Subprime credit crunch...

[melon]

Dang. I wonder if something like that over here would've made the people who took out the expensive mortgages they couldn't afford think twice about it before they did it.

I put the blame on three entities:

1) The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan for keeping rates so low for so long in the early part of this decade, thus giving an incentive for reckless lending practices.

2) Investors for being greedy and seeing real estate as a loss-free investment. Thus, you had people buying multiple properties to sell them at a profit in a couple of years, at most, driving up home values substantially.

3) Banks for pushing non-investment minded individuals into bad loans so they could collect higher interest and fee income. Additionally, many of these banks also encouraged people to seek out homes for the maximum amount they "qualified for," even if it meant seeking out a house much larger than borrowers had initially imagined. Since the qualification standards were themselves reckless, as set by the individual banks' policies, they were essentially encouraging even upper middle class home buyers into reckless mortgages.

In general, it is harder to put the blame on individuals here, since it was an institutional failure brought on by greed.

 

[financeguy]

Dang. I wonder if something like that over here would've made the people who took out the expensive mortgages they couldn't afford think twice about it before they did it.

It seems reasonable to expect that it would, but the funny thing is though, it didn't seem to work in either Ireland or the UK in recent years, as there were also plenty of people over on this side of the pond taking out expensive mortgages that they couldn't afford. But I think that is more to do with ridiculously cheap credit and banks relaxing lending criteria.

There are no heroes in the whole debacle. The banks are to blame for doing away with tried and testing lending guidelines , the regulators are to blame for allowing it and some of the homeowners themselves are to blame with taking on credit they ought to have know they coudn't afford - and I emphasize I have sympathy for anyone, whatever the circumstances, who loses their home.

 

[financeguy]

I put the blame on three entities:

1) The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan for keeping rates so low for so long in the early part of this decade, thus giving an incentive for reckless lending practices.

2) Investors for being greedy and seeing real estate as a loss-free investment. Thus, you had people buying multiple properties to sell them at a profit in a couple of years, at most, driving up home values substantially.

3) Banks for pushing non-investment minded individuals into bad loans so they could collect higher interest and fee income. Additionally, many of these banks also encouraged people to seek out homes for the maximum amount they "qualified for," even if it meant seeking out a house much larger than borrowers had initially imagined. Since the qualification standards were themselves reckless, as set by the individual banks' policies, they were essentially encouraging even upper middle class home buyers into reckless mortgages.

In general, it is harder to put the blame on individuals here, since it was an institutional failure brought on by greed.

I largely agree, but surely your last sentence somewhat contradicts your point 2?

 

[melon]

I largely agree, but surely your last sentence somewhat contradicts your point 2?

Not really, because I make a sharp distinction between the investor class, who were buying multiple properties for the sole purpose of making money, and average individuals who were just trying to buy one home to live in for an undetermined length of time.

 

[melon]

Looks like it is official now.

CNN.com

Breaking News: U.S. seizes mortgage giants

Federal officials today announced an extraordinary takeover of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, signaling the most dramatic move to date aimed at shoring up the nation's housing market. Freddie and Fannie own half the mortgage debt in the country. Since last summer, they have suffered about $12 billion in losses.

 

[anitram]

Another day, another government bail out.

 

[ntalwar]

And the national debt will grow by another trillion.

 

[melon]

And the national debt will grow by another trillion.

It's on par for the "no tax and spend recklessly" Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and beyond.

It also looks like we're going to relearn the lessons of the 1890s as to why we created government regulations in the first place. Corporations of today act with impunity just like the corporations of the 19th century, as long as they can legally get away with it. Some expensive lessons, right?

 

[anitram]

And McCain is largely running on a platform of de-regulation - which begs the question of what is left to deregulate at this point?

De-regulation has also contributed to commodities speculation, which is one area that has really not been properly addressed by lawmakers anywhere. It is particularly troubling because you can make an argument that commodities speculation indirectly drives certain aspects of foreign policy as well.

 

[ntalwar]

De-regulation has also contributed to commodities speculation, which is one area that has really not been properly addressed by lawmakers anywhere.

Speculation can go long and short and is an essential part of futures markets. Although we had a run-up in commodity prices early in the year, many prices are down 30 or 40 percent from their peak, as fundamentals of demand and supply have improved. There have been recent studies (e.g. by the CFTC) showing that speculation was not a major factor in the price run-up. Also, India banned futures trading in essential commodities such as wheat, but found that this action did little to cool prices.

 

[anitram]

That's true but there is a spectrum of responses between essentially unregulated commodities speculation and the outright banning of futures trading.

 

[ntalwar]

That's true but there is a spectrum of responses between essentially unregulated commodities speculation and the outright banning of futures trading.

There has been action on that front this summer, such as the CFTC and the UK's FSA coordinating position limits on energy contracts. This extends to the Dubai exchange as well. Margin requirements have also been raised slightly. If too many restrictions are imposed, trading will simply move to somewhere like Singapore or Shanghai.

 

[Audiophile]

Another day, another government bail out.

It's a slippery slope and a viscious cycle my friends.

 

[anitram]

Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."

How can she be that uninformed?

 

[Se7en]

socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. developing...

 

[deep]

They are quasi-governmental agencies
and they did get too big.

 

[anitram]

They are quasi-governmental agencies
and they did get too big.

And they cost the taxpayers what?

I don't know why you're bothering to really rationalize it away here.

If I said equated a quasi-judicial tribunal with a court, people would think I'm pretty damn stupid.

 

[financeguy]

They are quasi-governmental agencies
and they did get too big.

Er, what?

From the comments quoted, Palin got it completely the wrong way around.

She seemed to think that a public sector organisation was being taken private, i.e. the complete reverse of what happened.

 

[VintagePunk]

How can she be that uninformed?

