reserves, and on the other side was the glamorous central banker, under whose aegis the economy was booming -- the killjoy vs. the party animal.
The central bankers certainly discussed the competing models. But most of them were behind Greenspan, because his system was what they had studied at their elite universities. They refused to accept White's objections that the economy is not a science. There was no way of verifying his model, they said.
Besides, who was about to question success? Greenspan was their superstar, the inviolable master, a living legend. "Greenspan always demanded respect," White recalls, referring to the Maestro's appearances. Hardly anyone dared to contradict the oracular grand master.
And why should they have contradicted Greenspan? "When you are inside the bubble, everybody feels fine. Nobody wants to believe that it can burst," says White. "Nobody is asking the right questions."
He even defends his erstwhile rival. "Greenspan is not the only one to blame. We all played the same game. Japan as well as Europe followed the low interest policy, almost everybody did."
Meanwhile, White noted with concern what the central bankers were triggering as a result. Their policy of cheap money led to the Asian financial crisis in 1997. When the debt that banks had accumulated went into default, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donors had to inject more than $100 billion (€71 billion) to rescue the world economy.
In describing the failure of the markets as far back as 1998, White wrote that it is naïve to assume that markets behave in a disciplined way.
But Greenspan, the champion of free markets, remained impassive.
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: The curse of cheap money
A few weeks later, the market demonstrated its destructive power once again, when Russia plunged into a financial crisis, bringing down the New York hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) along with it. The New York Fed hurriedly convened a meeting of the heads of international banks, initiating a bailout that remains unprecedented to this day. The global economy was saved from a systemic crisis -- at a cost of $3.6 billion (€2.6 billion).
And what did Greenspan do? He lowered interest rates. Then the next bubble, the so-called New Economy, began to grow in Silicon Valley. It burst in the spring of 2000. What did Greenspan do? He lowered interest rates. This time the reduction was massive, with the benchmark rate dropping from 6 percent to 1 percent within three years. This, according to White, was the cardinal error. "After the 2001 crash, interest rates were lowered very aggressively and left too low for too long," he says.
While the economy was recovering from the demise of the dotcom sector and from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, cheap money was already on its way to triggering the next excess. This time it took place in the housing market, and this time it would be far more devastating.
White was losing his patience. Was there no other option than to regularly allow the economy to collapse? Didn't the policy of operating without a safety net border on stupidity? And wasn't it written, in both the Bible and the Koran, that it was important to provide for seven years of famine during seven good years?
This time, White didn't just want to discuss his views behind closed doors. This time, he decided to seek a broader audience.
One Villain Replaced by Another
His destination was Jackson Hole in Wyoming, a kind of Mecca for financial experts. It was August 2003.
Once a year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City invites leading economists and central bankers to a symposium in Jackson Hole. Against the magnificent backdrop of the Grand Teton National Park, the world's financial elite spends its time unwinding on hiking trails and in canoes, before retreating into conference rooms to discuss the state of the global economy. Only those who can hold their own in front of this audience are considered important in the industry.
"This is an opportunity we can't afford to miss," BIS economist Claudio Borio told his boss, White, as he wrote himself a few last-minute notes in his room at the Jackson Lake Lodge in preparation for his speech to the symposium.
Greenspan was in the audience when Borio and White presented their theories -- theories that had absolutely nothing in common with the powerful Fed chairman's worldview, or that of most of his colleagues.
White and Borio described the dramatic changes that had taken place since deregulation of the financial markets in the 1980s. Price stability was no longer the problem, they argued, but rather the development of imbalances in the financial markets, which were increasingly causing earthquake-like tremors. "It is as if one villain had gradually left the stage only to be replaced by another," White and Borio wrote in the paper they presented at Jackson Hole. As it turned out, it was a villain with the ability to unleash devastatingly destructive forces.
It was created by what the two BIS economists called the "inherently procyclical" nature of the financial system. What they meant is that perceptions of value and risk develop in parallel. People suffer from a blindness to future dangers that is intrinsic to the system. The better the economy is doing, the higher the ratings issued by the rating agencies, the laxer the guidelines for approving credit, the easier it becomes to borrow money and the greater the willingness to assume risk.
A bubble develops. When it bursts, the results can be devastating. "In extreme cases, broader financial crises can arise and exacerbate the downturn further," White wrote in his analysis. The consequences, according to White, are high costs to the real economy: unemployment, a credit crunch and bankruptcies.
All it takes to predict such imbalances, White argued, is to monitor "excessive credit expansion and asset price increases," and to take corrective action early on, even without a pending threat of inflation.
This task, the authors concluded, must be performed by monetary policy, among other things. The central banks, according to White and Borio, could limit credit expansion and thus avoid adverse effects on the global economy.
The Jackson Hole paper was an assault on everything Greenspan had preached and, as everyone knew, he was not fond of being contradicted. Other members of the audience glanced surreptitiously at the Maestro to gauge his reaction. Greenspan remained impassive, his face expressionless behind his large spectacles, as he listened to White. Later, during a more relaxed get-together, he refused to even look at White.
White suspected he had failed to convince his audience.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," he says.
'All We Could Do Was to Present our Expertise'
Now that the US prime rate is bobbing up and down between zero and 0.25 percent, and the Fed is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the market, White's words at the 2003 conference have undoubtedly come back to haunt many a central banker.
In that speech, White had prophesied that if the "worst scenario materializes, central banks may need to push policy rates to zero and resort to less conventional measures, whose efficacy is less certain."
He warned that the money supply could dry up. Markets, he wrote, "can freeze under stress, as liquidity evaporates." He also identified -- a full four years before the bursting of the real estate bubble -- the disturbing developments in the US real estate market as a consequence of lax monetary policy.
"Further stimulus has not come free of charge and has raised questions about the sustainability of the recovery," he warned. From today's perspective, White's predictions are almost frightening in their accuracy.
But when push came to shove, he was unable to overturn the prevailing ideology. "We were staff," he says. "All we could do was to present our expertise. It was not within our power how it was used."
Despite the disappointment at Jackson Hole, White didn't give up on supplying data, facts and analyses. Perhaps, he reasoned, this constant flow of information could help to break through mental barriers.
He would repeatedly refer to the "Credit Risk Transfer" report published by the BIS's Committee on the Global Financial System in 2003. The publication describes how loans were packaged into tranches using so-called collateralized debt obligations and then marketed worldwide. For banks, the experts wrote, "CRT instruments may reduce banks' incentives to monitor their borrowers and alter their treatment of distressed borrowers."
That, in a nutshell, was the underlying problem that would eventually trigger the mother of all crises. Many US bankers lowered their guard when it came to issuing subprime mortgages, because they could be repackaged and quickly resold, for example to unsophisticated bankers at German state-owned Landesbanken in places like Dresden, Hamburg and Munich.
The central bankers were also not exactly taken by surprise by the failure of the rating agencies. In their report, the BIS experts derisively described the techniques of rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's as "relatively crude" and noted that "some caution is in order in relation to the reliability of the results."
But nothing happened.
A Greek Tragedy in the Making
In the 2004 BIS annual report, White was unusually frank in criticizing the Fed's lax monetary policy. Although Greenspan sat on the bank's board of directors at the time, the board never sought to influence the analyses of its experts. But neither did it take them seriously.
In January 2005, the BIS's Committee on the Global Financial System sounded the alarm once again, noting that the risks associated with structured financial products were not being "fully appreciated by market participants." Extreme market events, the experts argued, could "have unanticipated systemic consequences."
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: The curse of cheap money
They also cautioned against putting too much faith in the rating agencies, which suffered from a fatal flaw. Because the rating agencies were being paid by the companies they rated, the committee argued, there was a risk that they might rate some companies too highly and be reluctant to lower the ratings of others that should have been downgraded.
These comments show that the central bankers knew exactly what was going on, a full two-and-a-half years before the big bang. All the ingredients of the looming disaster had been neatly laid out on the table in front of them: defective rating agencies, loans repackaged to the point of being unrecognizable, dubious practices of American mortgage lenders, the risks of low-interest policies. But no action was taken. Meanwhile, the Fed continued to raise interest rates in nothing more than tiny increments.
"You can see all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy," says White. The downfall was in sight, and yet no one dared disrupt the party, no one except White, the lone BIS economist, who says: "If returns are too good to be true, then it's too good to be true."
And yet the economy was humming along, and billions in bonuses were being handed out like candy on Wall Street. Who would be willing to put an end to the orgy?
Clearly not Greenspan.
'I Asked Myself: Is This the Big One?'
The Fed chairman was not even impressed by a letter the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), a trade association of US mortgage providers, sent to the Fed on Sept. 23, 2005. In the letter, MICA warned that it was "very concerned" about some of the risky lending practices being applied in the US real estate market. The experts even speculated that the Fed might be operating on the basis of incorrect data. Despite a sharp increase in mortgages being approved for low-income borrowers, most banks were reporting to the Fed that they had not lowered their lending standards. According to a study MICA cited entitled "This Powder Keg Is Going to Blow," there was no secondary market for these "nuclear mortgages."
Three days later, Greenspan addressed the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association in Palm Desert, California, via satellite. He conceded that there had been "local excesses" in real estate prices, but assured his audience that "the vast majority of homeowners have a sizable equity cushion with which to absorb a potential decline in house prices."
The Maestro had spoken -- and the party could continue.
William White and his Basel team were dumbstruck. The central bankers were simply ignoring their warnings. Didn't they understand what they were being told? Or was it that they simply didn't want to understand?
In the March 2006 BIS quarterly report, the Basel analysts described, once again, the grave risks of the subprime market. "Foreign investment in these securities has soared," they wrote. They also cautioned that there were "signs that the US housing market is cooling" and warned that investors "may be exposed to losses in excess of what they had anticipated."
A short time later, White argued for his model once again in a working paper titled "Is Price Stability Enough?" Low inflation rates are not a sign of normalcy, he warned, and central banks should not allow themselves to be led astray by low rates. Both the LTCM bankruptcy and the collapse of the stock markets in 2001 occurred "in an environment of effective price stability."
It was a waste of time and effort. Roger Ferguson, the then-deputy Fed chairman, ironically started to refer to the BIS's Cassandra-like chief economist as "Merry Sunshine."
"There are limits to pressing your argument," White says. "If you keep repeating your point over and over again, nobody will listen anymore."
A Loss of Confidence
Ben Bernanke, who succeeded Greenspan as Fed chief in early 2006, was especially deaf to White's warnings. When he presented his biannual report on the state of the economy to the US Congress on July 19, 2006, he made no mention whatsoever of the subprime risk.
A few months later, in December, the BIS reported that the index for securitized US subprime mortgages had fallen sharply in the fourth quarter of the year. A loss of confidence began to take shape.
The first casualties began surfacing a few weeks later. On Feb. 8, 2007, HSBC, the world's third-largest bank at the time, issued the first profit warning in its history. On April 2, the US mortgage lender New Century Financial filed for bankruptcy.
Bernanke remained unimpressed. "The troubles in the subprime sector seem unlikely to seriously spill over to the broader economy or the financial system," he said. It was June 5, 2007.
White made one last, desperate attempt to bring the central bankers to their senses. "Virtually no one foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and Southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s, respectively. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived," he wrote in June 2007 in the BIS annual report.
But even if Bernanke had listened, it would have been too late by then. On June 22, the US investment bank Bear Stearns announced that it needed $3 billion (€2.1 billion) to bail out two of its hedge funds, which had suffered heavy losses during the course of the US real estate crisis. In Germany, entire banks were soon seeking government bailout funds. Banks increasingly lost trust in one another, and the money markets gradually dried up.
It was the beginning of the end. "When the crisis started, I asked myself: Is this the big one?" White recalls. "The answer was: Yes, this is the big one."
Just as Predicted
Meanwhile, the global economy is on the brink of disaster, as it faces the most devastating and brutal crisis in a century. The only reason the financial system is still intact is that governments are spending billions to support it. Central bankers have been forced to abandon their air of sophisticated aloofness and to try, together with politicians, to save what can be saved. Nowadays no one is talking about the free market's ability to heal itself.
And everything happened just the way White predicted it would.
This is visibly unpleasant for officials at the BIS. Even though they can pride themselves for having provided the best analyses, they have also been forced to admit that their central bankers failed miserably. "We had the right nose, but we didn't know how to use it," says BIS Secretary General Dittus. "We didn't manage to portray the global and financial imbalances in a convincing fashion."
Did White express himself unclearly? No, it was more that he represented a system that only questioned the prevailing view. "Ultimately, an economic model can only be defeated by an opposing model," says BIS Chief Economist Stephen Cecchetti, White's successor. "Unfortunately, we don't have a generally recognized model yet. Perhaps this partly explains why our warnings were less effective than would have been desirable."
The group of the 20 most important industrialized and emerging nations, which is now left with the task of cleaning up the wreckage of the crisis, apparently faces less academic problems. At the London G-20 summit in April, the group decided to promote a crisis-prevention model based on White's theories.
They want to introduce what might be called his hoarding model, which calls for banks to build up reserves in good times so that they can be more flexible in bad times. The central banks, according to White, must actively counteract bubbles and exert stronger control over the financial industry, including hedge funds and insurance companies.
As an adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's group of experts, White helped to shape the basic tenets of the new order. And the 79th annual report of the BIS, published in Basel last week, also reads like pure White. It lists, as the causes of the crisis, extensive global imbalances, a lengthy phase of low real interest rates, distorted incentive systems and underestimated risks. In addition to improved regulation, the BIS argues that "asset prices and credit growth must be more directly integrated into monetary policy frameworks."
Simply Part of Life
Even though this is what he has been saying for more than 10 years, White, a passionate financial professional, is the last person to show signs of bitterness. During a conversation in his Paris office at the OECD, he has no harsh words for those who had long dismissed him as an alarmist. For White, the BIS will always be the greatest experience for an economist. The errors made by central bankers, politicians and business executives, he says, are simply part of life.
"Take the Enron example," he says. "We analyzed the disaster and found that 12 different levels of the government malfunctioned. This is part of human nature."
He is familiar with human nature, and he knows how to handle it. White is more concerned about the things he doesn't understand. New Zealand is a case in point. Interest rates were raised early in the crisis there, and yet the central bank was unable to come to grips with the credit bubble. Investors were apparently borrowing cheap money from foreign lenders.
This is the sort of thing that worries him. "That's when you have to ask yourself: Who exactly is controlling the whole thing anymore?"
Perhaps his model has a flaw in that regard. Could it be possible that central bankers today have far less influence than he assumes?
The thought causes him to wrinkle his brow for a moment. Then he smiles, says his goodbyes and quickly disappears into a Paris Metro station.
He knows that he is needed.
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 08-08-2009
ENTERING THE GREATEST DEPRESSION IN HISTORY
MORE BUBBLES WAITING TO BURST
Andrew Gavin Marshall
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14680
Introduction
While there is much talk of a recovery on the horizon, commentators are forgetting some crucial aspects of the financial crisis. The crisis is not simply composed of one bubble, the housing real estate bubble, which has already burst. The crisis has many bubbles, all of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008. Indicators show that the next possible burst is the commercial real estate bubble. However, the main event on the horizon is the “bailout bubble” and the general world debt bubble, which will plunge the world into a Great Depression the likes of which have never before been seen.
Housing Crash Still Not Over
The housing real estate market, despite numbers indicating an upward trend, is still in trouble, as, “Houses are taking months to sell. Many buyers are having trouble getting financing as lenders and appraisers struggle to figure out what houses are really worth in the wake of the collapse.” Further, “the overall market remains very soft [...] aside from speculators and first-time buyers.” Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington said, “It would be wrong to imagine that we have hit a turning point in the market,” as “There is still an enormous oversupply of housing, which means that the direction of house prices will almost certainly continue to be downward.” Foreclosures are still rising in many states “such as Nevada, Georgia and Utah, and economists say rising unemployment may push foreclosures higher into next year.” Clearly, the housing crisis is still not at an end.[1]
The Commercial Real Estate Bubble
In May, Bloomberg quoted Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann as saying, “It's either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.” Bloomberg further pointed out that, “A piece of the puzzle that must be calculated into any determination of the depth of our economic doldrums is the condition of commercial real estate -- the shopping malls, hotels, and office buildings that tend to go along with real- estate expansions.” Residential investment went down 28.9 % from 2006 to 2007, and at the same time, nonresidential investment grew 24.9%, thus, commercial real estate was “serving as a buffer against the declining housing market.”
