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Blunderov
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Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
« on: 2008-03-13 01:33:17 » |
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[Blunderov] An amusing quote from :
http://forum.quoteland.com/1/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=586192041&f=099191541&m=6941990071
"Lenin once said: "When the time is right we will make great concessions and overtures of peace to the capitalists and they will sell us the rope with which we will hang them". Lenin understood capitalists much better than he understood capitalism. He did not foresee that the capitalists would sell them the rope on credit."
http://www.see.org/e-ct-7.htm
[Bl.] It's funny because it's true.
$516 trillion is more money than is contained in the global economy in toto. The recklessness of lassaiz faire capitalism is nothing short of magnificent. Apparently we are doomed to be the only species that became extinct on purpose.
marketwatch.com
PAUL B. FARRELL
Derivatives the new 'ticking bomb'
Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:31 p.m. EDT March 10, 2008
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "Charlie and I believe Berkshire should be a fortress of financial strength" wrote Warren Buffett. That was five years before the subprime-credit meltdown.
"We try to be alert to any sort of mega-catastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly appreciative about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside. In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."
That warning was in Buffett's 2002 letter to Berkshire shareholders. He saw a future that many others chose to ignore. The Iraq war build-up was at a fever-pitch. The imagery of WMDs and a mushroom cloud fresh in his mind.
Also fresh on Buffett's mind: His acquisition of General Re four years earlier, about the time the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund almost killed the global monetary system. How? This is crucial: LTCM nearly killed the system with a relatively small $5 billion trading loss. Peanuts compared with the hundreds of billions of dollars of subprime-credit write-offs now making Wall Street's big shots look like amateurs.
Buffett tried to sell off Gen Re's derivatives group. No buyers. Unwinding it was costly, but led to his warning that derivatives are a "financial weapon of mass destruction." That was 2002.
Derivatives bubble explodes five times bigger in five years
Wall Street didn't listen to Buffett. Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007. The new derivatives bubble was fueled by five key economic and political trends:
Sarbanes-Oxley increased corporate disclosures and government oversight
Federal Reserve's cheap money policies created the subprime-housing boom
War budgets burdened the U.S. Treasury and future entitlements programs
Trade deficits with China and others destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar
Oil and commodity rich nations demanding equity payments rather than debt
In short, despite Buffett's clear warnings, a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession.
Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS is like the cashier's window at a racetrack or casino, where you'd place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:
U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
Total value of the world's real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
Total value of world's stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
BIS valuation of world's derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
BIS 2007 valuation of the world's derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion
Moreover, the folks at BIS tell me their estimate of $516 trillion only includes "transactions in which a major private dealer (bank) is involved on at least one side of the transaction," but doesn't include private deals between two "non-reporting entities." They did, however, add that their reporting central banks estimate that the coverage of the survey is around 95% on average.
Also, keep in mind that while the $516 trillion "notional" value (maximum in case of a meltdown) of the deals is a good measure of the market's size, the 2007 BIS study notes that the $11 trillion "gross market values provides a more accurate measure of the scale of financial risk transfer taking place in derivatives markets."
Bubbles, domino effects and the 'bad 2%'
However, while that may be true as far as the parties to an individual deal, there are broader risks to the world's economies. Remember back in 1998 when LTCM's little $5 billion loss nearly brought down the world's banking system. That "domino effect" is now repeating many times over, straining the world's monetary, economic and political system as the subprime housing mess metastasizes, taking the U.S. stock market and the world economy down with it.
This cascading "domino effect" was brilliantly described in "The $300 Trillion Time Bomb: If Buffett can't figure out derivatives, can anybody?" published early last year in Portfolio magazine, a couple months before the subprime meltdown. Columnist Jesse Eisinger's $300 trillion figure came from an earlier study of the derivatives market as it was growing from $100 trillion to $516 trillion over five years. Eisinger concluded:
"There's nothing intrinsically scary about derivatives, except when the bad 2% blow up." Unfortunately, that "bad 2%" did blow up a few months afterwards, even as Bernanke and Paulson were assuring America that the subprime mess was "contained."