It's mainland business that doesn't concern her.

 

[melon]

From the comments quoted, Palin got it completely the wrong way around.

She seemed to think that a public sector organisation was being taken private, i.e. the complete reverse of what happened.

The fact that she believed that should be a troubling indicator of her intelligence. Freddie and Frannie are well known entities, and while I would not necessarily expect the general public to understand them, I would most certainly expect an elected governor with "executive experience" to know what they are.

Unfortunately, for the press and public opinion, the bar is already set very low for the GOP in the intellect department. That, alone, should make Biden very worried in the VP debates, as they will likely applaud Palin for just making it through the debates without freaking out, while they'll rip Biden to pieces if he doesn't get his idiosyncratic arcana in order. That's what happened to Kerry in 2004 against Bush.

 

[financeguy]

RGE - Comrades Bush, Paulson and Bernanke Welcome You to the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic of America)

The now inevitable nationalization of Fannie and Freddie is the most radical regime change in global economic and financial affairs in decades. For the last twenty years after the collapse of the USSR, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the economic reforms in China and other emerging market economies the world economy has moved away from state ownership of the economy and towards privatization of previously stated owned enterprises. This trends was aggressively supported the United States that preached right and left the benefits of free markets and free private enterprise.


Today instead the US has performed the greatest nationalization in the history of humanity. By nationalizing Fannie and Freddie the US has increased its public assets by almost $6 trillion and has increased its public debt/liabilities by another $6 trillion. The US has also turned itself into the largest government-owned hedge fund in the world: by injecting a likely $200 billion of capital into Fannie and Freddie and taking on almost $6 trillion of liabilities of such GSEs the US has also undertaken the biggest and most levered LBO (“leveraged buy-out”) in human history that has a debt to equity ratio of 30 ($6,000 billion of debt against $200 billion of equity).


So now Comrades Bush, Paulson and Bernanke (as originally nicknamed by Willem Buiter) have now turned the USA into the USSRA (the United Socialist State Republic of America). Socialism is indeed alive and well in America; but this is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street. A socialism where profits are privatized and losses are socialized with the US tax-payer being charged the bill of $300 billion.

Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then regularly caught cheating or cross dressing or found to be perverts these Bush hypocrites who spewed for years the glory of unfettered wild west laissez faire jungle capitalism (and never believed in any sensible and appropriate regulation and supervision of financial markets) allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without any control, have caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention and nationalizations in the recent history of humanity, all for the benefit of the rich and the well connected. So Comrades Bush and Paulson and Bernanke will rightly pass to the history books as a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the USSRA. Fanatic zealots of any religion are always pests that cause havoc and destruction with their inflexible fanaticism; but they usually don’t run the biggest economy in the world. But these laissez faire voodoo-economics zealots in charge of the USA have now caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the nastiest economic crisis in decades. So let them be shamed in public for their hypocrisy and zealotry that has caused so much financial and economic damage.

 

[Audiophile]

So.....we are still capitalists right? Or only for certain industries.......

 

[financeguy]

Looks like Lehman is going to be left to go bankrupt.

As someone said in the Wall Street Journal comments:

I am sure Sarah Palin will fix this as soon as she learns about investment banks, the stock market, and global finance….

 

[Bluer White]

Where does Governor Palin fit into Lehman's problems, really?

 

[financeguy]

A Frantic Weekend That Wall Street Won’t Forget


By BEN WHITE and JENNY ANDERSON
Published: September 14, 2008


Fear and greed are the stuff that Wall Street is made of. But inside the great banking houses, those high temples of capitalism, fear came to the fore this weekend.

As Lehman Brothers, one of oldest names on Wall Street, appeared to unravel on Sunday, anxiety over the bank’s fate — and over what might happen next — gripped the nation’s financial industry. By late afternoon, Merrill Lynch, under mounting pressure, entered into talks to sell itself to Bank of America.

Dinner parties were canceled. Weekend getaways were postponed. All of Wall Street, it seemed, was on high alert.

In skyscrapers across Manhattan, banking executives were holed up inside their headquarters, within cocoons of soft rugs and wood-paneled walls, desperately trying to assess their company’s exposure to the stricken Lehman. It was, by all accounts, a day unlike anything Wall Street had ever seen.

In the financial district, bond traders, anxious about how the markets would react on Monday, sought refuge in ultrasafe Treasury bills. Greenwich, Conn., that leafy realm of hedge fund millionaires and corporate chieftains, felt like a ghost town. Greenwich Avenue, which usually bustles on Sundays, was eerily quiet.

A year into the financial crisis, few dreamed that the situation would spiral down so far, so fast. Only a week ago, the Bush administration took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies. Then, before anyone could sigh a breath of relief after that crisis, Lehman was on the brink. .......(more)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/business/15street.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[financeguy]

Where does Governor Palin fit into Lehman's problems, really?

That she's auditioning for the job of President?

 

[melon]

That she's auditioning for the job of President?

Don't worry. She's a hockey mom and shoots a gun. That's all that matters.

 

[Bluer White]

I would guess Palin does not support using taxpayer dollars to bail out Lehman. That is consistent with Obama and McCain's position.

Obama and McCain favor private solution to Lehman woes | Politics | Reuters

 

[ntalwar]

Looks like Lehman is going to be left to go bankrupt.

So it looks like there are some limits to the "moral hazard" situation, which is good to see. Bear Stearns, Merrill, Lehman, and maybe AIG can attest to that.

On the other hand, the Fed is now taking stocks as collateral for loans (wsj.com):

The Federal Reserve will expand its lending facilities in the wake of the likely demise of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., taking a wider array of securities, including equities, as collateral for its loans, the central bank said late Sunday.

 

[purpleoscar]

Capitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis

Here's a point of view from the right.