Commercial real estate lags behind housing trends, and so too, will the crisis, as “commercial construction projects are losing their appeal.” Further, “there are lots of reasons to suspect that commercial real estate was subject to some of the loose lending practices that afflicted the residential market. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's Survey of Credit Underwriting Practices found that whereas in 2003 just 2 percent of banks were easing their underwriting standards on commercial construction loans, by 2006 almost a third of them were relaxing.” In May it was reported that, “Almost 80 percent of domestic banks are tightening their lending standards for commercial real-estate loans,” and that, “we may face double-bubble trouble for real estate and the economy.”[2]
In late July of 2009, it was reported that, “Commercial real estate’s decline is a significant issue facing the economy because it may result in more losses for the financial industry than residential real estate. This category includes apartment buildings, hotels, office towers, and shopping malls.” Worth noting is that, “As the economy has struggled, developers and landlords have had to rely on a helping hand from the US Federal Reserve in order to try to get credit flowing so that they can refinance existing buildings or even to complete partially constructed projects.” So again, the Fed is delaying the inevitable by providing more liquidity to an already inflated bubble. As the Financial Post pointed out, “From Vancouver to Manhattan, we are seeing rising office vacancies and declines in office rents.”[3]
In April of 2009, it was reported that, “Office vacancies in U.S. downtowns increased to 12.5 percent in the first quarter, the highest in three years, as companies cut jobs and new buildings came onto the market,” and, “Downtown office vacancies nationwide could come close to 15 percent by the end of this year, approaching the 10-year high of 15.5 percent in 2003.”[4]
In the same month it was reported that, “Strip malls, neighborhood centers and regional malls are losing stores at the fastest pace in at least a decade, as a spending slump forces retailers to trim down to stay afloat.” In the first quarter of 2009, retail tenants “have vacated 8.7 million square feet of commercial space,” which “exceeds the 8.6 million square feet of retail space that was vacated in all of 2008.” Further, as CNN reported, “vacancy rates at malls rose 9.5% in the first quarter, outpacing the 8.9% vacancy rate registered in all of 2008.” Of significance for those that think and claim the crisis will be over by 2010, “mall vacancies [are expected] to exceed historical levels through 2011,” as for retailers, “it's only going to get worse.”[5] Two days after the previous report, “General Growth Properties Inc, the second-largest U.S. mall owner, declared bankruptcy on [April 16] in the biggest real estate failure in U.S. history.”[6]
In April, the Financial Times reported that, “Property prices in China are likely to halve over the next two years, a top government researcher has predicted in a powerful signal that the country’s economic downturn faces further challenges despite recent positive data.” This is of enormous significance, as “The property market, along with exports, were leading drivers of the booming Chinese economy over the past decade.” Further, “an apparent rebound in the property market was unsustainable over the medium term and being driven by a flood of liquidity and fraudulent activity rather than real demand.” A researcher at a leading Chinese government think tank reported that, “he expected average urban residential property prices to fall by 40 to 50 per cent over the next two years from their levels at the end of 2008.”[7]
In April, it was reported that, “The Federal Reserve is considering offering longer loans to investors in commercial mortgage-backed securities as part of a plan to help jump-start the market for commercial real estate debt.” Since February the Fed “has been analyzing appropriate terms and conditions for accepting commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and other mortgage assets as collateral for its Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF).”[8]
In late July, the Financial Times reported that, “Two of America’s biggest banks, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo ... threw into sharp relief the mounting woes of the US commercial property market when they reported large losses and surging bad loan,” as “The disappointing second-quarter results for two of the largest lenders and investors in office, retail and industrial property across the US confirmed investors’ fears that commercial real estate would be the next front in the financial crisis after the collapse of the housing market.” The commercial property market, worth $6.7 trillion, “which accounts for more than 10 per cent of US gross domestic product, could be a significant hurdle on the road to recovery.”[9]
The Bailout Bubble
While the bailout, or the “stimulus package” as it is often referred to, is getting good coverage in terms of being portrayed as having revived the economy and is leading the way to the light at the end of the tunnel, key factors are again misrepresented in this situation.
At the end of March of 2009, Bloomberg reported that, “The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year.” This amount “works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.”[10]
Gerald Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute, the major trend-forecasting agency in the world, wrote in May of 2009 of the “bailout bubble.” Celente’s forecasts are not to be taken lightly, as he accurately predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the 1998 Russian economic collapse, the 1997 East Asian economic crisis, the 2000 Dot-Com bubble burst, the 2001 recession, the start of a recession in 2007 and the housing market collapse of 2008, among other things.
On May 13, 2009, Celente released a Trend Alert, reporting that, “The biggest financial bubble in history is being inflated in plain sight,” and that, “This is the Mother of All Bubbles, and when it explodes [...] it will signal the end to the boom/bust cycle that has characterized economic activity throughout the developed world.” Further, “This is much bigger than the Dot-com and Real Estate bubbles which hit speculators, investors and financiers the hardest. However destructive the effects of these busts on employment, savings and productivity, the Free Market Capitalist framework was left intact. But when the 'Bailout Bubble' explodes, the system goes with it.”
Celente further explained that, “Phantom dollars, printed out of thin air, backed by nothing ... and producing next to nothing ... defines the ‘Bailout Bubble.’ Just as with the other bubbles, so too will this one burst. But unlike Dot-com and Real Estate, when the "Bailout Bubble" pops, neither the President nor the Federal Reserve will have the fiscal fixes or monetary policies available to inflate another.” Celente elaborated, “Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war,” and that, “While we cannot pinpoint precisely when the 'Bailout Bubble' will burst, we are certain it will. When it does, it should be understood that a major war could follow.”[11]
However, this “bailout bubble” that Celente was referring to at the time was the $12.8 trillion reported by Bloomberg. As of July, estimates put this bubble at nearly double the previous estimate.
As the Financial Times reported in late July of 2009, while the Fed and Treasury hail the efforts and impact of the bailouts, “Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the troubled asset relief programme, [TARP] said that the various US schemes to shore up banks and restart lending exposed federal agencies to a risk of $23,700bn [$23.7 trillion] – a vast estimate that was immediately dismissed by the Treasury.” The inspector-general of the TARP program stated that there were “fundamental vulnerabilities?.?.?.?relating to conflicts of interest and collusion, transparency, performance measures, and anti-money laundering.”
Barofsky also reports on the “considerable stress” in commercial real estate, as “The Fed has begun to open up Talf to commercial mortgage-backed securities to try to influence credit conditions in the commercial real estate market. The report draws attention to a new potential credit crunch when $500bn worth of real estate mortgages need to be refinanced by the end of the year.” Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, and Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary and former President of the New York Fed, are seriously discussing extending TALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility) into “CMBS [Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities] and other assets such as small business loans and whether to increase the size of the programme.” It is the “expansion of the various programmes into new and riskier asset classes is one of the main bones of contention between the Treasury and Mr Barofsky.”[12]
Testifying before Congress, Barofsky said, “From programs involving large capital infusions into hundreds of banks and other financial institutions, to a mortgage modification program designed to modify millions of mortgages, to public-private partnerships using tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to purchase 'toxic' assets from banks, TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale, and complexity.” He explained that, “The total potential federal government support could reach up to 23.7 trillion dollars.”[13]
Is a Future Bailout Possible?
In early July of 2009, billionaire investor Warren Buffet said that, “unemployment could hit 11 percent and a second stimulus package might be needed as the economy struggles to recover from recession,” and he further stated that, “we're not in a recovery.”[14] Also in early July, an economic adviser to President Obama stated that, “The United States should be planning for a possible second round of fiscal stimulus to further prop up the economy.”[15]
In August of 2009, it was reported that, “THE Obama administration will consider dishing out more money to rein in unemployment despite signs the recession is ending,” and that, “Treasury secretary Tim Geithner also conceded tax hikes could be on the agenda as the government worked to bring its huge recovery-related deficits under control.” Geithner said, “we will do what it takes,” and that, “more federal cash could be tipped into the recovery as unemployment benefits amid projections the benefits extended to 1.5 million jobless Americans will expire without Congress' intervention.” However, any future injection of money could be viewed as “a second stimulus package.”[16]
The Washington Post reported in early July of a Treasury Department initiative known as “Plan C.” The Plan C team was assembled “to examine what could yet bring [the economy] down and has identified several trouble spots that could threaten the still-fragile lending industry,” and “the internal project is focused on vexing problems such as the distressed commercial real estate markets, the high rate of delinquencies among homeowners, and the struggles of community and regional banks.”
Further, “The team is also responsible for considering potential government responses, but top officials within the Obama administration are wary of rolling out initiatives that would commit massive amounts of federal resources.” The article elaborated in saying that, “The creation of Plan C is a sign that the government has moved into a new phase of its response, acting preemptively rather than reacting to emerging crises.” In particular, the near-term challenge they are facing is commercial real estate lending, as “Banks and other firms that provided such loans in the past have sharply curtailed lending,” leaving “many developers and construction companies out in the cold.” Within the next couple years, “these groups face a tidal wave of commercial real estate debt -- some estimates peg the total at more than $3 trillion -- that they will need to refinance. These loans were issued during this decade's construction boom with the mistaken expectation that they would be refinanced on the same generous terms after a few years.”
However, as a result of the credit crisis, “few developers can find anyone to refinance their debt, endangering healthy and distressed properties.” Kim Diamond, a managing director at Standard & Poor's, stated that, “It's not a degree to which people are willing to lend,” but rather, “The question is whether a loan can be made at all.” Important to note is that, “Financial analysts said losses on commercial real estate loans are now the single largest cause of bank failures,” and that none of the bailout efforts enacted “is big enough to address the size of the problem.”[17]
So the question must be asked: what is Plan C contemplating in terms of a possible government “solution”? Another bailout? The effect that this would have would be to further inflate the already monumental bailout bubble.
The Great European Bubble
In October of 2008, Germany and France led a European Union bailout of 1 trillion Euros, and “World markets initially soared as European governments pumped billions into crippled banks. Central banks in Europe also mounted a new offensive to restart lending by supplying unlimited amounts of dollars to commercial banks in a joint operation.”[18]
The American bailouts even went to European banks, as it was reported in March of 2009 that, “European banks declined to discuss a report that they were beneficiaries of the $173 billion bail-out of insurer AIG,” as “Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a host of other U.S. and European banks had been paid roughly $50 billion since the Federal Reserve first extended aid to AIG.” Among the European banks, “French banks Societe Generale and Calyon on Sunday declined to comment on the story, as did Deutsche Bank, Britain's Barclays and unlisted Dutch group Rabobank.” Other banks that got money from the US bailout include HSBC, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Banco Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland. Because AIG was essentially insolvent, “the bailout enabled AIG to pay its counterparty banks for extra collateral,” with “Goldman Sachs and Deutsche bank each receiving $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December.”[19]
In April of 2009, it was reported that, “EU governments have committed 3 trillion Euros [or $4 trillion dollars] to bail out banks with guarantees or cash injections in the wake of the global financial crisis, the European Commission.”[20]
In early February of 2009, the Telegraph published a story with a startling headline, “European banks may need 16.3 trillion pound bail-out, EC document warns.” Type this headline into google, and the link to the Telegraph appears. However, click on the link, and the title has changed to “European bank bail-out could push EU into crisis.” Further, they removed any mention of the amount of money that may be required for a bank bailout. The amount in dollars, however, nears $25 trillion. The amount is the cumulative total of the troubled assets on bank balance sheets, a staggering number derived from the derivatives trade.
The Telegraph reported that, “National leaders and EU officials share fears that a second bank bail-out in Europe will raise government borrowing at a time when investors - particularly those who lend money to European governments - have growing doubts over the ability of countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Britain to pay it back.”[21]
When Eastern European countries were in desperate need of financial aid, and discussion was heated on the possibility of an EU bailout of Eastern Europe, the EU, at the behest of Angela Merkel of Germany, denied the East European bailout. However, this was more a public relations stunt than an actual policy position.
While the EU refused money to Eastern Europe in the form of a bailout, in late March European leaders “doubled the emergency funding for the fragile economies of central and eastern Europe and pledged to deliver another doubling of International Monetary Fund lending facilities by putting up 75bn Euros (70bn pounds).” EU leaders “agreed to increase funding for balance of payments support available for mainly eastern European member states from 25bn Euros to 50bn Euros.”[22]
As explained in a Times article in June of 2009, Germany has been deceitful in its public stance versus its actual policy decisions. The article, worth quoting in large part, first explained that:
Europe is now in the middle of a perfect storm - a confluence of three separate, but interconnected economic crises which threaten far greater devastation than Britain or America have suffered from the credit crunch: the collapse of German industry and employment, the impending bankruptcy of Central European homeowners and businesses; and the threat of government debt defaults from loss of monetary control by the Irish Republic, Greece and Portugal, for instance on the eurozone periphery.
Taking the case of Latvia, the author asks, “If the crisis expands, other EU governments - and especially Germany's - will face an existential question. Do they commit hundreds of billions of euros to guarantee the debts of fellow EU countries? Or do they allow government defaults and devaluations that may ultimately break up the single currency and further cripple German industry, as well as the country's domestic banks?” While addressing that, “Publicly, German politicians have insisted that any bailouts or guarantees are out of the question,” however, “the pass has been quietly sold in Brussels, while politicians loudly protested their unshakeable commitment to defend it.”
The author addressed how in October of 2008:
[...] a previously unused regulation was discovered, allowing the creation of a 25 billion Euros “balance of payments facility” and authorising the EU to borrow substantial sums under its own “legal personality” for the first time. This facility was doubled again to 50 billion Euros in March. If Latvia's financial problems turn into a full-scale crisis, these guarantees and cross-subsidies between EU governments will increase to hundreds of billions in the months ahead and will certainly mutate into large-scale centralised EU borrowing, jointly guaranteed by all the taxpayers of the EU.
[...] The new EU borrowing, for example, is legally an ‘off-budget’ and ‘back-to-back’ arrangement, which allows Germany to maintain the legal fiction that it is not guaranteeing the debts of Latvia et al. The EU's bond prospectus to investors, however, makes quite clear where the financial burden truly lies: “From an investor's point of view the bond is fully guaranteed by the EU budget and, ultimately, by the EU Member States.”[23]
So Eastern Europe is getting, or presumably will get bailed out. Whether this is in the form of EU federalism, providing loans of its own accord, paid for by European taxpayers, or through the IMF, which will attach any loans with its stringent Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) conditionalities, or both. It turned out that the joint partnership of the IMF and EU is what provided the loans and continues to provide such loans.
As the Financial Times pointed out in August of 2009, “Bank failures or plunging currencies in the three Baltic nations – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – could threaten the fragile prospect of recovery in the rest of Europe. These countries also sit on one of the world’s most sensitive political fault-lines. They are the European Union’s frontier states, bordering Russia.” In July, Latvia “agreed its second loan in eight months from the IMF and the EU,” following the first one in December. Lithuania is reported to be following suit. However, as the Financial Times noted, the loans came with the IMF conditionalities: “The injection of cash is the good news. The bad news is that, in return for shoring up state finances, the new IMF deal will require the Latvian government to impose yet more pain on its suffering population. Public-sector wages have already been cut by about a third this year. Pensions have been sliced. Now the IMF requires Latvia to cut another 10 per cent from the state budget this autumn.”[24]
If we are to believe the brief Telegraph report pertaining to nearly $25 trillion in bad bank assets, which was removed from the original article for undisclosed reasons, not citing a factual retraction, the question is, does this potential bailout still stand? These banks haven’t been rescued financially from the EU, so, presumably, these bad assets are still sitting on the bank balance sheets. This bubble has yet to blow. Combine this with the $23.7 trillion US bailout bubble, and there is nearly $50 trillion between the EU and the US waiting to burst.
An Oil Bubble
In early July of 2009, the New York Times reported that, “The extreme volatility that has gripped oil markets for the last 18 months has shown no signs of slowing down, with oil prices more than doubling since the beginning of the year despite an exceptionally weak economy.” Instability in the oil and gas prices has led many to “fear it could jeopardize a global recovery.” Further, “It is also hobbling businesses and consumers,” as “A wild run on the oil markets has occurred in the last 12 months.” Oil prices reached a record high last summer at $145/barrel, and with the economic crisis they fell to $33/barrel in December. However, since the start of 2009, oil has risen 55% to $70/barrel.