Bottom line: Little things leverage a heck of a big wallop. It only takes a little spark from a "bad 2% deal" to ignite this $516 trillion weapon of mass destruction. Think of this entire unregulated derivatives market like an unsecured, unpredictable nuclear bomb in a Pakistan stockpile. It's only a matter of time.
World's newest and biggest 'black market'
The fact is, derivatives have become the world's biggest "black market," exceeding the illicit traffic in stuff like arms, drugs, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, stolen art and pirated movies. Why? Because like all black markets, derivatives are a perfect way of getting rich while avoiding taxes and government regulations. And in today's slowdown, plus a volatile global market, Wall Street knows derivatives remain a lucrative business.
Recently Pimco's bond fund king Bill Gross said "What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August." In short, not only Warren Buffett, but Bond King Bill Gross, our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the rest of America's leaders can't "figure out" the world's $516 trillion derivatives.
Why? Gross says we are creating a new "shadow banking system." Derivatives are now not just risk management tools. As Gross and others see it, the real problem is that derivatives are now a new way of creating money outside the normal central bank liquidity rules. How? Because they're private contracts between two companies or institutions.
BIS is primarily a records-keeper, a toothless tiger that merely collects data giving a legitimacy and false sense of security to this chaotic "shadow banking system" that has become the world's biggest "black market."
That's crucial, folks. Why? Because central banks require reserves like stock brokers require margins, something backing up the transaction. Derivatives don't. They're not "real money." They're paper promises closer to "Monopoly" money than real U.S. dollars.
And it takes place outside normal business channels, out there in the "free market." That's the wonderful world of derivatives, and it's creating a massive bubble that could soon implode.
Comments? Yes, we want to hear your thoughts. Tell us what you think about derivatives: as "financial weapons of mass destruction;" as a "shadow banking system;" as a "black market;" as the next big bubble dangerously exposing us to that unpredictable "bad 2%."
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letheomaniac
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Re:Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
« Reply #1 on: 2008-03-13 02:32:24 » |
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[letheomaniac]Is it possible that we are witnessing the last shuddering gasp of the capitalist system? The sub-prime crisis is probably note nough to finish it off, but these derivatives things sound like they just might have the firepower.
Bye, Bye Reagan, Hello FDR
The Great Bust of '08
By MIKE WHITNEY
On January 14, 2008 the FDIC web site began posting the rules for reimbursing depositors in the event of a bank failure. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is required to “determine the total insured amount for each depositor.....as of the day of the failure” and return their money as quickly as possible. The agency is “modernizing its current business processes and procedures for determining deposit insurance coverage in the event of a failure of one of the largest insured depository institutions.”
The implication is clear. The FDIC has begun the “death watch” on the many banks which are currently drowning in their own red ink. The problem for the FDIC is that it has never supervised a bank failure which exceeded 175,000 accounts. So the impending financial tsunami is likely to be a crash-course in crisis management. Today some of the larger banks have more than 50 million depositors, which will make the FDIC's job nearly impossible.
It's worth noting that, due to a rule change by Congress in 1991, the FDIC is now required to use “the least costly transaction when dealing with a troubled bank. The FDIC won't reimburse uninsured depositors if it means increasing the loss to the deposit insurance fund....As a result, uninsured depositors are protected only if a bank acquiring the failed bank will pay more for all of the deposits than it would for insured deposits only.” (MarketWatch)
That's reassuring. And there's more, too. FDIC Chairman Shiela Bair warned that “as of Sept. 30, there were 65 institutions with assets of $18.5 billion on its list of "problem" institutions;” although she wouldn't give names.
So, what does it all mean?
It means that people who want to hold on to their life savings are going have to be extra vigilant as the situation continues to deteriorate.
Right now, many of the country's largest investment banks are holding $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities and other structured investments that are steadily depreciating in value. As these assets wear-away the banks' capital, the likelihood of default becomes greater. This week, Fitch Ratings announced that it will (probably) cut ratings on the 5 main bond insurers (Ambac, MBIA, FGIC, CIFG,SCA) “regardless of their capital levels”. This seemingly innocuous statement has roiled markets and put Wall Street in a panic. If the bond insurers lose their AAA rating (on an estimated $2.4 trillion of bonds) then the banks could lose another $70 billion in downgraded assets. That would increase their losses from the credit crunch -- which began in August 2007 -- to $200 billion with no end in sight. It would also impair their ability to issue loans to even credit worthy customers which will further dampen growth in the larger economy. Structured investments have been the banks' “cash cow” for nearly a decade, but, suddenly, the trend has shifted into reverse. Revenue streams have dried up and capital is being destroyed at an accelerating pace. The $2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) is virtually frozen leaving horrendous debts that will have to be written-down leaving the banks' either deeply scarred or insolvent. It's a mess.
There were some interesting developments in a case involving Merrill Lynch last week which sheds a bit of light on the true “market value” of these complex debt-pools called CDOs. The Massachusetts Secretary of State has charged Merrill with “fraud and misrepresentation” for selling them a CDO that was "highly risky and esoteric" and "unsuitable for the City of Springfield.” (Most cities are required by law to only purchase Triple A rated bonds) The city of Springfield bought the CDO less than a year ago for $13.9 million. It is presently valued at $1.2 million -- more than a 90 per cent loss in less than a year.
Merrill has quietly settled out of court for the full amount and seems genuinely confused by the Massachusetts Secretary of State's apparent anger. A Merrill spokesman said blandly, “We are puzzled by this suit. We have been cooperating with the Secretary of State Galvin's office throughout this inquiry.”
Is it really that hard to understand why people don't like getting ripped off?
This anecdote shows that these exotic mortgage-backed securities are real stinkers. They're worthless. The market for structured debt-instruments has evaporated overnight leaving a massive hole in the banks' balance sheets. The Fed's multi-billion bailout plan; the “Temporary Auction Facility” (TAF) is a quick-fix, but not a permanent solution. The real problem is insolvency, not liquidity.
The smaller banks are dire straights, too. They're bogged down with commercial and residential loans that are defaulting faster than any time since the Great Depression. The Comptroller of the Currency,John Dugan -- who is presently investigating commercial real estate loans -- discovered that commercial banks “wrote off $524 million in construction and development loans in the third quarter of 2007, almost nine times the amount of 2006”. The commercial real estate market is following residential real estate off a cliff.
Dugan found out that, “More than 60 per cent of Florida banks have commercial real estate loans worth more than 300 per cent of their capital, a level that automatically attracts more attention from examiners.” (Wall Street Journal) He said that his office was prepared to intervene if banks with large real estate exposure maintained unreasonably low reserves for bad loans. Dugan is forecasting a steep “increase in bank failures.”
“Dozens of U.S. banks will fail in the next two years as losses from soured loans mount and regulators crack down on lenders that take too much risk, especially in real estate and construction," eport Reuters, quoting Gerard Cassidy, RBC Capital Markets analyst. Apart from the growing losses in commercial and residential real estate, the banks are carrying over $150 billion of “unsyndidated” debt connected to leveraged buyout deals (LBOs) which are presently stuck in the mud. Like CDOs, there's no market for these sketchy transactions which require billions in cheap, easily available credit. They've just become another anvil dragging the banks under.
On January 31, Bloomberg News reported: “Losses from securities linked to subprime mortgages may exceed $265 billion as regional U.S. banks, credit unions and overseas financial institutions write down the value of their holdings.” Standard and Poor's added that “it may cut or reduce ratings of $534 billion of subprime-mortgage securities and CDOs as default rates rise.” Another blow to the banks withering balance shee
There's an even bigger threat to the financial system than these huge losses at the banks. A default by one of the big bond insurers could trigger a meltdown in the credit-default swaps market, which could lead to the implosion of trillions of dollars in derivatives bets. The inability of the under-capitalized monolines (bond insurers) to “make good” on their coverage is likely to set the first domino in motion by increasing the number of downgrades on bond issues and intensifying the credit-paralysis which already is spreading throughout the system.
MSN Money's financial analyst Jim Jubak summed it up like this:
"Actually, I'm worried not so much about the junk-bond market itself as the huge market for a derivative called a credit-default swap, or CDS, built on top of that junk-bond market. Credit-default swaps are a kind of insurance against default, arranged between two parties. One party, the seller, agrees to pay the face value of the policy in case of a default by a specific company. The buyer pays a premium, a fee, to the seller for that protection.