As the Times article points out, “the recent rise in oil prices is reprising the debate from last year over the role of investors — or speculators — in the commodity markets.” Energy officials from the EU and OPEC met in June and concluded that, “the speculation issue had not been resolved yet and that the 2008 bubble could be repeated.”[25]
In June of 2009, Hedge Fund manager Michael Masters told the US Senate that, “Congress has not done enough to curb excessive speculation in the oil markets, leaving the country vulnerable to another price run-up in 2009.” He explained that, “oil prices are largely not determined by supply and demand but the trading desks of large Wall Street firms.” Because “Nothing was actually done by Congress to put an end to the problem of excessive speculation” in 2008, Masters explained, “there is nothing to prevent another bubble in oil prices in 2009. In fact, signs of another possible bubble are already beginning to appear.”[26]
In May of 2008, Goldman Sachs warned that oil could reach as much as $200/barrel within the next 12-24 months [up to May 2010]. Interestingly, “Goldman Sachs is one of the largest Wall Street investment banks trading oil and it could profit from an increase in prices.”[27] However, this is missing the key point. Not only would Goldman Sachs profit, but Goldman Sachs plays a major role in sending oil prices up in the first place.
As Ed Wallace pointed out in an article in Business Week in May of 2008, Goldman Sachs’ report placed the blame for such price hikes on “soaring demand” from China and the Middle East, combined with the contention that the Middle East has or would soon peak in its oil reserves. Wallace pointed out that:
Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing last December. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE—which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.[28]
Essentially, Goldman Sachs is one of the key speculators in the oil market, and thus, plays a major role in driving oil prices up on speculation. This must be reconsidered in light of the resurgent rise in oil prices in 2009. In July of 2009, “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posted record earnings as revenue from trading and stock underwriting reached all-time highs less than a year after the firm took $10 billion in U.S. rescue funds.”[29] Could one be related to the other?
Bailouts Used in Speculation
In November of 2008, the Chinese government injected an “$849 billion stimulus package aimed at keeping the emerging economic superpower growing.”[30] China then recorded a rebound in the growth rate of the economy, and underwent a stock market boom. However, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in July of 2009, “Its growth is now fuelled by cheap debt rather than corporate profits and retained earnings, and this shift in the medium term threatens to undermine China’s economic decoupling from the global slump.” Further, “overseas money has been piling into China, inflating foreign exchange reserves and domestic liquidity. So perhaps it is not surprising that outstanding bank loans have doubled in the last few years, or that there is much talk of a shadow banking system. Then there is China’s reputation for building overcapacity in its industrial sector, a notoriety it won even before the crash in global demand. This showed a disregard for returns that is always a tell-tale sign of cheap money.”
China’s economy primarily relies upon the United States as a consumption market for its cheap products. However, “The slowdown in U.S. consumption amid a credit crunch has exposed the weaknesses in this export-led financing model. So now China is turning instead to cheap debt for funding, a shift suggested by this year’s 35% or so rise in bank loans.”[31]
In August of 2009, it was reported that China is experiencing a “stimulus-fueled stock market boom.” However, this has caused many leaders to “worry that too much of the $1-trillion lending binge by state banks that paid for China's nascent revival was diverted into stocks and real estate, raising the danger of a boom and bust cycle and higher inflation less than two years after an earlier stock market bubble burst.”[32]
The same reasoning needs to be applied to the US stock market surge. Something is inherently and structurally wrong with a financial system in which nothing is being produced, 600,000 jobs are lost monthly, and yet, the stock market goes up. Why is the stock market going up?
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which provided $700 billion in bank bailouts, started under Bush and expanded under Obama, entails that the US Treasury purchases $700 billion worth of “troubled assets” from banks, and in turn, “that banks cannot be asked to account for their use of taxpayer money.”[33]
So if banks don’t have to account for where the money goes, where did it go? They claim it went back into lending. However, bank lending continues to go down.[34] Stock market speculation is the likely answer. Why else would stocks go up, lending continue downwards, and the bailout money be unaccounted for?
What Does the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Have to Say?
In late June, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank of the world’s central banks, the most prestigious and powerful financial organization in the world, delivered an important warning. It stated that, “fiscal stimulus packages may provide no more than a temporary boost to growth, and be followed by an extended period of economic stagnation.”
The BIS, “The only international body to correctly predict the financial crisis ... has warned the biggest risk is that governments might be forced by world bond investors to abandon their stimulus packages, and instead slash spending while lifting taxes and interest rates,” as the annual report of the BIS “has for the past three years been warning of the dangers of a repeat of the depression.” Further, “Its latest annual report warned that countries such as Australia faced the possibility of a run on the currency, which would force interest rates to rise.” The BIS warned that, “a temporary respite may make it more difficult for authorities to take the actions that are necessary, if unpopular, to restore the health of the financial system, and may thus ultimately prolong the period of slow growth.”
Of immense import is the BIS warning that, “At the same time, government guarantees and asset insurance have exposed taxpayers to potentially large losses,” and explaining how fiscal packages posed significant risks, it said that, “There is a danger that fiscal policy-makers will exhaust their debt capacity before finishing the costly job of repairing the financial system,” and that, “There is the definite possibility that stimulus programs will drive up real interest rates and inflation expectations.” Inflation “would intensify as the downturn abated,” and the BIS “expressed doubt about the bank rescue package adopted in the US.”[35]
The BIS further warned of inflation, saying that, “The big and justifiable worry is that, before it can be reversed, the dramatic easing in monetary policy will translate into growth in the broader monetary and credit aggregates,” the BIS said. That will “lead to inflation that feeds inflation expectations or it may fuel yet another asset-price bubble, sowing the seeds of the next financial boom-bust cycle.”[36]
Major investors have also been warning about the dangers of inflation. Legendary investor Jim Rogers has warned of “a massive inflation holocaust.”[37] Investor Marc Faber has warned that, “The U.S. economy will enter ‘hyperinflation’ approaching the levels in Zimbabwe,” and he stated that he is “100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation.” Further, “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”[38]
Are We Entering A New Great Depression?
In 2007, it was reported that, “The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.” Further:
The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
[...] In a thinly-veiled rebuke to the US Federal Reserve, the BIS said central banks were starting to doubt the wisdom of letting asset bubbles build up on the assumption that they could safely be "cleaned up" afterwards - which was more or less the strategy pursued by former Fed chief Alan Greenspan after the dotcom bust.[39]
In 2008, the BIS again warned of the potential of another Great Depression, as “complex credit instruments, a strong appetite for risk, rising levels of household debt and long-term imbalances in the world currency system, all form part of the loose monetarist policy that could result in another Great Depression.”[40]
In 2008, the BIS also said that, “The current market turmoil is without precedent in the postwar period. With a significant risk of recession in the US, compounded by sharply rising inflation in many countries, fears are building that the global economy might be at some kind of tipping point,” and that all central banks have done “has been to put off the day of reckoning.”[41]
In late June of 2009, the BIS reported that as a result of stimulus packages, it has only seen “limited progress” and that, “the prospects for growth are at risk,” and further “stimulus measures won't be able to gain traction, and may only lead to a temporary pickup in growth.” Ultimately, “A fleeting recovery could well make matters worse.”[42]
The BIS has said, in softened language, that the stimulus packages are ultimately going to cause more damage than they prevented, simply delaying the inevitable and making the inevitable that much worse. Given the previous BIS warnings of a Great Depression, the stimulus packages around the world have simply delayed the coming depression, and by adding significant numbers to the massive debt bubbles of the world’s nations, will ultimately make the depression worse than had governments not injected massive amounts of money into the economy.
After the last Great Depression, Keynesian economists emerged victorious in proposing that a nation must spend its way out of crisis. This time around, they will be proven wrong. The world is a very different place now. Loose credit, easy spending and massive debt is what has led the world to the current economic crisis, spending is not the way out. The world has been functioning on a debt based global economy. This debt based monetary system, controlled and operated by the global central banking system, of which the apex is the Bank for International Settlements, is unsustainable. This is the real bubble, the debt bubble. When it bursts, and it will burst, the world will enter into the Greatest Depression in world history.
Notes
[1] Barrie McKenna, End of housing slump? Try telling that to buyers, sellers and the unemployed. The Globe and Mail: August 6, 2009:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/end-of-housing-slump-try-telling-that-to-buyers-sellers-and-the-unemployed/article1240418/
[2] Gene Sperling, Double-Bubble Trouble in Commercial Real Estate: Gene Sperling. Bloomberg: May 9, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a.X91SkgOd8g
[3] AL Sull, Commercial Real Estate - The Other Real Estate Bubble. Financial Post: July 23, 2009:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpmagazinedaily/archive/2009/07/23/commercial-real-estate-the-other-real-estate-bubble.aspx
[4] Hui-yong Yu, U.S. Office Vacancies Rise to Three-Year High, Cushman Says. Bloomberg: April 16, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aegH6dXG8H8U
[5] Parija B. Kavilanz, Malls shedding stores at record pace. CNN Money: April 14, 2009:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/10/news/economy/retail_malls/index.htm
[6] Ilaina Jonas and Emily Chasan, General Growth files largest U.S. real estate bankruptcy. Reuters: April 16, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE53F68P20090417
[7] Jamil Anderlini, China property prices ‘likely to halve’. The Financial Times: April 13, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a36b342-280e-11de-8dbf-00144feabdc0.html
[8] Reuters, Fed Might Extend TALF Support to Five Years. Money News: April 17, 2009:
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/financenews/talf/2009/04/17/204120.html?utm_medium=RSS
[9] Francesco Guerrera and Greg Farrell, US banks warn on commercial property. The Financial Times: July 22, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a1e9d86-76eb-11de-b23c-00144feabdc0.html
[10] Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry, Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion. Bloomberg: March 31, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
[11] Gerald Celente, The "Bailout Bubble" - The Bubble to End All Bubbles. Trends Research Institute: May 13, 2009:
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2009/05/gerald-celente-bubble-to-end-all.html
[12] Tom Braithwaite, Treasury clashes with Tarp watchdog on data. The Financial Times: July 20, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab533a38-757a-11de-9ed5-00144feabdc0.html
[13] AFP, US could spend 23.7 trillion dollars on crisis: report. Agence-France Presse: July 20, 2009:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iuL1HParBuO4WyHJIxw6rlOKdz-A
[14] John Whitesides, Warren Buffett says second stimulus might be needed. Reuters: July 9, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressReleasesMolt/idUSTRE5683MZ20090709
[15] Vidya Ranganathan, U.S. should plan 2nd fiscal stimulus: economic adviser. Reuters: July 7, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56611D20090707
[16] Carly Crawford, US may increase stimulus payments to rein in unemployment. The Herald Sun: August 3, 2009:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25873672-664,00.html
[17] David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum, Treasury Works on 'Plan C' To Fend Off Lingering Threats. The Washington Post: July 8, 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702631.html?hpid=topnews
[18] Charles Bremner and David Charter, Germany and France lead €1 trillion European bailout. Times Online: October 13, 2009:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4937516.ece
[19] Douwe Miedema, Europe banks silent on reported AIG bailout gains. Reuters: March 8, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5270YD20090308
[20] Elitsa Vucheva, European Bank Bailout Total: $4 Trillion. Business Week: April 10, 2009:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2009/gb20090410_254738.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories
[21] Bruno Waterfield, European bank bail-out could push EU into crisis. The Telegraph: February 11, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4590512/European-banks-may-need-16.3-trillion-bail-out-EC-dcoument-warns.html
[22] Ian Traynor, EU doubles funding for fragile eastern European economies. The Guardian: March 20, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/20/eu-imf-emergency-funding
[23] Anatole Kaletsky, The great bailout - Europe's best-kept secret. The Times Online: June 4, 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6426565.ece
[24] Gideon Rachman, Europe prepares for a Baltic blast. The Financial Times: August 3, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b497f5b6-8060-11de-bf04-00144feabdc0.html
[25] JAD MOUAWAD, Swings in Price of Oil Hobble Forecasting. The New York Times: July 5, 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/06oil.html
[26] Christopher Doering, Masters says signs of oil bubble starting to appear. Reuters: June 4, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/Inspiration/idUSTRE55355620090604
[27] Javier Blas and Chris Flood, Analyst warns of oil at $200 a barrel. The Financial Times: May 6, 2008:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto050620081414392593
[28] Ed Wallace, The Reason for High Oil Prices. Business Week: May 13, 2009:
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/may2008/bw20080513_720178.htm
[29] Christine Harper, Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profit, Beating Estimates. Bloomberg: July 14, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2jo3RK2_Aps
[30] Peter Martin and John Garnaut, The great China bailout. The Age: November 11, 2008:
http://business.theage.com.au/business/the-great-china-bailout-20081110-5lpe.html
[31] Paul Cavey, Now China Has a Credit Boom. The Wall Street Journal: July 30, 2009:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574319261337617196.html
[32] Joe McDonald, China's stimulus-fueled stock boom alarms Beijing. The Globe and Mail: August 2, 2009:
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090802.wchina02/GIStory/
[33] Matt Jaffe, Watchdog Refutes Treasury Claim Banks Cannot Be Asked to Account for Bailout Cash. ABC News: July 19, 2009:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/story?id=8121045&page=1
[34] The China Post, Bank lending slows down in U.S.: report. The China Post: July 28, 2009:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2009/07/28/218141/Bank-lending.htm
[35] David Uren. Bank for International Settlements warning over stimulus benefits. The Australian: June 30, 2009:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25710566-601,00.html
[36] Simone Meier, BIS Sees Risk Central Banks Will Raise Interest Rates Too Late. Bloomberg: June 29, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aOnSy9jXFKaY
[37] CNBC.com, We Are Facing an 'Inflation Holocaust': Jim Rogers. CNBC: October 10, 2008:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27097823
[38] Chen Shiyin and Bernard Lo, U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level, Faber Says. Bloomberg: May 27, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=avgZDYM6mTFA
[39] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree. The Telegraph: June 27, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2811081/BIS-warns-of-Great-Depression-dangers-from-credit-spree.html
[40] Gill Montia, Central bank body warns of Great Depression. Banking Times: June 9, 2008:
http://www.bankingtimes.co.uk/09062008-central-bank-body-warns-of-great-depression/
[41] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, BIS slams central banks, warns of worse crunch to come. The Telegraph: June 30, 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2792450/BIS-slams-central-banks-warns-of-worse-crunch-to-come.html
[42] HEATHER SCOFFIELD, Financial repairs must continue: central banks. The Globe and Mail: June 29, 2009:
http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090629.wcentralbanks0629/BNStory/HEATHER+SCOFFIELD/
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 08-08-2009
THE EXPIRING ECONOMY
Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14676
Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government built in Baghdad, Iraq.
Hard times have now afflicted Americans for so long that even the extension of unemployment benefits from 6 months to 18 months for 24 high unemployment states, and to 46 - 72 weeks in other states, is beginning to run out. By Christmas 1.5 million Americans will have exhausted unemployment benefits while unemployment rolls continue to rise.
Amidst this worsening economic crisis, the House of Representatives just passed a $636 billion "defense" bill.
Who is the United States defending against? Americans have no enemies except those that the US government goes out of its way to create by bombing and invading countries that comprise no threat whatsoever to the US and by encircling others—Russia for example—with threatening military bases.
America’s wars are contrived affairs to serve the money laundering machine: from the taxpayers and money borrowed from foreign creditors to the armaments industry to the political contributions that ensure $636 billion "defense" bills.
President George W. Bush gave us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are entirely based on lies and misrepresentations. But Obama has done Bush one better. Obama has started a war in Pakistan with no explanation whatsoever.
If the armaments industry and the neoconservative brownshirts have their way, the US will also be at war with Iran, Russia, Sudan and North Korea.
Meanwhile, America continues to be overrun, as it has been for decades, not by armed foreign enemies but by illegal immigrants across America’s porous and undefended borders.
It is more proof of the Orwellian time in which we live that $636 billion appropriated for wars of aggression is called a "defense bill."
Who is going to pay for all of this? When foreign countries have spent their trade surpluses and have no more dollars to recycle into the purchase of Treasury bonds, when US banks have used up their "bailout" money by purchasing Treasury bonds, and when the Federal Reserve cannot print any more money to keep the government going without pushing up inflation and interest rates, the taxpayer will be all that is left. Already Obama’s two top economic advisors, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers, are floating the prospect of a middle class tax increase. Will Obama be maneuvered away from his promise just as Bush Sr. was?
Will Americans see the disconnect between their interests and the interests of "their" government? In the small town of Vassalboro, Maine, a few topless waitress jobs in a coffee house drew 150 applicants. Women in this small town are so desperate for jobs that they are reduced to undressing for their neighbors’ amusement.
Meanwhile, the Obama government is going to straighten out Afghanistan and Pakistan and build marble palaces to awe the locals half way around the world.
The US government keeps hyping "recovery" the way Bush hyped "terrorist threat" and "weapons of mass destruction." The recovery is no more real than the threats. Indeed, it is possible that the economic collapse has hardly begun. Let’s look at what might await us here at home while the US government pursues hegemony abroad.
The real estate crisis is not over. More home foreclosures await as unemployment rises and unemployment benefits are exhausted. The commercial real estate crisis is yet to hit. More bailouts are coming, and they will have to be financed by more debt or money creation. If there are not sufficient purchasers for the Treasury bonds, the Federal Reserve will have to purchase them by creating checking accounts for the Treasury, that is, by debt monetization or the printing of money.
More debt and money creation will put more pressure on the US dollar’s exchange value. At some point import prices, which include offshored goods and services of US corporations, will rise, adding to the inflation fueled by domestic money creation. The Federal Reserve will be unable to hold down interest rates by buying bonds.
No part of US economic policy addresses the systemic crisis in American incomes. For most Americans real income ceased to grow some years ago. Americans have substituted second jobs and debt accumulation for the missing growth in real wages. With most households maxed out on debt and jobs disappearing, these substitutes for real income growth no longer exist.
The Bush-Obama economic policy actually worsens the systemic crisis that the US dollar faces as reserve currency. The fact that there might be no alternative to the dollar as reserve currency does not guarantee that the dollar will continue in this role. Countries might find it less risky to settle trade transactions in their own currencies.
How does an economy based heavily on consumer spending recover when so many high-value-added jobs, and the GDP and payroll tax revenues associated with them, have been moved offshore and when consumers have no more assets to leverage in order to increase their spending?
How does the US pay for its imports if the dollar is no longer used as reserve currency?
These are the unanswered questions.
INTERNATIONAL BAILOUT BRINGS US CLOSER TO ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Ron Paul
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22890.htm
Last week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill. In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace candidate, the current president will be sending another $106 billion we don’t have to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq, without a hint of a plan to bring our troops home.
Many of my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration seem to have changed their tune. I maintain that a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse, and as long as Congress continues to enable these dangerous interventions abroad, there is no end in sight, that is until we face total economic collapse.
From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration. Washington spends with impunity domestically, bailing out and nationalizing everything they can get their hands on, and the foreign aid and IMF funding in this bill can rightly be called an international bailout!
As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan, and $420 million to Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called "peacekeeping" missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders. Nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a "potential pandemic flu" which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine.
Perhaps most outrageous is the $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund. These new loan guarantees will allow that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt leaders and promote harmful economic policies overseas.
Not only does sending American taxpayer money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help. Along with IMF loans comes IMF required policy changes, called Structural Adjustment Programs, which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that has brought our own country to its knees, and IMF loans act as the Trojan Horse to inflict it on others. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that leaders in recipient nations tend to become more concerned with the wishes of international elites than the wishes and needs of their own people. Argentina and Kenya are just two examples of countries that followed IMF mandates right off a cliff. The IMF frequently recommends currency devaluation to poorer nations, which has wiped out the already impoverished over and over. There is also a long list of brutal dictators the IMF happily supported and propped up with loans that left their oppressed populace in staggering amounts of debt with no economic progress to show for it.
We are buying nothing but evil and global oppression by sending your taxdollars to the IMF. Not to mention there is no Constitutional authority to do so. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact undermines our national security. I vehemently opposed this Supplemental Appropriations Bill and was dismayed to see it pass so easily.
WHY AMERICA IS A BANK OWNED STATE
Samah El-Shahat
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22897.htm
In my last column I introduced the idea that America's handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an "emerging" economy might behave and act.
So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.
As a development economist, what always made developing and poorer countries stand out was the level of inequality between individuals.
That is, the difference between how a small percentage, usually the country's capitalists, oligarchs and those close to people in power, were overdosing on wealth as the rest struggled to make ends meet, or even survive.
Everyone in the country knew it, from the poorest farmer on the street to the richest oligarch. It was in your face, unashamed, unabated and highly discomforting.
Discomforting because it made all of us who witnessed it feel crippled at the power of the status quo, ruing the unfairness of life when merit always comes last, relative to who you know and who you are.
We took some relief from believing that this only happens because these countries were authoritarian, and not so accountable to their electorate.
Yet, if we look closer at the leading capitalist economies such as those of America and the UK, we will find that inequity raises its ugly head equally, and as starkly, when you look at the numbers.
Kept in the dark
Here too, a small percentage have the lion's share of national income in their hands, while the rest of the population experience stagnant incomes, all within a democratic, rather than an authoritarian, political regime.
Yet the real difference here is that, away from the numbers, the wider population and the electorate were mostly kept in the dark about this.
In 2006, the top one per cent of American households' share of all disposable income amounted to almost a quarter of all households' disposable income, according to Robert Hunter Wade, professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.
In crude terms, one per cent of the population have a quarter of all the wealth.
Moreover, Wade found the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of the population remained almost stagnant after 1980, although consumption kept rising thanks to the build-up of private debt.
This means that 90 per cent of the American economy were financing their American dream on debt.
In the UK, Wade found the pay gap between the highest and average earners had widened alarmingly.
Back in 1989, chief executives pocketed 17 times more than average earners.
By 2007, those same "captains of industry" were earning 75 times more than the average worker.
That is one enormous leap and I wouldn't mind that happening to my salary!
What's good for Wall Street ...
Warning signs that the financial crisis would become the great recession were there for all to see for a long time.
But where were the alarms in the system itself to say that these countries and the individuals in them were pursuing an unsustainable way of life?
Where were the signs that things were going to end disastrously and, worse still, that the most vulnerable might end up paying the heftiest and most disproportionate price than anyone else?
I believe the status quo was allowed to go unquestioned because banks were benefiting obscenely from the interest on our debt, and governments were in cahoots with these banks.
Let's not forget that governments conveniently moved away from the provision of affordable healthcare, free university education and affordable housing while the banks entered our lives, aggressively, to fill that void.
In addition, I think that this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible.
The whole issue was made invisible. It was kept off the radar screens of electoral politics.
The American electorate were made accomplice to this because they were convinced that what was good for Wall Street, was good for America as a whole.
It was a political sleight of hand of the highest order. And this explains the bipartisan agreement to the ill-designed deregulation of the finance sector that we have seen over the years.
America has become a bank-owned state.
Ann Pettifor, a fellow development economist who works for the New Economics Foundation, says the US administration has been hijacked, and democracy has been pushed aside in favour of what is good for the bankers, by what Abraham Lincoln called "the money power".
And how right she is. The way the banks are being bailed out is a clear example of this political edifice.
Sucking the life out of tax-payers
The fact some of these failing banks have been thrown a lifeline is a testament to the hold they have over Barack Obama's administration.
Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support.
The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt.
On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector.
Underlying this refusal to kill those banks in poor health is a faulty and, dare I say, convenient assumption, that is not backed up by reality or fact, that the banks are facing a liquidity crisis as opposed to them facing a solvency crisis.
A liquidity crisis means the banks are facing a credit shortage, and once that is sorted, all will be well.
A solvency crisis means that the assets of many banks, firms and households are worth less than their debt.
And this means that these banks have to be completely nationalised.
Which leads us to Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, and his "stress tests".
The tests were meant to give a clear and final assessment of these banks' balance sheets, telling us which were healthy and which would not be able to survive and would need more cash if the recession deepens.
As in any induced test, like the ones we undergo when we have our hearts tested, the "stress tests" were meant to simulate worse-case scenarios. Well, that was the promise at least.
The hope was that some would be declared so bad, they would have to go under once and for all.
Unfortunately, the tests turned out peculiarly lacking in stress.
Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, says: "The government used assumptions for the macro variables in 2009 and 2010 that are so optimistic that the actual data for 2009 are already worse than the adverse scenario.
"As for some crucial variables, such as the unemployment rate – key to proper estimates of default and recovery rates for residential mortages ... and other bank loans – the current trend shows that by the end of 2009 the unemployment rate will be higher than the average unemployment rate assumed in the more adverse scenario for 2010, not for 2009."
The unemployment rate used in the worse-case scenario was assumed to average 8.9 per cent in 2009 and 10.3 per cent in 2010. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 per cent this year, and looks likely to overtake 10.3 per cent by next year.
So, there is nothing really challenging about these worse case scenarios at all.
Next week, I'll write about Timothy Geithner's plan to wipe toxic assets off the banks' balance sheets without getting rid of one single bank ... and how long before we say ENOUGH and really do something about it.
Samah El-Shahat also presents Al Jazeera's People & Power programme.
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 08-09-2009
ENTERING THE GREATEST DEPRESSION IN HISTORY. MORE BUBBLES WAITING TO BURST
Andrew Gavin Marshall
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23224.htm
While there is much talk of a recovery on the horizon, commentators are forgetting some crucial aspects of the financial crisis. The crisis is not simply composed of one bubble, the housing real estate bubble, which has already burst. The crisis has many bubbles, all of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008. Indicators show that the next possible burst is the commercial real estate bubble. However, the main event on the horizon is the “bailout bubble” and the general world debt bubble, which will plunge the world into a Great Depression the likes of which have never before been seen.
Housing Crash Still Not Over
The housing real estate market, despite numbers indicating an upward trend, is still in trouble, as, “Houses are taking months to sell. Many buyers are having trouble getting financing as lenders and appraisers struggle to figure out what houses are really worth in the wake of the collapse.” Further, “the overall market remains very soft [...] aside from speculators and first-time buyers.” Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington said, “It would be wrong to imagine that we have hit a turning point in the market,” as “There is still an enormous oversupply of housing, which means that the direction of house prices will almost certainly continue to be downward.” Foreclosures are still rising in many states “such as Nevada, Georgia and Utah, and economists say rising unemployment may push foreclosures higher into next year.” Clearly, the housing crisis is still not at an end.[1]
The Commercial Real Estate Bubble
In May, Bloomberg quoted Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann as saying, “It's either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.” Bloomberg further pointed out that, “A piece of the puzzle that must be calculated into any determination of the depth of our economic doldrums is the condition of commercial real estate -- the shopping malls, hotels, and office buildings that tend to go along with real- estate expansions.” Residential investment went down 28.9 % from 2006 to 2007, and at the same time, nonresidential investment grew 24.9%, thus, commercial real estate was “serving as a buffer against the declining housing market.”
Commercial real estate lags behind housing trends, and so too, will the crisis, as “commercial construction projects are losing their appeal.” Further, “there are lots of reasons to suspect that commercial real estate was subject to some of the loose lending practices that afflicted the residential market. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's Survey of Credit Underwriting Practices found that whereas in 2003 just 2 percent of banks were easing their underwriting standards on commercial construction loans, by 2006 almost a third of them were relaxing.” In May it was reported that, “Almost 80 percent of domestic banks are tightening their lending standards for commercial real-estate loans,” and that, “we may face double-bubble trouble for real estate and the economy.”[2]
In late July of 2009, it was reported that, “Commercial real estate’s decline is a significant issue facing the economy because it may result in more losses for the financial industry than residential real estate. This category includes apartment buildings, hotels, office towers, and shopping malls.” Worth noting is that, “As the economy has struggled, developers and landlords have had to rely on a helping hand from the US Federal Reserve in order to try to get credit flowing so that they can refinance existing buildings or even to complete partially constructed projects.” So again, the Fed is delaying the inevitable by providing more liquidity to an already inflated bubble. As the Financial Post pointed out, “From Vancouver to Manhattan, we are seeing rising office vacancies and declines in office rents.”[3]
In April of 2009, it was reported that, “Office vacancies in U.S. downtowns increased to 12.5 percent in the first quarter, the highest in three years, as companies cut jobs and new buildings came onto the market,” and, “Downtown office vacancies nationwide could come close to 15 percent by the end of this year, approaching the 10-year high of 15.5 percent in 2003.”[4]
In the same month it was reported that, “Strip malls, neighborhood centers and regional malls are losing stores at the fastest pace in at least a decade, as a spending slump forces retailers to trim down to stay afloat.” In the first quarter of 2009, retail tenants “have vacated 8.7 million square feet of commercial space,” which “exceeds the 8.6 million square feet of retail space that was vacated in all of 2008.” Further, as CNN reported, “vacancy rates at malls rose 9.5% in the first quarter, outpacing the 8.9% vacancy rate registered in all of 2008.” Of significance for those that think and claim the crisis will be over by 2010, “mall vacancies [are expected] to exceed historical levels through 2011,” as for retailers, “it's only going to get worse.”[5] Two days after the previous report, “General Growth Properties Inc, the second-largest U.S. mall owner, declared bankruptcy on [April 16] in the biggest real estate failure in U.S. history.”[6]
In April, the Financial Times reported that, “Property prices in China are likely to halve over the next two years, a top government researcher has predicted in a powerful signal that the country’s economic downturn faces further challenges despite recent positive data.” This is of enormous significance, as “The property market, along with exports, were leading drivers of the booming Chinese economy over the past decade.” Further, “an apparent rebound in the property market was unsustainable over the medium term and being driven by a flood of liquidity and fraudulent activity rather than real demand.” A researcher at a leading Chinese government think tank reported that, “he expected average urban residential property prices to fall by 40 to 50 per cent over the next two years from their levels at the end of 2008.”[7]
In April, it was reported that, “The Federal Reserve is considering offering longer loans to investors in commercial mortgage-backed securities as part of a plan to help jump-start the market for commercial real estate debt.” Since February the Fed “has been analyzing appropriate terms and conditions for accepting commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and other mortgage assets as collateral for its Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF).”[8]
In late July, the Financial Times reported that, “Two of America’s biggest banks, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo ... threw into sharp relief the mounting woes of the US commercial property market when they reported large losses and surging bad loan,” as “The disappointing second-quarter results for two of the largest lenders and investors in office, retail and industrial property across the US confirmed investors’ fears that commercial real estate would be the next front in the financial crisis after the collapse of the housing market.” The commercial property market, worth $6.7 trillion, “which accounts for more than 10 per cent of US gross domestic product, could be a significant hurdle on the road to recovery.”[9]
The Bailout Bubble
While the bailout, or the “stimulus package” as it is often referred to, is getting good coverage in terms of being portrayed as having revived the economy and is leading the way to the light at the end of the tunnel, key factors are again misrepresented in this situation.
At the end of March of 2009, Bloomberg reported that, “The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year.” This amount “works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.”[10]
Gerald Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute, the major trend-forecasting agency in the world, wrote in May of 2009 of the “bailout bubble.” Celente’s forecasts are not to be taken lightly, as he accurately predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the 1998 Russian economic collapse, the 1997 East Asian economic crisis, the 2000 Dot-Com bubble burst, the 2001 recession, the start of a recession in 2007 and the housing market collapse of 2008, among other things.
On May 13, 2009, Celente released a Trend Alert, reporting that, “The biggest financial bubble in history is being inflated in plain sight,” and that, “This is the Mother of All Bubbles, and when it explodes [...] it will signal the end to the boom/bust cycle that has characterized economic activity throughout the developed world.” Further, “This is much bigger than the Dot-com and Real Estate bubbles which hit speculators, investors and financiers the hardest. However destructive the effects of these busts on employment, savings and productivity, the Free Market Capitalist framework was left intact. But when the 'Bailout Bubble' explodes, the system goes with it.”
Celente further explained that, “Phantom dollars, printed out of thin air, backed by nothing ... and producing next to nothing ... defines the ‘Bailout Bubble.’ Just as with the other bubbles, so too will this one burst. But unlike Dot-com and Real Estate, when the "Bailout Bubble" pops, neither the President nor the Federal Reserve will have the fiscal fixes or monetary policies available to inflate another.” Celente elaborated, “Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war,” and that, “While we cannot pinpoint precisely when the 'Bailout Bubble' will burst, we are certain it will. When it does, it should be understood that a major war could follow.”[11]
However, this “bailout bubble” that Celente was referring to at the time was the $12.8 trillion reported by Bloomberg. As of July, estimates put this bubble at nearly double the previous estimate.
As the Financial Times reported in late July of 2009, while the Fed and Treasury hail the efforts and impact of the bailouts, “Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the troubled asset relief programme, [TARP] said that the various US schemes to shore up banks and restart lending exposed federal agencies to a risk of $23,700bn [$23.7 trillion] – a vast estimate that was immediately dismissed by the Treasury.” The inspector-general of the TARP program stated that there were “fundamental vulnerabilities?.?.?.?relating to conflicts of interest and collusion, transparency, performance measures, and anti-money laundering.”