This has grown to be a huge market: The total value of all CDS contracts is something like $450 trillion..... Some studies have put the real credit risk at just 6 per cent of the total, or about $27 trillion. That puts the CDS market at somewhere between two and six times the size of the U.S. economy.
All it will take in the CDS market is enough buyers and sellers deciding they can't rely on this insurance anymore for junk-bond prices to tumble and for companies to find it very expensive or impossible to raise money in this market." (Jim Jubak's Journal; "The Next Banking Crisis is on the Way", MSN Money)
Jubak really nails it here. In fact, this is what Wall Street is really worried about. $450 trillion in cyber-credit has been created through various off balance sheets operations which neither the Fed nor any other regulatory body can control. No one even knows how these abstruse, credit-inventions will perform in a falling market. But, so far, it doesn't look good.
The enormity of the derivatives market ($450 trillion) is the result of Greenspan's easy-credit monetary policies as well as the reconfiguring of the markets according to the “structured finance” model. The new model allows banks to run off-balance sheets operations that, in effect, create money out of thin air. Similarly, “synthetic” securitization, in the form of credit default swaps (CDS) has turned out to be another scam to avoid maintaining sufficient capital to cover a sudden rash of defaults. The bottom line is that the banks and non-bank institutions wanted to maximize their profits by keeping all their capital in play rather than maintaining the reserves they'd need in the event of a market downturn.
In a deregulated market, the Federal Reserve cannot control the creation of credit by non-bank institutions. As the massive derivatives bubble unwinds, it is likely to have real and disastrous effects on the underlying-productive economy. That's why Jubak and many other market analysts are so concerned. The persistent rise in home foreclosures, means that the derivatives which were levered on the original assets (sometimes exceeding 25-times their value) will vanish down a black hole. As trillions of dollars in virtual-capital are extinguished by a click of the mouse; the prospects of a downward deflationary spiral become more likely.
As economist Nouriel Roubini said:
“One has to realize that there is now a rising probability of a 'catastrophic' financial and economic outcome, i.e. a vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe. That is why the Fed has thrown caution to the wind and taken a very aggressive approach to risk management.” (Nouriel Roubini EconoMonitor)
"In the fourth quarter of 2007, new foreclosures averaged 2,939 a day, double the pace of a year earlier." (RealtyTrac Inc.) The banks are presently cutting back on home equity loans which provided an additional $600 billion to homeowners last year for personal consumption. Bush's $150 billion “stimulus package” will barely cover a quarter of the amount that is lost. As consumer spending slows and the banks become more constrained in their lending; businesses will face overproduction problems and will have to limit their expansion and lay off workers. This is the downside of “low interest” bubble-making; a painful descent into deflation.
Bernanke wants direct government action that will provide immediate stimulus. But that takes political consensus and there's still debate about the gravity of the upcoming recession. The pace of the economic contraction is breathtaking. This week's release of the Institute for Supply Management's Non-Manufacturing Index (ISM) was a real shocker. It showed steep declines in all areas of the nation's service sector---including banks, travel companies, contractors, retail stores etc—The Business Activity Index, the New Orders Index, the Employment Index, and the Supplier Delivery Index have all contracted at a “historic” pace. Everyone took a hit.
“The numbers are so terrible, it's beyond belief,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.
The $2 trillion that has been wiped out from falling home prices, the slowdown in lending activity at the banks, the loss $600 billion in home equity loans, and the faltering stock market have all contributed to a noticeable change in the public's attitudes towards spending. Traffic to the shopping malls has slowed to a crawl. Retail shops had their worst January on record. Homeowners are hoarding their earnings to cover basic expenses and to make up for their lack of personal savings. America's consumer culture is in full-retreat. The slowdown is here.
When equity bubbles collapse; everybody pays. Demand for goods and services diminishes, unemployment soars, banks fold, and the economy stalls. That's when governments have to step in and provide programs and resources that keep people working and sustain business activity. Otherwise there will be anarchy. Middle class people are ill-suited for life under a freeway overpass. They need a helping hand from government. Big government. Good-bye, Reagan. Hello, F.D.R.
The Bush stimulus plan is a drop in the bucket. It'll take much, much more. And, we're not holding our breath for a New Deal from George Walker Bush.
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Blunderov
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Re:Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
« Reply #2 on: 2008-03-13 02:54:08 » |
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[Blunderov] Amazing reading all this. Total horrorshow.
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Blunderov
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Re:Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
« Reply #3 on: 2008-03-17 07:21:43 » |
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[Blunderov] I suppose the question arises as to whether it is for the greater good that reckless banks are bailed out by the Fed in order to prevent a general collapse of the banking system. If so, it seems reasonable to think that some constraints should be placed upon the future behaviour of such entrepeneurs in order to protect Joe Public from having to bend for a friend yet again. Of course no such thing will occur. Which brings us back to the original question.
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Frank-Zappa/The-Meek-Shall-Inherit-Nothing.html
Frank Zappa - The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing Lyrics
"Some take the bible
For what it's worth
When it says that the meek
Shall inherit the Earth
Well, I heard that some sheik
Has bought New Jersey last week
'N you suckers ain't gettin' nothin'
...
You say yer life's a bum deal
'N yer up against the wall...
Well, people, you ain't even got no
Deal at all
'Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care
of NUMBER ONE
An' NUMBER ONE ain't YOU
You ain't even NUMBER TWO
..."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8346
Massive Debt Default: Bearly Alive, Wall Street Investment Giant Rushed to "Intensive Care" by Panicky Fed-Chief
by Mike Whitney
Global Research, March 15, 2008
On Friday, Bear Stearns blew up. It was the worst possible news at the worst possible time. A day earlier, the politically-connected Carlyle Capital hedge fund defaulted on $16.6 billion of its debt. Carlyle boasted a $21.7 billion portfolio of AAA-rated residential mortgage-backed securities, but was unable to make a margin call of just $400 million. (Where did the $21.7 billion go?) The news on Bear was the last straw. The stock market started reeling immediately; shedding 300 points in less than an hour. Then, miraculously, the tide shifted and the market began to rebound. If there was ever a time for Paulson's Plunge Protection Team to come to the rescue; this was it. For weeks, the markets have been battered with bad news. Retail sales are down, unemployment is up, consumer confidence is in the tank, inflation is rising, the dollar is on the ropes, and the credit crunch has spread to even the safest corners of the market. Facing fierce headwinds, Washington mandarins and financial heavyweights had to decide whether to sit back and let one small investment bank take down the whole equities market in an afternoon or stealthily buy a few futures and live to fight another day? Tough choice, eh?
We'll never know for sure, but that's probably what happened.
We'll also never know if Bernanke's real purpose in setting up his new $200 billion auction facility was to provide the cash-strapped banks with a place where they could off-load the mortgage-backed junk that Carlyle dumped on the market when they went belly-up. That worked out well, didn't it? Now the banks can trade these worthless MBS bonds with the Fed for US Treasuries at nearly full value. What a deal! That must have been the plan from the get-go.
The Bear Stearns bailout has ignited a firestorm of controversy about moral hazard and whether the Fed should be in the business of spreading its largess to profligate investment banks. But the Fed had no choice. This isn't about one bank caving in from its bad bets. The entire financial system is teetering and a failure at Bear would have taken a wrecking ball to the equities market and sent stocks around the world into a violent death-spiral. The New York Times summed it up like this in Saturday's edition:
“If the Fed hadn't acted this morning and Bear did default on its obligations, then that could have triggered a widespread panic and potentially a collapse of the financial system”.
Bingo.
So, what makes Bear so special? How is it that one of the smallest investment banks can pose such a threat to the whole system?
That's the question that will be addressed in the next couple weeks and people are not going to like the answer. For the last decade or so the markets have been reconfigured according to a new “structured finance” model which has transformed the interactions between institutions and investors. The focus has been on maximizing profit by creating a vast galaxy of exotic debt-instruments which increase overall risk and volatility in slumping market conditions. Derivatives trading which, according to the Bank of International Settlements, now exceeds $500 trillion, has sewn together the various lending and investment institutions in a way that one failure can set the derivatives dominoes in motion and bring down the entire financial scaffolding in a heap. That's why the Fed got involved and (I believe) approached Congress in a closed-door session (which was supposed to be about FISA legislation) to inform lawmakers about the growing possibly of a major economic meltdown if conditions in the credit markets were not stabilized quickly.