Barofsky also reports on the “considerable stress” in commercial real estate, as “The Fed has begun to open up Talf to commercial mortgage-backed securities to try to influence credit conditions in the commercial real estate market. The report draws attention to a new potential credit crunch when $500bn worth of real estate mortgages need to be refinanced by the end of the year.” Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, and Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary and former President of the New York Fed, are seriously discussing extending TALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility) into “CMBS [Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities] and other assets such as small business loans and whether to increase the size of the programme.” It is the “expansion of the various programmes into new and riskier asset classes is one of the main bones of contention between the Treasury and Mr Barofsky.”[12]
Testifying before Congress, Barofsky said, “From programs involving large capital infusions into hundreds of banks and other financial institutions, to a mortgage modification program designed to modify millions of mortgages, to public-private partnerships using tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to purchase 'toxic' assets from banks, TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale, and complexity.” He explained that, “The total potential federal government support could reach up to 23.7 trillion dollars.”[13]
Is a Future Bailout Possible?
In early July of 2009, billionaire investor Warren Buffet said that, “unemployment could hit 11 percent and a second stimulus package might be needed as the economy struggles to recover from recession,” and he further stated that, “we're not in a recovery.”[14] Also in early July, an economic adviser to President Obama stated that, “The United States should be planning for a possible second round of fiscal stimulus to further prop up the economy.”[15]
In August of 2009, it was reported that, “THE Obama administration will consider dishing out more money to rein in unemployment despite signs the recession is ending,” and that, “Treasury secretary Tim Geithner also conceded tax hikes could be on the agenda as the government worked to bring its huge recovery-related deficits under control.” Geithner said, “we will do what it takes,” and that, “more federal cash could be tipped into the recovery as unemployment benefits amid projections the benefits extended to 1.5 million jobless Americans will expire without Congress' intervention.” However, any future injection of money could be viewed as “a second stimulus package.”[16]
The Washington Post reported in early July of a Treasury Department initiative known as “Plan C.” The Plan C team was assembled “to examine what could yet bring [the economy] down and has identified several trouble spots that could threaten the still-fragile lending industry,” and “the internal project is focused on vexing problems such as the distressed commercial real estate markets, the high rate of delinquencies among homeowners, and the struggles of community and regional banks.”
Further, “The team is also responsible for considering potential government responses, but top officials within the Obama administration are wary of rolling out initiatives that would commit massive amounts of federal resources.” The article elaborated in saying that, “The creation of Plan C is a sign that the government has moved into a new phase of its response, acting preemptively rather than reacting to emerging crises.” In particular, the near-term challenge they are facing is commercial real estate lending, as “Banks and other firms that provided such loans in the past have sharply curtailed lending,” leaving “many developers and construction companies out in the cold.” Within the next couple years, “these groups face a tidal wave of commercial real estate debt -- some estimates peg the total at more than $3 trillion -- that they will need to refinance. These loans were issued during this decade's construction boom with the mistaken expectation that they would be refinanced on the same generous terms after a few years.”
However, as a result of the credit crisis, “few developers can find anyone to refinance their debt, endangering healthy and distressed properties.” Kim Diamond, a managing director at Standard & Poor's, stated that, “It's not a degree to which people are willing to lend,” but rather, “The question is whether a loan can be made at all.” Important to note is that, “Financial analysts said losses on commercial real estate loans are now the single largest cause of bank failures,” and that none of the bailout efforts enacted “is big enough to address the size of the problem.”[17]
So the question must be asked: what is Plan C contemplating in terms of a possible government “solution”? Another bailout? The effect that this would have would be to further inflate the already monumental bailout bubble.
The Great European Bubble
In October of 2008, Germany and France led a European Union bailout of 1 trillion Euros, and “World markets initially soared as European governments pumped billions into crippled banks. Central banks in Europe also mounted a new offensive to restart lending by supplying unlimited amounts of dollars to commercial banks in a joint operation.”[18]
The American bailouts even went to European banks, as it was reported in March of 2009 that, “European banks declined to discuss a report that they were beneficiaries of the $173 billion bail-out of insurer AIG,” as “Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a host of other U.S. and European banks had been paid roughly $50 billion since the Federal Reserve first extended aid to AIG.” Among the European banks, “French banks Societe Generale and Calyon on Sunday declined to comment on the story, as did Deutsche Bank, Britain's Barclays and unlisted Dutch group Rabobank.” Other banks that got money from the US bailout include HSBC, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Banco Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland. Because AIG was essentially insolvent, “the bailout enabled AIG to pay its counterparty banks for extra collateral,” with “Goldman Sachs and Deutsche bank each receiving $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December.”[19]
In April of 2009, it was reported that, “EU governments have committed 3 trillion Euros [or $4 trillion dollars] to bail out banks with guarantees or cash injections in the wake of the global financial crisis, the European Commission.”[20]
In early February of 2009, the Telegraph published a story with a startling headline, “European banks may need 16.3 trillion pound bail-out, EC document warns.” Type this headline into google, and the link to the Telegraph appears. However, click on the link, and the title has changed to “European bank bail-out could push EU into crisis.” Further, they removed any mention of the amount of money that may be required for a bank bailout. The amount in dollars, however, nears $25 trillion. The amount is the cumulative total of the troubled assets on bank balance sheets, a staggering number derived from the derivatives trade.
The Telegraph reported that, “National leaders and EU officials share fears that a second bank bail-out in Europe will raise government borrowing at a time when investors - particularly those who lend money to European governments - have growing doubts over the ability of countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Britain to pay it back.”[21]
When Eastern European countries were in desperate need of financial aid, and discussion was heated on the possibility of an EU bailout of Eastern Europe, the EU, at the behest of Angela Merkel of Germany, denied the East European bailout. However, this was more a public relations stunt than an actual policy position.
While the EU refused money to Eastern Europe in the form of a bailout, in late March European leaders “doubled the emergency funding for the fragile economies of central and eastern Europe and pledged to deliver another doubling of International Monetary Fund lending facilities by putting up 75bn Euros (70bn pounds).” EU leaders “agreed to increase funding for balance of payments support available for mainly eastern European member states from 25bn Euros to 50bn Euros.”[22]
As explained in a Times article in June of 2009, Germany has been deceitful in its public stance versus its actual policy decisions. The article, worth quoting in large part, first explained that:
Europe is now in the middle of a perfect storm - a confluence of three separate, but interconnected economic crises which threaten far greater devastation than Britain or America have suffered from the credit crunch: the collapse of German industry and employment, the impending bankruptcy of Central European homeowners and businesses; and the threat of government debt defaults from loss of monetary control by the Irish Republic, Greece and Portugal, for instance on the eurozone periphery.
Taking the case of Latvia, the author asks, “If the crisis expands, other EU governments - and especially Germany's - will face an existential question. Do they commit hundreds of billions of euros to guarantee the debts of fellow EU countries? Or do they allow government defaults and devaluations that may ultimately break up the single currency and further cripple German industry, as well as the country's domestic banks?” While addressing that, “Publicly, German politicians have insisted that any bailouts or guarantees are out of the question,” however, “the pass has been quietly sold in Brussels, while politicians loudly protested their unshakeable commitment to defend it.”
The author addressed how in October of 2008:
[...] a previously unused regulation was discovered, allowing the creation of a 25 billion Euros “balance of payments facility” and authorising the EU to borrow substantial sums under its own “legal personality” for the first time. This facility was doubled again to 50 billion Euros in March. If Latvia's financial problems turn into a full-scale crisis, these guarantees and cross-subsidies between EU governments will increase to hundreds of billions in the months ahead and will certainly mutate into large-scale centralised EU borrowing, jointly guaranteed by all the taxpayers of the EU.
[...] The new EU borrowing, for example, is legally an ‘off-budget’ and ‘back-to-back’ arrangement, which allows Germany to maintain the legal fiction that it is not guaranteeing the debts of Latvia et al. The EU's bond prospectus to investors, however, makes quite clear where the financial burden truly lies: “From an investor's point of view the bond is fully guaranteed by the EU budget and, ultimately, by the EU Member States.”[23]
So Eastern Europe is getting, or presumably will get bailed out. Whether this is in the form of EU federalism, providing loans of its own accord, paid for by European taxpayers, or through the IMF, which will attach any loans with its stringent Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) conditionalities, or both. It turned out that the joint partnership of the IMF and EU is what provided the loans and continues to provide such loans.
As the Financial Times pointed out in August of 2009, “Bank failures or plunging currencies in the three Baltic nations – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – could threaten the fragile prospect of recovery in the rest of Europe. These countries also sit on one of the world’s most sensitive political fault-lines. They are the European Union’s frontier states, bordering Russia.” In July, Latvia “agreed its second loan in eight months from the IMF and the EU,” following the first one in December. Lithuania is reported to be following suit. However, as the Financial Times noted, the loans came with the IMF conditionalities: “The injection of cash is the good news. The bad news is that, in return for shoring up state finances, the new IMF deal will require the Latvian government to impose yet more pain on its suffering population. Public-sector wages have already been cut by about a third this year. Pensions have been sliced. Now the IMF requires Latvia to cut another 10 per cent from the state budget this autumn.”[24]
If we are to believe the brief Telegraph report pertaining to nearly $25 trillion in bad bank assets, which was removed from the original article for undisclosed reasons, not citing a factual retraction, the question is, does this potential bailout still stand? These banks haven’t been rescued financially from the EU, so, presumably, these bad assets are still sitting on the bank balance sheets. This bubble has yet to blow. Combine this with the $23.7 trillion US bailout bubble, and there is nearly $50 trillion between the EU and the US waiting to burst.
An Oil Bubble
In early July of 2009, the New York Times reported that, “The extreme volatility that has gripped oil markets for the last 18 months has shown no signs of slowing down, with oil prices more than doubling since the beginning of the year despite an exceptionally weak economy.” Instability in the oil and gas prices has led many to “fear it could jeopardize a global recovery.” Further, “It is also hobbling businesses and consumers,” as “A wild run on the oil markets has occurred in the last 12 months.” Oil prices reached a record high last summer at $145/barrel, and with the economic crisis they fell to $33/barrel in December. However, since the start of 2009, oil has risen 55% to $70/barrel.
As the Times article points out, “the recent rise in oil prices is reprising the debate from last year over the role of investors — or speculators — in the commodity markets.” Energy officials from the EU and OPEC met in June and concluded that, “the speculation issue had not been resolved yet and that the 2008 bubble could be repeated.”[25]
In June of 2009, Hedge Fund manager Michael Masters told the US Senate that, “Congress has not done enough to curb excessive speculation in the oil markets, leaving the country vulnerable to another price run-up in 2009.” He explained that, “oil prices are largely not determined by supply and demand but the trading desks of large Wall Street firms.” Because “Nothing was actually done by Congress to put an end to the problem of excessive speculation” in 2008, Masters explained, “there is nothing to prevent another bubble in oil prices in 2009. In fact, signs of another possible bubble are already beginning to appear.”[26]
In May of 2008, Goldman Sachs warned that oil could reach as much as $200/barrel within the next 12-24 months [up to May 2010]. Interestingly, “Goldman Sachs is one of the largest Wall Street investment banks trading oil and it could profit from an increase in prices.”[27] However, this is missing the key point. Not only would Goldman Sachs profit, but Goldman Sachs plays a major role in sending oil prices up in the first place.
As Ed Wallace pointed out in an article in Business Week in May of 2008, Goldman Sachs’ report placed the blame for such price hikes on “soaring demand” from China and the Middle East, combined with the contention that the Middle East has or would soon peak in its oil reserves. Wallace pointed out that:
Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing last December. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE—which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.[28]
Essentially, Goldman Sachs is one of the key speculators in the oil market, and thus, plays a major role in driving oil prices up on speculation. This must be reconsidered in light of the resurgent rise in oil prices in 2009. In July of 2009, “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posted record earnings as revenue from trading and stock underwriting reached all-time highs less than a year after the firm took $10 billion in U.S. rescue funds.”[29] Could one be related to the other?
Bailouts Used in Speculation
In November of 2008, the Chinese government injected an “$849 billion stimulus package aimed at keeping the emerging economic superpower growing.”[30] China then recorded a rebound in the growth rate of the economy, and underwent a stock market boom. However, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in July of 2009, “Its growth is now fuelled by cheap debt rather than corporate profits and retained earnings, and this shift in the medium term threatens to undermine China’s economic decoupling from the global slump.” Further, “overseas money has been piling into China, inflating foreign exchange reserves and domestic liquidity. So perhaps it is not surprising that outstanding bank loans have doubled in the last few years, or that there is much talk of a shadow banking system. Then there is China’s reputation for building overcapacity in its industrial sector, a notoriety it won even before the crash in global demand. This showed a disregard for returns that is always a tell-tale sign of cheap money.”
China’s economy primarily relies upon the United States as a consumption market for its cheap products. However, “The slowdown in U.S. consumption amid a credit crunch has exposed the weaknesses in this export-led financing model. So now China is turning instead to cheap debt for funding, a shift suggested by this year’s 35% or so rise in bank loans.”[31]
In August of 2009, it was reported that China is experiencing a “stimulus-fueled stock market boom.” However, this has caused many leaders to “worry that too much of the $1-trillion lending binge by state banks that paid for China's nascent revival was diverted into stocks and real estate, raising the danger of a boom and bust cycle and higher inflation less than two years after an earlier stock market bubble burst.”[32]
The same reasoning needs to be applied to the US stock market surge. Something is inherently and structurally wrong with a financial system in which nothing is being produced, 600,000 jobs are lost monthly, and yet, the stock market goes up. Why is the stock market going up?
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which provided $700 billion in bank bailouts, started under Bush and expanded under Obama, entails that the US Treasury purchases $700 billion worth of “troubled assets” from banks, and in turn, “that banks cannot be asked to account for their use of taxpayer money.”[33]
So if banks don’t have to account for where the money goes, where did it go? They claim it went back into lending. However, bank lending continues to go down.[34] Stock market speculation is the likely answer. Why else would stocks go up, lending continue downwards, and the bailout money be unaccounted for?
What Does the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Have to Say?
In late June, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank of the world’s central banks, the most prestigious and powerful financial organization in the world, delivered an important warning. It stated that, “fiscal stimulus packages may provide no more than a temporary boost to growth, and be followed by an extended period of economic stagnation.”
The BIS, “The only international body to correctly predict the financial crisis ... has warned the biggest risk is that governments might be forced by world bond investors to abandon their stimulus packages, and instead slash spending while lifting taxes and interest rates,” as the annual report of the BIS “has for the past three years been warning of the dangers of a repeat of the depression.” Further, “Its latest annual report warned that countries such as Australia faced the possibility of a run on the currency, which would force interest rates to rise.” The BIS warned that, “a temporary respite may make it more difficult for authorities to take the actions that are necessary, if unpopular, to restore the health of the financial system, and may thus ultimately prolong the period of slow growth.”
Of immense import is the BIS warning that, “At the same time, government guarantees and asset insurance have exposed taxpayers to potentially large losses,” and explaining how fiscal packages posed significant risks, it said that, “There is a danger that fiscal policy-makers will exhaust their debt capacity before finishing the costly job of repairing the financial system,” and that, “There is the definite possibility that stimulus programs will drive up real interest rates and inflation expectations.” Inflation “would intensify as the downturn abated,” and the BIS “expressed doubt about the bank rescue package adopted in the US.”[35]
The BIS further warned of inflation, saying that, “The big and justifiable worry is that, before it can be reversed, the dramatic easing in monetary policy will translate into growth in the broader monetary and credit aggregates,” the BIS said. That will “lead to inflation that feeds inflation expectations or it may fuel yet another asset-price bubble, sowing the seeds of the next financial boom-bust cycle.”[36]
Major investors have also been warning about the dangers of inflation. Legendary investor Jim Rogers has warned of “a massive inflation holocaust.”[37] Investor Marc Faber has warned that, “The U.S. economy will enter ‘hyperinflation’ approaching the levels in Zimbabwe,” and he stated that he is “100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation.” Further, “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”[38]
Are We Entering A New Great Depression?
In 2007, it was reported that, “The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.” Further:
The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
[...] In a thinly-veiled rebuke to the US Federal Reserve, the BIS said central banks were starting to doubt the wisdom of letting asset bubbles build up on the assumption that they could safely be "cleaned up" afterwards - which was more or less the strategy pursued by former Fed chief Alan Greenspan after the dotcom bust.[39]
In 2008, the BIS again warned of the potential of another Great Depression, as “complex credit instruments, a strong appetite for risk, rising levels of household debt and long-term imbalances in the world currency system, all form part of the loose monetarist policy that could result in another Great Depression.”[40]
In 2008, the BIS also said that, “The current market turmoil is without precedent in the postwar period. With a significant risk of recession in the US, compounded by sharply rising inflation in many countries, fears are building that the global economy might be at some kind of tipping point,” and that all central banks have done “has been to put off the day of reckoning.”[41]
In late June of 2009, the BIS reported that as a result of stimulus packages, it has only seen “limited progress” and that, “the prospects for growth are at risk,” and further “stimulus measures won't be able to gain traction, and may only lead to a temporary pickup in growth.” Ultimately, “A fleeting recovery could well make matters worse.”[42]
The BIS has said, in softened language, that the stimulus packages are ultimately going to cause more damage than they prevented, simply delaying the inevitable and making the inevitable that much worse. Given the previous BIS warnings of a Great Depression, the stimulus packages around the world have simply delayed the coming depression, and by adding significant numbers to the massive debt bubbles of the world’s nations, will ultimately make the depression worse than had governments not injected massive amounts of money into the economy.
After the last Great Depression, Keynesian economists emerged victorious in proposing that a nation must spend its way out of crisis. This time around, they will be proven wrong. The world is a very different place now. Loose credit, easy spending and massive debt is what has led the world to the current economic crisis, spending is not the way out. The world has been functioning on a debt based global economy. This debt based monetary system, controlled and operated by the global central banking system, of which the apex is the Bank for International Settlements, is unsustainable. This is the real bubble, the debt bubble. When it bursts, and it will burst, the world will enter into the Greatest Depression in world history.
Notes
[1] Barrie McKenna, End of housing slump? Try telling that to buyers, sellers and the unemployed. The Globe and Mail: August 6, 2009:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/end-of-housing-slump-try-telling-that-to-buyers-sellers-and-the-unemployed/article1240418/
[2] Gene Sperling, Double-Bubble Trouble in Commercial Real Estate: Gene Sperling. Bloomberg: May 9, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a.X91SkgOd8g
[3] AL Sull, Commercial Real Estate - The Other Real Estate Bubble. Financial Post: July 23, 2009:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpmagazinedaily/archive/2009/07/23/commercial-real-estate-the-other-real-estate-bubble.aspx
[4] Hui-yong Yu, U.S. Office Vacancies Rise to Three-Year High, Cushman Says. Bloomberg: April 16, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aegH6dXG8H8U
[5] Parija B. Kavilanz, Malls shedding stores at record pace. CNN Money: April 14, 2009:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/10/news/economy/retail_malls/index.htm
[6] Ilaina Jonas and Emily Chasan, General Growth files largest U.S. real estate bankruptcy. Reuters: April 16, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE53F68P20090417
[7] Jamil Anderlini, China property prices ‘likely to halve’. The Financial Times: April 13, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a36b342-280e-11de-8dbf-00144feabdc0.html
[8] Reuters, Fed Might Extend TALF Support to Five Years. Money News: April 17, 2009:
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/financenews/talf/2009/04/17/204120.html?utm_medium=RSS
[9] Francesco Guerrera and Greg Farrell, US banks warn on commercial property. The Financial Times: July 22, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a1e9d86-76eb-11de-b23c-00144feabdc0.html
[10] Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry, Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion. Bloomberg: March 31, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
[11] Gerald Celente, The "Bailout Bubble" - The Bubble to End All Bubbles. Trends Research Institute: May 13, 2009:
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2009/05/gerald-celente-bubble-to-end-all.html
[12] Tom Braithwaite, Treasury clashes with Tarp watchdog on data. The Financial Times: July 20, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab533a38-757a-11de-9ed5-00144feabdc0.html
[13] AFP, US could spend 23.7 trillion dollars on crisis: report. Agence-France Presse: July 20, 2009:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iuL1HParBuO4WyHJIxw6rlOKdz-A
[14] John Whitesides, Warren Buffett says second stimulus might be needed. Reuters: July 9, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressReleasesMolt/idUSTRE5683MZ20090709
[15] Vidya Ranganathan, U.S. should plan 2nd fiscal stimulus: economic adviser. Reuters: July 7, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56611D20090707
[16] Carly Crawford, US may increase stimulus payments to rein in unemployment. The Herald Sun: August 3, 2009:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25873672-664,00.html
[17] David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum, Treasury Works on 'Plan C' To Fend Off Lingering Threats. The Washington Post: July 8, 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702631.html?hpid=topnews
[18] Charles Bremner and David Charter, Germany and France lead €1 trillion European bailout. Times Online: October 13, 2009:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4937516.ece
[19] Douwe Miedema, Europe banks silent on reported AIG bailout gains. Reuters: March 8, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5270YD20090308
[20] Elitsa Vucheva, European Bank Bailout Total: $4 Trillion. Business Week: April 10, 2009:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2009/gb20090410_254738.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories
[21] Bruno Waterfield, European bank bail-out could push EU into crisis. The Telegraph: February 11, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4590512/European-banks-may-need-16.3-trillion-bail-out-EC-dcoument-warns.html
[22] Ian Traynor, EU doubles funding for fragile eastern European economies. The Guardian: March 20, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/20/eu-imf-emergency-funding
[23] Anatole Kaletsky, The great bailout - Europe's best-kept secret. The Times Online: June 4, 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6426565.ece
[24] Gideon Rachman, Europe prepares for a Baltic blast. The Financial Times: August 3, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b497f5b6-8060-11de-bf04-00144feabdc0.html
[25] JAD MOUAWAD, Swings in Price of Oil Hobble Forecasting. The New York Times: July 5, 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/06oil.html
[26] Christopher Doering, Masters says signs of oil bubble starting to appear. Reuters: June 4, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/Inspiration/idUSTRE55355620090604
[27] Javier Blas and Chris Flood, Analyst warns of oil at $200 a barrel. The Financial Times: May 6, 2008:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto050620081414392593
[28] Ed Wallace, The Reason for High Oil Prices. Business Week: May 13, 2009:
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/may2008/bw20080513_720178.htm
[29] Christine Harper, Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profit, Beating Estimates. Bloomberg: July 14, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2jo3RK2_Aps
[30] Peter Martin and John Garnaut, The great China bailout. The Age: November 11, 2008:
http://business.theage.com.au/business/the-great-china-bailout-20081110-5lpe.html
[31] Paul Cavey, Now China Has a Credit Boom. The Wall Street Journal: July 30, 2009:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574319261337617196.html
[32] Joe McDonald, China's stimulus-fueled stock boom alarms Beijing. The Globe and Mail: August 2, 2009:
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090802.wchina02/GIStory/
[33] Matt Jaffe, Watchdog Refutes Treasury Claim Banks Cannot Be Asked to Account for Bailout Cash. ABC News: July 19, 2009:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/story?id=8121045&page=1
[34] The China Post, Bank lending slows down in U.S.: report. The China Post: July 28, 2009:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2009/07/28/218141/Bank-lending.htm
[35] David Uren. Bank for International Settlements warning over stimulus benefits. The Australian: June 30, 2009:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25710566-601,00.html
[36] Simone Meier, BIS Sees Risk Central Banks Will Raise Interest Rates Too Late. Bloomberg: June 29, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aOnSy9jXFKaY
[37] CNBC.com, We Are Facing an 'Inflation Holocaust': Jim Rogers. CNBC: October 10, 2008:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27097823
[38] Chen Shiyin and Bernard Lo, U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level, Faber Says. Bloomberg: May 27, 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=avgZDYM6mTFA
[39] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree. The Telegraph: June 27, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2811081/BIS-warns-of-Great-Depression-dangers-from-credit-spree.html
[40] Gill Montia, Central bank body warns of Great Depression. Banking Times: June 9, 2008:
http://www.bankingtimes.co.uk/09062008-central-bank-body-warns-of-great-depression/
[41] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, BIS slams central banks, warns of worse crunch to come. The Telegraph: June 30, 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2792450/BIS-slams-central-banks-warns-of-worse-crunch-to-come.html
[42] HEATHER SCOFFIELD, Financial repairs must continue: central banks. The Globe and Mail: June 29, 2009:
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 09-06-2009
HOW BAD WILL IT GET ?
Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23422.htm
The U.S. economy is at the beginning of a protracted period of adjustment. The sharp decline in business activity, which began in the summer of 2007, has moderated slightly, but there are few indications that growth will return to pre-crisis levels. Stocks have performed well in the last six months, beating most analysts expectations, but weakness in the underlying economy will continue to crimp demand reducing any chance of a strong rebound. Bankruptcies, delinquencies and defaults are all on the rise, which is pushing down asset prices and increasing unemployment. As joblessness soars, debts pile up, consumer spending slows, and businesses are forced to cut back even further. This is the deflationary spiral Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was hoping to avoid. Surging equities and an impressive "green shoots" public relations campaign have helped to improve consumer confidence, but the hard data conflicts with the optimistic narrative reiterated in the financial media. For the millions of Americans who don't qualify for government bailouts, things have never been worse.
Kevin Harrington, managing director at Clarium Capital Management LLC, summed up the present economic situation in an interview with Bloomberg News: “If we have a recovery at all, it isn’t sustainable. This is more likely a ski-jump recession, with short-term stimulus creating a bump that will ultimately lead to a more precipitous decline later."
Reflecting on the Fed's unwillingness to force banks to report their losses on hard-to-value illiquid assets, Harrington added, “We haven’t fixed the problem. We’ve just slowed down the official recognition of it."
In the two years since the crisis began, neither the Fed nor policymakers at the Treasury have taken steps to remove toxic assets from banks balance sheets. The main arteries for credit still remain clogged despite the fact that the Bernanke has added nearly $900 billion in excess reserves to the banking system. Consumers continue to reduce their borrowing despite historically low interest rates and the banks are still hoarding capital to pay off losses from non performing loans and bad assets. Changes in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules for mark-to-market accounting of assets have made it easier for underwater banks to hide their red ink, but, eventually, the losses have to be reported. The wave of banks failures is just now beginning to accelerate. It should persist into 2011. The system is gravely under-capitalized and at risk. Christopher Whalen does an great job of summarizing the condition of the banking system in a recent post at The Institutional Risk Analyst:
"The results of our Q2 2009 stress test of the US banking industry are pretty grim. Despite all of the talk and expenditure in Washington, the US banking industry is still sinking steadily and neither the Obama Administration nor the Federal Reserve seem to have any more bullets to fire at the deflation monster. With the dollar seemingly set for a rebound and the equity and debt markets looking exhausted, one veteran manager told The IRA that the finish of 2009 seems more problematic than is usual and customary for the end of year.
Plain fact is that the Fed and Treasury spent all the available liquidity propping up Wall Street’s toxic asset waste pile and the banks that created it, so now Main Street employers and private investors, and the relatively smaller banks that support them both, must go begging for capital and liquidity in a market where government is the only player left. The notion that the Fed can even contemplate reversing the massive bailout for the OTC markets, this to restore normalcy to the monetary models that supposedly inform the central bank’s deliberations, is ridiculous in view of the capital shortfall in the banking sector and the private sector economy more generally." (2ndQ 2009 Bank Stress Test Results: The Zombie Dance Party Rocks On" Christopher Whalen, The Institutional Risk Analyst)
It's not just the banking system that's in trouble either. The stock market is beginning to teeter, as well. Bernanke's quantitative easing (QE) program has provided enough liquidity to push equities higher, but he's also created another bubble that's showing signs of instability. According to Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs Investment Research, the Fed's bear market rally has run out of gas and company insiders are headed for the exits as fast as they can.In a Bloomberg interview Biderman said:
"Insider selling is 30 times insider buying, while corporate stock buybacks are non-existent. Companies are saying they don't want to touch their own stocks."..."When companies are heavy sellers (of their own stocks) and retail customers are borrowing to buy stocks; that's always been a sign of a market top."
The best-informed market participants believe that the 6-month rally is beginning to fizzle out. The consensus is that stocks are grossly overpriced and the fundamentals are weak. Bernanke's strategy has improved the equity position of many of the larger financial institutions but, unfortunately, there's been no spillover into the real economy. Money is not getting to the people who need it most and who can use it to get the economy moving again.
The economy cannot recover without a strong consumer. But consumers and households have suffered massive losses and are deeply in debt. Credit lines have been reduced and, for many, the only source of revenue is the weekly paycheck. That means everything must fall within the family budget. The rebuilding of balance sheets will be an ongoing struggle as households try to lower their debt-load through additional cuts to spending. But if wages continue to stagnate and credit dries up, the economy will slip into a semi-permanent state of recession. Washington policymakers--steeped in 30 years of supply side "trickle down" ideology--are not prepared to make the changes required to put the economy on a sound footing. They see the drop in consumption as a temporary blip that can be fixed with low interest rates and fiscal stimulus. They think the economy has just hit a "rough patch" between periods of expansion. But a number of recent surveys indicate that they are mistaken, and that "This time it IS different". Working people have hit-the-wall. Consumers will not be able to lead the way out of the slump.
According to a recent Gallup Poll:
"Baby boomers' self-reported average daily spending of $64 in 2009 is down sharply from an average of $98 in 2008. But baby boomers -- the largest generational group of Americans -- are not alone in pulling back on their consumption, as all generations show significant declines from last year. Generation X has reported the greatest spending on average in both years, and is averaging $71 per day so far in 2009, down from $110 in 2008....
Gallup finds significant declines among all generations in average reported daily spending in 2009 compared to 2008. Given that consumer spending is the primary engine of the U.S. economy, it's not clear how much the economy can grow unless spending increases from its current low levels. But spending may not necessarily be the best course of action for baby boomers as they approach retirement age and prepare to rely on Social Security and their retirement savings as primary sources of income. Indeed, the two generations consisting largely of retirement-age Americans consistently show the lowest levels of reported spending. ("BBoomers’ Spending, Like Other Generations’, Down Sharply)
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 09-06-2009
BIG BUCKS FOR BAILOUT BARONS
Katrina vanden Heuvel
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23419.htm
One year after the global banking system collapsed the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) 16th Annual Executive Excess report -- "America's Bailout Barons" -- shows that the perverse system of executive compensation which contributed to the financial meltdown is still thriving for top bailout recipients.
President Obama had it right in April when he delivered his "economic Sermon on the Mount " and said, "We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock." And, as the IPS report notes, even earlier in the year Obama spoke out against excessive executive compensation, saying, "In order to restore our financial system, we've got to restore trust. And in order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street."
But the fact is we haven't learned -- or haven't acted on -- the lessons we must heed if we're going to build a more just, sustainable economy that works for the real economy rather than the Wall Street. The IPS report focuses on the twenty banks that have received the most bailout money from the federal government and shows that the banks and bankers are still acting and being rewarded as if they are Masters of the universe -- abetted by a government that is failing to take on the status quo.
Sure, some steps have been taken to rein in compensation for TARP recipients -- but they are timid ones. And IPS's valuable report makes clear, "Lobbying armies from corporate and financial trade associations are energetically doing battle behind the scenes to keep even modest changes in pay rules off the legislative table."
As a result historic inequality in pay is still prevalent and the neo-Gilded Age tycoons are raking it in. According to the report, a generation ago top execs rarely earned more than thirty to forty times the pay of the average American worker. But now top execs make an average of 319 times more than the typical worker. For the top twenty financial industry execs the divide is even greater -- 436 times more than the average worker in 2008. In the past three years, the top five execs at the twenty US financial firms receiving the most Bailout Bucks took home pay packages worth a staggering $3.2 billion -- an average of $32 million each. In 2008 those cats averaged nearly $14 million each--even though their twenty firms laid off more than 160,000 people since January of that year.
While a new and smart economic populism has fueled plenty of talk about compensation reform, good proposals haven't been seized. Senators Bernie Sanders and Claire McCaskill tried to cap compensation for employees of bailed-out firms so that it wouldn't exceed that of the President of the US, $400,000. The amendment was passed but then stripped in conference committee. In April, Progressive Caucus member and Chief Deputy Whip Jan Schakowsky introduced the Patriot Corporations Act to extend tax breaks and contracting preferences to companies that meet certain benchmarks, including not compensating any executive at more than 100 times the income of the company's lowest-paid worker. That bill has been referred to committee. Hedge fund managers are still only paying 15 percent capital gains rate on the profit share they get for managing investment funds rather than the 35 percent income tax they should pay. And unlimited amounts of executive compensation are still shielded in deferred accounts--at an annual cost of $80.6 billion to taxpayers--in contrast to the limits placed on income deferred by normal taxpayers via 401(k) plans.