The troubles at Bear and the danger they pose to the overall system were articulated in an article by Counterpunch editor, Alexander Cockburn in a November, 2006 article “Lame Duck: The Downside of Capitalism”:
“In a briefing paper under the chaste title, 'Private Equity: A discussion of Risk and Regulatory Engagement', the FSA raises the alarm.
"Excessive leverage: The amount of credit that lenders are willing to extend on private equity transactions has risen substantially. This lending may not, in some circumstances, be entirely prudent. Given current leverage levels and recent developments in the economic/credit cycle, the default of a large private equity backed company or a cluster of smaller private equity backed companies seems inevitable. This has negative implications for lenders, purchasers of the debt, orderly markets and conceivably, in extreme circumstances, financial stability and elements of the UK economy."
Translation: It's about to blow!
"The duration and potential impact of any credit event may be exacerbated by operational issues which make it difficult to identify who ultimately owns the economic risk associated with a leveraged buy out and how these owners will react in a crisis. These operational issues arise out of the extensive use of opaque, complex and time consuming risk transfer practices such as assignment and sub-participation, together with the increased use of credit derivatives. These credit derivatives may not be confirmed in a timely manner and the amount traded may substantially exceed the amount of the underlying assets."(snip)
Translation: "The world's credit system is a vast recycling bin of untraceable transactions of wildly inflated value.
The problem is that the oversight and stability of the world credit system is no longer within the purview of familiar international institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the Bank of International Settlements. Private traders are now installed at all the strategic nodes, gambling with stratospheric sums in such speculative pyramids as the credit derivative market which was almost nonexistent in 2001, yet which reached $17.3 trillion by the end of 2005. Warren Buffett, America's most famous investor, has called credit derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction." ( Alexander Cockburn, “Lame Duck: The Downside of Capitalism” counterpunch.org)
Cockburn's article anticipates the current problems at Bear and shows why the Fed cannot allow them to fester and spread throughout the system. The investment banks and brokerages all do business with each other, taking sides in trades as counterparties. If one player goes down it increases the likelihood of more failures. So the problem has to be contained.
The volume of derivatives contracts, that are not traded publicly on any of the major exchanges, has exploded in the last few years. These unregulated transactions, what Pimco's Bill Gross calls the shadow banking system, have taken center-stage as market conditions continue to deteriorate and the downward-cycle of deleveraging begins to accelerate. The ongoing massacre in real estate has left the structured investment market frozen, which means that the foundation blocks (ie mortgage-backed securities) upon which all this excessive leveraging rests; is starting to crumble. It's a real mess.
Derivatives trading, particularly in credit default swaps, is oftentimes exceeds the value of the underlying asset many times over. Credit Default Swaps are financial instruments that are based on loans and bonds that speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. (a type of unregulated insurance) The CDS market is roughly $45 trillion, whereas, the aggregate value of the US mortgage market is only $11 trillion; four times smaller. That's a lot of leverage and it can have a snowball effect when the CDSs trades begin to unwind.
In truth, the biggest risk to the financial system is counterparty risk; the possibility that some large investment bank, like Bear, goes under and sucks the rest of the market with it from the magnitude of its losses. Last year, Bear was the 12th largest counterparty to CDS trades according to Fitch ratings. If they were to suddenly disappear, the effects to the rest of the system would be catastrophic.
Fed Chairman Bernanke sat on the board of the FOMC when the investment gurus and brokerage sharpies customized the markets in a way that enhanced their own personal fortunes while increasing the risks of systemic failure. The SIVs, the conduits, the opaque derivatives, the off-balance sheets operations, the dark pools, the massive leverage, and the reckless expansion of credit; all emerged during his (and Greenspan's) tenure. The Federal Reserve is largely responsible for the brushfire they are presently trying to put out.