There is no shortage of opportunities to curb this unjust and unproductive growth in unequal pay. As IPS senior scholar and Nation contributor Chuck Collins put it, "Public officials in Congress and the White House hold the pin that could pop the executive pay bubble. They have so far failed to use it." It's time to use it.
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 09-06-2009
PREDICTING WORSE AHEAD FROM AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS
Stephen Lendman
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15063
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973) said:
"There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
Under Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and successive US Treasury Secretaries, America chose the latter path and now faces the consequences of their reckless, criminal behavior.
In early 2009, economist Michael Hudson said:
The (US) economy has reached its debt limit and is entering its insolvency phase. We are not in a cycle but (at) the end of an era. The old world of debt pyramiding to a fraudulent degree cannot be restored," only delayed to postpone a painful day of reckoning.
Economist Hyman Minsky (1919 - 1996) described a "Ponzi finance" system during prolonged expansions and economic booms. Speculative excesses create bubbles, triggering structural instability, then asset valuation collapse that turns euphoria to revulsion and market crashes.
On December 29, 2008, the Wall Street Journal online headlined: "As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of US," then continued:
"For a decade, Russian academic (and former KGB analyst) Igor Panarin has been predicting the US will fall apart in 2010" to include an "economic and moral collapse, a civil war, and the eventual breakup of the country." For years, no one took him seriously, but no longer. He's invited to Kremlin receptions, gets interviewed twice a day, publishes books, is a frequent lecturer, and appears regularly in the media as an expert on US - Russia relations as well as the great interest in his predictions and new book titled, "The Crash of America."
On March 25, 2009, RussiaToday.com headlined: "Is there anything Obama can do about the US Collapse?" No, according to Panarin, for these reasons:
-- "the moral and psychological factor and the stress of the American population;"
-- America's deepening financial and economic crisis; and
-- "the increase of anti-Americanism in the world," the result of continued US belligerency.
Panarin sees America collapsing into six areas of foreign influence and perhaps disintegrating as a nation:
-- depressed northern states close to Canada "in their mentality and economic development;"
-- the Southwest "fuel and energy complex, the oil sector" close to Mexico;
-- California and the Pacific Northwest falling under Chinese influence;
-- the Northeast and Middle Atlantic regions under the EU;
-- Alaska may be returned to Russia; and
-- Hawaii may become a Japanese or Chinese protectorate.
Panarin sees 2010 as America's tipping point and says no miracle rescues can save it. In addition, he cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd's 1976 prediction of the Soviet Union's dissolution that got him laughed at and scorned at the time but proved right.
Todd now predicts a similar fate for the US in his 2002 book, "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order." He cites:
-- unilateral militarism shows weakness, not strength;
-- America is parasitic, relying on voluntary or extracted "tributes" from vassal states;
-- global terrorism is a myth;
-- many nations, including EU states, China and Russia, are beginning to resist US adventurism;
-- terminal corruption and decay;
-- economic weakness and decline;
-- producing little, America's "specialty is consumption (so) relies on foreign imports" to satisfy it;
-- a declining middle class and growing poverty will curtail spending sharply;
-- if capital inflows cease, the dollar will crash:
-- a coming collapse of the stock market, financial institutions and the dollar;
-- a ballooning trade deficit and shrinking manufacturing base;
-- a predatory ruling class plundering the world with impunity, yet out of touch with its own people growing poorer, more desperate and angrier;
-- America's abandonment of universalism and egalitarianism;
-- excess consumption trapping people in an ocean of debt and lowering their living standards;
-- "the rest of the world....is on the verge of discovering that it can get along without America; America is realizing that it cannot get along without the rest of the world;"
-- an emerging Eurasia will end US supremacy, then isolate and curtail its dominance; and
-- "If America continues to endeavor to show its power, it will simply reveal (to) the world its impotence."
For his part, Panarin compares America to the Titanic after hitting an iceberg when it was unclear whether the crew would try to save the ship or more importantly its passengers. Unfortunately, under Bush and Obama, they're trying to save themselves at the expense of the ship and passengers.
After disintegration, Panarin sees three dominant influence areas emerging - the EU, Russia and China. After 11 years of monitoring US policies, he believes his prediction is largely confirmed and states the following:
America's FY 2009 "budget deficit is 4.5 times the 2008 deficit, while firearms sales are up 40%. On October 1, the coupons that were given state workers are to be cashed out. When (they) realize that they are getting nothing for (them), they will take out their firearms and chaos will unfold."
Further, on September 30, 2009, results will be published that are "destined to shock investors worldwide. After that, and (Japan and China's) snubbing of the dollar....which will transfer 50% of (their) international operations to Yuan starting in 2010, the currency will then flow like a landslide out of style." Already nations like China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and others are trading in their own currencies or will do so shortly.
In Panarin's view, "the probability of the US ceasing to exist (in its present form) by June 2010 exceeds 50%. At this point, the mission of all major international powers is to prevent chaos" because what hurts America also harms them.
A Multiple-Dip Depression
Economist John Williams publishes the shadowstats.com electronic newsletter with updated sample data on his site. He calls government figures corrupted and unreliable because manipulative changes rigged them for political and market purposes. To correct them, he reverse-engineers GDP, employment, inflation, and other key data for greater reliability to subscribers.
On August 1, Williams called the "Current Economic Downturn (the) Worst Since (the) Great Depression." It began a year earlier than reported, triggered a systemic solvency crisis, and the effects of "a multiple-dip depression (are) far from over."
The July 31, 2009 national income accounts "confirmed that the US economy is in its worst economic contraction since the first downleg of the Great Depression, which was a double-dip" one like today's.
Intermittent upturns are common, like from spiked auto sales from the cash-for-clunkers program that borrowed future purchases for today's. "Yet, this downturn will continue to deteriorate, proving to be extremely protracted, extremely deep and particularly nonresponsive to traditional stimuli."
The economy suffers from deep structural problems related to household income. Consumers are over-indebted, can't borrow, and Washington's policies aren't helping them. Continued economic decline will follow. "The current depression is the second dip in a multiple-dip downturn that started in 1999 (and triggered) the systemic solvency crisis" that was visible by August 2007 but started in late 2006.
The worst lies ahead, the result of the "government's long-range insolvency and (dollar debasing that risks) hyperinflation during the next five years," and perhaps sooner in 2010. It will cause "a great depression of a magnitude never before seen in" America, disrupting all business and commerce and reverberating globally.
Williams defines deflation as a decrease in goods and services prices, generally from a money supply contraction. Inflation is the reverse. Hyperinflation debases the currency to near worthlessness. Officially, two or more consecutive declining quarters means recession, but better measures are protracted weakened production, employment, retail sales, construction, capital investment, and demand for durable goods among other factors.
A depression occurs when inflation-adjusted peak-to-trough contraction exceeds 10%, and a great depression when it's 25% or worse.
Today's economic downturn preceded the systemic solvency crisis after key data "hit cycle highs and began to weaken in late-2005 for housing and durable goods orders....early-2006 for nonfarm payrolls, (and) late-2006 for retail sales and industrial production, patterns more consistent with a late-2006" real recession onset. Gross Domestic Income (GDI) data confirms this analysis.
Its real growth peaked in Q 1 2006, and revised GDI data contracted in seven of the last nine quarters. "Revised GDP shows the sharpest annual decline in the history of the quarterly GDP series," suggesting a much deeper and protracted downturn than previously reported.
July 2009 marked the 19th consecutive month of contraction, "the longest downturn since the first downleg of the Great Depression." More recent GDP declines of 3.3% and 3.9% in Q 1 and Q 2 2009, "are the worst showings in the history of the quarterly GDP series" dating back to 1947-48. In 1946, a greater contraction occurred because of post-war production cutbacks, but it was short-term.
Today's most reliable economic indicators show the downturn is deepening, not abating as deceptive media accounts report. "The SGS (Shadow Government Statistics) alternative measure of GDP suggests (a) 5.9% contraction....versus the official year-to-year" 3.9% figure.
The official estimated annualized Q 2 2009 decline was 1% compared to SGS's figure "in excess of five-percent." Its alternative data show "deeper and more protracted recessions" than officially reported, suggesting a deepening crisis ahead.
The CBO's Grim Forecast
Even the conservative Congressional Budget Office sees a weaker economy ahead, contrary to most consensus views of a sustainable upturn. Its latest projections are as follows:
-- 2010 U-3 unemployment at 10.2%, edging down to 8% by 2011 and 4.8% by 2014;
-- in 2010, 12 million will be underemployed;
-- for the next five years, economic weakness and lower demand will pressure workers with unemployment or underemployment;
-- part-time work only will be available for millions wanting full-time jobs;
-- low consumption will persist through 2014;
-- unemployment benefits will be exhausted;
-- households will be pressured to make mortgage payments, pay for health care, meet other obligations, and provide for their families at a time state and city budget crises force deep cuts in vital social services, not made up for by the federal government;
-- tax revenues are down 17%, the sharpest decline since 1932;
-- $600 billion in investment losses will result plus another $5.9 trillion in lost output through 2014; and
-- the federal deficit will nearly double over the next 10 years to about $20 trillion.
In sum, CBO projects a more severe protracted downturn than it earlier forecast in January.
Troubled Times Ahead
On July 14, Egon von Greyerz, Founder and Managing Partner of Zurich-based Matterhorn Asset Management AG, specializing in precious metals and other investments, said "The Dark Years Are Here" and explained why.
Because of "the devastating effects of credit bubbles, government money printing (and) disastrous actions that governments are taking, (upcoming) tumultuous events will be life changing for most people in the world." They'll begin by year end, last for two to three years, then be followed by extended economic, political, and social upheaval, perhaps continuing for two decades.
Greyerz cites three main concerns:
-- exploding unemployment and government deficits;
-- trillions of unreported bank losses and worthless derivatives; and
-- rising inflation, high interest rates, collapsed Treasury bond (and UK gilt) valuations resulting in more money creation, worthless paper, and a "perfect vicious circle (leading to) a hyperinflationary depression followed by the collapse of the dollar and British pound.
America is hemorrhaging financially and economically. Other countries now realize they hold "worthless" US dollars. Reckless money creation achieved short-term hope, benefitted Wall Street alone short-term, elevated world stock markets, and led some to believe the crisis was over when, in fact, it's worsening.
Aside from expected short-lived upturns, "every single sector of the real economy is deteriorating whether it is production, unemployment, corporate profits, real estate, credit defaults, construction, federal deficits, local government and state deficits etc."
In response, the Fed keeps printing money and destroying its value. "This is total lunacy! How can any intelligent person believe that printed pieces of paper can solve an economic catastrophe?"
We're in "the first phase of this tragic saga." Likely by year end, a second more serious one will start. Real unemployment now tops 20%. It hit 25% in the Great Depression with 35% of the nonfarm population out of work and desperate.
"It is our firm opinion that (US) non-farm unemployment levels will reach 35% at least....in the next few years" with all uncounted categories included.
Growing millions with no jobs, incomes, savings, or safety net protections will create "a disaster of unimaginable consequences that will affect the whole fabric of American society" to a degree far greater than in the Great Depression.
Growing unemployment now plagues Western and Eastern Europe as well, and by 2010 will more greatly affect most parts of the world, "including China, Asia and Africa. Never before has there been a global unemployment crisis affecting the world simultaneously." Ahead expect sharp drops in consumption and global trade leading to depression, poverty, "famine and social unrest."
Already, conditions are worse than in the 1930s, but the worst is yet to come. Expect:
-- an extremely severe global depression in most countries with grave economic, political, and social consequences;
-- social safety net protections will end;
-- private and state pensions will likely collapse; and
-- unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger, and famine will cause a protracted period of economic, political, social, and institutional upheaval.
If von Greyerz, Panarin, Todd, and others with similar views are right, a deepening, protracted, unprecedented global catastrophe approaches that "will be life changing for most people in the world."
RE: The Global Financial Meltdown - Admin - 09-15-2009
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY FINANCIAL CRISIS:
IT’S NOT OVER YET
Danny Schechter
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15211
The market meltdown that began in September 2007 was a 'slow-motion catastrophe', says finance journalist and author Danny Schechter.
New York, New York: Get out your party hats and strike up the band. We are about to celebrate the second anniversary of the GFC - the Global Financial Crisis.
No doubt the event will be marked by event-driven television programming and on the world's op-ed pages, even though this is a crisis that began long before most of the world found out about it.
Special report
The market meltdowns began in September 2007, but this has been a slow-motion catastrophe that started with the euphoria of financial bubbles that seemed to defy the laws of gravity by only rising.
When the markets were up, there were few naysayers.
Economist Brad Delong was one of the few reminding us that:
"Institutions and human psychology lead financial markets to bounce back and forth between exuberant greed and catatonic fear."
The housing bubble created in 2001 by a combination of low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve's Alan Greenspan, massive, predatory sub-prime lending by shadow lenders and financial institutions, and so-called market "innovation" in the form of exotic derivatives, securitization and deregulation all pushed profits in the financial services industry to new highs.
'Financial monster'
The consequences were largely ignored, as a process called financialization put more and more power in the hands of the economic architects on Wall Street.
New York University's Dr Nouriel Roubini was called "Dr Doom" for predicting the emergence of a "financial monster" that could not be sustained.
Roubini reasoned: "Combine an opaque and unregulated global financial system where moderate levels of leverage by individual investors pile up into leverage ratios of 100 plus; add to this toxic mix investments in the most uncertain, obscure, misrated, mispriced, complex, esoteric credit derivatives that no investor can properly price; then you have created a financial monster that eventually leads to uncertainty, panic, market seizure, liquidity crunch, credit crunch, systemic risk and economic hard landing."
What he and many others did not draw adequate attention to were the underlying structural problems in the US economy that led it to collapse.
Stephen Lendman of Gobal Research enumerated some of them:
- Soaring consumer debt;
- Record high federal budget and current account deficits;
- An off-the-chart national debt, far higher than the reported level;
- High and rising level of personal bankruptcies and mortgage loan defaults;
- An enormous government debt service obligation we are taxed to pay for;
- Loss of manufacturing and other high-paying jobs to low-wage countries;
- A secular declining economy, 84 per cent service-based and mostly composed of low-wage, low or no-benefit, non-unionised jobs;
- An unprecedented wealth gap disparity;
- Growing rates of poverty in the richest country in the world;
- A decline of essential social services
As the financial markets became more volatile, credit began to freeze, and an event outside the US signaled the deeper global crisis; customers were queuing outside London's Northern Rock bank demanding their money back.
Bank runs
Soon the Bank of England was pumping money in just one day after warning others, in the name of "moral hazard" rules, not to bail out lenders who had engaged in irresponsible practices.
A Wall Street insider told me: "A century ago, the depth of a banking crisis was measured by the length of the queue outside banks. These days, financial panics are more likely to be played out through heavy selling in share, bond or currency markets than old-fashioned bank runs."
The UK government was forced to rescue Northern Rock after it collapsed [AFP]
The bankers knew how bad it was. Here is Jim Glassman of JP Morgan: "The credit-market storm is a far more dangerous thing that anything we've seen in memory."
More and more news reports were glum. Here is the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia reporting on "How Bad Debt Infected the World": "The foreclosure butterfly flapped its wings in small town USA and the hurricane built and tore through world banking."
In many countries, angry critics blamed the US for exporting a form of "financial Aids" worldwide.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, blamed "white men with blue eyes on Wall Street".
"I believe there is a systemic debt problem and it will take years to work out - and the Federal Reserve cannot resolve the issues," said Richard Bove, a bank analyst at Punk Ziege.
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City and a financial guru, also said the causes went deeper.
He believed the global credit crunch had as much to do with public debt as the US sub-prime meltdown. The billionaire media and business mogul talked about the "lunacy" of debt levels in the US and the UK at the Conservative Party conference in Britain.
"This is not a mortgage crisis," Bloomberg insisted, "It's a crisis in confidence and we're all in it together."
Bail outs
Washington responded with interest rate cuts and the injection of billions into banks, along with similar stimulus efforts by central banks in other countries.
Despite this, the credit markets remained locked and the problem remained unsolved. Businesses closed, some went bankrupt and jobs were cut.
In March 2008, Bear Stearns became the first of the big banks to go down. Others followed and many, like insurance giant AIG, had to be bailed out.
"As recession was officially recognized in the US, American consumers stopped trekking to the malls, sinking our consumption-based economy even further"
Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were next to implode.
Suddenly the world was fixated on the fall of Wall Street. Lehman Brothers was not bailed out - creating a ripple worldwide with its many "counter parties" - and was soon driven into bankruptcy.
The Bank of America bought Merill Lynch in a transaction that is still being challenged.
On September 19, the Bush administration announced a $700bn bail-out plan to confront the crisis.
Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, would later privately say they acted to head off an imminent collapse - a new depression.
Publicly he was more restrained, saying: "If financial conditions fail to improve for a protracted period, the implications for the broader economy could be quite adverse."
Initially, this was seen as simply a financial problem but it quickly became a social crisis too. States and cities began cutting back essential services as their tax bases contracted.
Markets plunge
Then the Dow fell 777.68 points, the largest one-day point drop in history.
The index experienced its largest one-day point loss ever after the House of Representatives voted down the government's proposed rescue plan.
By April 2008, the IMF projected a $945bn loss from the financial crisis. G7 ministers agreed to a new wave of financial regulation to combat a protracted downturn.
As a recession was officially recogized in the US, American consumers stopped trekking to the malls, sinking our consumption-based economy even further.
There was a ricochet effect worldwide - declines in growth were dramatic.
Banks in many countries which had bought into US real estate and asset-less sub-prime mortgages reported vast losses too.
It was like a deck of cards collapsing.
For the first quarter of 2009, the annualized rate of decline in GDP was 14.4 per cent in Germany, 15.2 per cent in Japan, 7.4 per cent in the UK, 9.8 per cent in the Euro area and 21.5 per cent for Mexico.
The World Bank reported that by March 2009, the Arab world had lost $3 trillion because of the crisis.
In April 2009, unemployment in the Arab world was said to be a "time-bomb" and, according to the Arab Labor Organization, it was among the hardest hit regions in the world.
One month later, the United Nations reported a drop in foreign investment in Middle East economies because of a slower than expected rise in demand for oil.
In June, the World Bank predicted a tough year for Arab states.
Economic turnaround?
Yet in August 2009, the world's finance ministers were beginning to declare victory, seeing signs of a slowing in the economic decline.
Some even cautiously projected signs of a recovery.
The amount of money lost is subject to much debate, largely because those in the know have failed to agree on what should be included in the final tally.
One estimate focusing on infusions of capital by central banks around the world, so-called stimulus plans, and monies at risk in debt swaps and shaky derivative products put the number at $196.7 trillion - but that could be low.
In the US, unemployment continues to rise, foreclosures mount, as do bankruptcies.
Many journalists, politicians and economists appear to bemoan the fact that adequate financial reforms and new regulations have yet to be put in place.
Of the fact only a few executives have gone to jail despite evidence of massive fraud in the housing market, Peter Schiff, a conservative financier, noted: "No one has been held accountable for a financial crisis that the professors, pundits and politicians told us would not come.
"All the same players are running the game, [they] always change the rules so they stay on top."
"Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis and, in fact, has made a new crisis likely"
Paul Krugman, the liberal New York Times economist, seemed to agree: "Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis and, in fact, has made a new crisis likely.
"There have been many reports on what Wall Street firms did, and continue to do to transfer wealth to their own coffers, but little in the way of a criminal investigation, as if it is all above rigorous scrutiny."
Many of the biggest banks are back in the business of handing out giant bonuses and record compensation packages. Even as a lot has changed, a great deal remains the same.
President Obama warned on September 22: "If we don't pass financial regulatory reform, the banks are going to go back to the same things they were doing before.
"In some ways it could be worse, because now they know that the federal government may think they're too big to fail. And so, if they're unconstrained [by stricter regulations] they could take even more risks."
There is very little to celebrate on this "anniversary", the people most in the know about finance are now wrestling with both hope and despair - hope that a turnaround will spread and fear that another, more serious downturn is possible.
They are all, however, acutely aware that there has been no structural change or new regulation.
As Americans often say: "We're not out of the woods yet."
Danny Schechter, the "News Dissector", writes about the economy at: Mediachannel.org and made the film In Debt We Trust warning of the crisis in 2006. He is now completing a book, The Crime Of Our Time and film treating the financial crisis as a crime story. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.
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WE CAN'T BREAK UP THE GIANT BANKS, CAN WE? YES WE CAN!
Washington's Blog - 2009-09-13
Top economists and financial experts believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion. In response, defenders of the too-big-to-fails make one or more of the following arguments:
(1) The government does not have the authority to break up the big boys
(2) To break up the banks, the government would have to nationalize them, which would be socialism
(3) The giant banks have now recovered and are no longer insolvent, so it would be counter-productive to break them up
(4) We need the giant banks to restore credit to the economy
None of these arguments are persuasive.
The Government Does Have Authority to Break Up the Big Boys
One of the world's leading economic historians - Niall Ferguson - argues in a current article in Newsweek:
[Geithner is proposing that] there should be a new "resolution authority" for the swift closing down of big banks that fail. But such an authority already exists and was used when Continental Illinois failed in 1984.
Indeed, even the FDIC mentions Continental Illinois in the same breadth as "too big to fail" banks.
And William K. Black - the senior regulator during the S&L crisis, and an Associate Professor of both Economics and Law at the University of Missouri - says that the Prompt Corrective Action Law (PCA), 12 U.S.C. § 1831o, not only authorizes the government to seize insolvent banks, it mandates it, and that the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks.
Others argue that the PCA does not apply to bank holding companies, and so the government really does not have the power to break up the big boys (see this, for example; but compare this).
Whether or not the financial giants can be broken up using the PCA, no one can doubt that the government could find a way to break them up if it wanted.
FDR seized gold during the Great Depression under the Trading With The Enemies Act.
Geithner and Bernanke have been using one loophole and "creative" legal interpretation after another to rationalize their various multi-trillion dollar programs in the face of opposition from the public and Congress (see this, for example).
So don't give me any of this "our hands are tied" malarkey. The Obama administration could break the "too bigs" up in a heartbeat if it wanted to, and then justify it after the fact using PCA or another legal argument.
Temporarily Nationalizing a Bank is Not Socialism
Many argue that it would be wrong for the government to break up the banks, because we would have to take over the banks in order to break them up.
That may be true. But government regulators in the U.S., Sweden and other countries which have broken up insolvent banks say that the government only has to take over banks for around 6 months before breaking them up.
In contrast, the Bush and Obama administrations' actions mean that the government is becoming the majority shareholder in the financial giants more or less permanently. That is - truly - socialism.
Breaking them up and selling off the parts to the highest bidder efficiently and in an orderly fashion would get us back to a semblance of free market capitalism much quicker.
The Giant Banks Have Not Recovered
The giant banks have still not put the toxic assets hidden in their SIVs back on their books.
The tsunamis of commercial real estate, Alt-A, option arm and other loan defaults have not yet hit.
The overhang of derivatives is still looming out there, and still dwarfs the size of the rest of the global economy. Credit default swaps still have not been tamed (see this).
Indeed, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said today:
The U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”
Stiglitz’s views echo those of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has advised President Barack Obama's administration to curtail the size of banks, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who suggested last month that governments may want to discourage financial institutions from growing “excessively.”
While the big boys have certainly reported some impressive profits in the last couple of months, some or all of those profits may have been due to "creative accounting", such as Goldman "skipping" December 2008, suspension of mark-to-market (which may or may not be a good thing), and assistance from the government.
Some very smart people say that the big banks - even after many billions in bailouts and other government help - have still not repaired their balance sheets. Reggie Middleton, Mish, Zero Hedge and others have looked at the balance sheets of the big boys much more recently than I have, and have more details than I do.
But the bottom line is this: If the banks are no longer insolvent, they should prove it. If they can't prove they are solvent, they should be broken up.
We Don't Need the Giant Banks
Fortune pointed out in February that smaller banks are stepping in to fill the lending void left by the giant banks' current hesitancy to make loans. Indeed, the article points out that the only reason that smaller banks haven't been able to expand and thrive is that the too-big-to-fails have decreased competition:
Growth for the nation's smaller banks represents a reversal of trends from the last twenty years, when the biggest banks got much bigger and many of the smallest players were gobbled up or driven under...
As big banks struggle to find a way forward and rising loan losses threaten to punish poorly run banks of all sizes, smaller but well capitalized institutions have a long-awaited chance to expand.
BusinessWeek noted in January:
As big banks struggle, community banks are stepping in to offer loans and lines of credit to small business owners...
At a congressional hearing on small business and the economic recovery earlier this month, economist Paul Merski, of the Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington (D.C.) trade group, told lawmakers that community banks make 20% of all small-business loans, even though they represent only about 12% of all bank assets. Furthermore, he said that about 50% of all small-business loans under $100,000 are made by community banks...
Indeed, for the past two years, small-business lending among community banks has grown at a faster rate than from larger institutions, according to Aite Group, a Boston banking consultancy. "Community banks are quickly taking on more market share not only from the top five banks but from some of the regional banks," says Christine Barry, Aite's research director. "They are focusing more attention on small businesses than before. They are seeing revenue opportunities and deploying the right solutions in place to serve these customers."
And Fed Governor Daniel K. Tarullo said in June:
The importance of traditional financial intermediation services, and hence of the smaller banks that typically specialize in providing those services, tends to increase during times of financial stress. Indeed, the crisis has highlighted the important continuing role of community banks...
For example, while the number of credit unions has declined by 42 percent since 1989, credit union deposits have more than quadrupled, and credit unions have increased their share of national deposits from 4.7 percent to 8.5 percent. In addition, some credit unions have shifted from the traditional membership based on a common interest to membership that encompasses anyone who lives or works within one or more local banking markets. In the last few years, some credit unions have also moved beyond their traditional focus on consumer services to provide services to small businesses, increasing the extent to which they compete with community banks.
Indeed, some very smart people say that the big banks aren't really focusing as much on the lending business as smaller banks.
Specifically since Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, the giant banks have made much of their money in trading assets, securities, derivatives and other speculative bets, the banks' own paper and securities, and in other money-making activities which have nothing to do with traditional depository functions.
Now that the economy has crashed, the big banks are making very few loans to consumers or small businesses because they still have trillions in bad derivatives gambling debts to pay off, and so they are only loaning to the biggest players and those who don't really need credit in the first place. See this and this.
So we don't really need these giant gamblers. We don't really need JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. What we need are dedicated lenders.
The Fortune article discussed above points out that the banking giants are not necessarily more efficient than smaller banks:
The largest banks often don't show the greatest efficiency. This now seems unsurprising given the deep problems that the biggest institutions have faced over the past year.
"They actually experience diseconomies of scale," Narter wrote of the biggest banks. "There are so many large autonomous divisions of the bank that the complexity of connecting them overwhelms the advantage of size."
And Governor Tarullo points out some of the benefits of small community banks over the giant banks:
Many community banks have thrived, in large part because their local presence and personal interactions give them an advantage in meeting the financial needs of many households, small businesses, and agricultural firms. Their business model is based on an important economic explanation of the role of financial intermediaries--to develop and apply expertise that allows a lender to make better judgments about the creditworthiness of potential borrowers than could be made by a potential lender with less information about the borrowers.
A small, but growing, body of research suggests that the financial services provided by large banks are less-than-perfect substitutes for those provided by community banks.
It is simply not true that we need the mega-banks. In fact, as many top economists and financial analysts have said, the "too big to fails" are actually stifling competition from smaller lenders and credit unions, and dragging the entire economy down into a black hole.
But don't believe me.
The Bank of International Settlements - the "Central Banks' Central Bank" - has slammed too big to fail. As summarized by the Financial Times:
The report was particularly scathing in its assessment of governments’ attempts to clean up their banks. “The reluctance of officials to quickly clean up the banks, many of which are now owned in large part by governments, may well delay recovery,” it said, adding that government interventions had ingrained the belief that some banks were too big or too interconnected to fail. This was dangerous because it reinforced the risks of moral hazard which might lead to an even bigger financial crisis in future. Given that BIS is the ultimate insider, this is quite a criticism.
WALL STREET UNDER OBAMA : BIGGER AND RISKIER
Shamus Cooke
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15202
After the financial levees broke and the crumbling banks ushered in the economic crisis, angry people clamored for drastic change in the financial system. Obama reflected these feelings well, at times using radical rhetoric to denounce the banking titans. What he promised was deep regulatory change so that such a crisis “would never happen again.”
Like every other promise of substance, Obama’s pledge to “rein in” the banks has fallen by the wayside; the well-timed rhetoric smoothed over public tensions and now business is back to usual. The New York Times remarks:
“Backstopped by huge federal guarantees [the bank bailouts], the biggest banks have restructured only around the edges…pay is already returning to pre-crash levels, topped by the 30,000 employees of Goldman Sachs, who are on track to earn an average of $700,000 this year… Executives at most big banks have kept their jobs.” (September 11, 2009).
Not only are the same people who helped destroy the economy still in their immensely powerful positions, but their power has increased. The Economist explains:
“Far from ceding ground, the big banks have grown even bigger, aided by government-brokered mergers. Rules have been bent or broken … nearly half of American mortgages made in the first half of the year came from Wells Fargo, which took over Wachovia, or BofA, which swallowed Countrywide.”
And: “America’s leading banks were too big to fail before the crisis. Now they are bigger still.” (September 10, 2009).
The super banks that emerged from the wreckage are still participating in the same ultra-risky financial gambling that ruined the lives of countless people. In fact, the banks’ bad behavior has been incredibly reinforced, since the profit-induced gambling that led to their failure resulted in taxpayer bailouts that were equally profitable.
The economist, Nassim Taleb, warned “that the system has grown riskier since last fall. The extensive government support that began after Lehman collapsed will lead investors to assume that governments will always prevent major banks from collapsing.” (New York Times, September 11, 2009).
The same article concluded that “The banks will keep the profits when their bets pay off, while taxpayers will swallow the losses when the bets go bad and threaten the system.”
Obama is treating financial regulation in the same manner he confronted health care: radical language was used to please public opinion with little action attached. The financial system is similar to health care in another way as well, prompting Obama into minimal action: Just like skyrocketing health care costs cut into the profits of many corporations, the shoddy financial system is a threat to corporations in general. This is the reason that some kind of reform is being pursued by the White House.
The problem is that Obama crammed Wall Street executives into every crevice of his administration, while Congress, too, is inundated with lobbying (legal bribes) from the big banks. Any change, therefore, is difficult. The New York Times notes:
“The Obama administration has proposed regulatory changes, but even their backers say they face a difficult road in Congress. For now, banks still sell and trade unregulated derivatives, despite their role in last fall’s chaos. Radical changes like pay caps or restrictions on bank size face overwhelming resistance. Even minor changes, like requiring banks to disclose more about the derivatives they own, are far from certain.” (September 11, 2009; emphasis added).
Internationally, bank regulation is a hot-button issue. The junk stocks sold abroad by U.S. corporations amounted to tens of trillions of dollars, and infected the economies everywhere while making select corporations inside certain nations — the U.S. and England — immensely profitable.
The G-20 is set to meet in Pittsburgh this month to discuss the issue. Germany and France want drastic change, since their banks are far less powerful. These nations’ “leaders said they want the G-20 to limit the size of banks and tighten capital rules.” (Bloomberg, September 2, 2009). This measure will obviously be denied by England and the U.S., where banks have grown in size and continue to profit immensely from lax rules.
Although the world’s closely linked economies would benefit from cooperation over financial regulation, it is the conflicting interests of powerful corporations inside these countries that will make true reform impossible. Or, as the managing director of the Institute of International Finance put it, “We’re in a tug of war between national political pressures and the desire to coordinate” (Bloomberg, September 2, 2009).
The G-20, therefore, will likely publish a vague statement about cooperation around financial regulation, while behind the scenes conflicts will erupt between France and Germany vs. the U.S. and England.
Obama’s short time in office has taught a valuable lesson to millions of people: the Democrats rank equal with the Republicans when it comes to aiding and abetting the super wealthy, who feel equally comfortable aligning themselves with either party. To them, campaign donations and lobbying are foolproof, profitable investments.
The Democrats will continue to bail out banks when the occasion arises; indeed, the amount of money the Federal Reserve continues to lavish on them is secret information. Labor and community groups must organize a stop to the bailouts, while demanding that all the bailout money is to be paid back. Banks unable to pay back the money should be put into foreclosure and taken over as public utilities, to be used to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, providing jobs and reasonable loans to those who need them. Such ideas can help provide the impetus to finally break the corporate two-party system, so that the interests of workers can finally find an expression in politics. Withdrawing the union’s support of the Democrats is the first step toward making this a reality.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com