Now, once again, Bernanke is acting beyond his mandate and invoking a law that hasn't been used since the 1960s so the Fed can become the creditor for an institution that attempted to enrich itself through wild speculative bets on dubious toxic investments which are now utterly worthless. If that isn't a good enough reason for abolishing the Federal Reserve; then what is?
The world's most transparent and profitable markets have been transformed into a carnival sideshow managed by hucksters, flim-flam men, and rip off artists. The Bear bailout is yet another glaring example of a system that lacks all credibility and is quickly self-destructing.
Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney
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Blunderov
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Re:Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
« Reply #4 on: 2008-03-17 10:26:07 » |
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[Blunderov] Meltdown.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__080317_the_stearnest_bear_m.htm
March 17, 2008 at 01:08:21
The Stearnest Bear Market: Bloody Sunday
by Michael Fox Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
What an afternoon to decide to stay in. What compelled me to stay indoors on a postcard-perfect Sunday in L.A.? Who knows? But online, I discovered that the world markets are crashing, the dollar is diving without an oxygen tank, and the Tokyo Nikkei market is in freefall. Hong Kong is crashing. Now it’s time for Mumbai to open…
In my article, Rage, Wrath and the Whole New World, I asked what it would take for the “Masters of the Universe”, those traders on Wall St. – and around the globe – to wake up and realize that the religion to which they have given themselves ever since theology school (MBA) was a lie. Their Bible (Atlas Shrugged) was written by the Ayntichrist herself, and it was all a fraud. Sorry, but it’s time to wake up.
Well, this morning, I will enjoy no schadenfreude at the expense of the 14,153 employees of Bear Stearns at 34 US and 14 foreign offices. I wish them well. Most of them are going from bespoke to broke overnight. Any of them who were holding stock in the company for which they worked will be left with cab fare.
Likewise, Carlyle Capital has defaulted on all its obligations and will liquidate its assets. Forget your check, pal, they’re selling your desk.
If you’re working for Goldman Sachs, they will be announcing another $3 billion in additional losses.
Every single Asian correspondent is anticipating Lehman Bros. will go under this week. Pack your Mark Cross bags, guys.
CNBC cut away from their usual nonsense coverage and went to live feeds from Tokyo, Sydney, and Honk Kong, as all their markets were tumbling. The only thing going up is the price of Gold, Platinum, and, of course, oil.
When you wake up Monday morning, this is what happened last night:
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke lowered the prime rate a quarter point (on Sunday?!) He may drop it another full point this week. (Cri-sis mode!)
JPMorgan Chase bought the insolvent Bear Stearns (which, just three days earlier, was propped up with more of Bernanke’s printed money) - for $2/share! (It was trading at $30/share on Friday, so if you had any shares of Bear Stearns, your money is gone. But then, you haven’t been paying attention if you still had anything invested in that sector. By the way, in January, James Cayne, then CEO of Bear Stearns magnanimously declined a year-end bonus for 2007. Wasn’t that White of him? Never mind it had earlier been disclosed that his salary and other bonuses for that year was $40 million. He guided a venerable investment firm from a stock value as high as $20 billion to virtual worthlessness. Calling Henry Waxman!
Analyst Leslie Phang, answered the question, “Where should your money go right now?” Answer: “Anything but green. Cash is king, but not dollars. “What about oil?” “Black is good. Just any color but green!”
But President George W. Hoover hasn’t had a thing to say, other than that he doesn’t see a recession happening. The fundamentals of the economy are strong. Hey, even Dad’s Carlyle is gone. Maybe the one upside is that he can’t do any more harm now that we’re completely broke.
Have you checked whether your bank is still in business this morning?
http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article16726
March Monday 17 2008 (10h28) :
Fed Cuts Discount Rate, Expands Loans to Avert Crisis
By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
March 17 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve, struggling to prevent a meltdown in financial markets, cut the rate on direct loans to banks and became lender of last resort to the biggest dealers in U.S. government bonds.
In its first weekend emergency action in almost three decades, the central bank lowered the so-called discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.25 percent. The Fed also will lend to the 20 firms that buy Treasury securities directly from it. In a further step, the Fed will provide up to $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help it finance the purchase of Bear Stearns Cos. after a run on Wall Street’s fifth-largest securities firm.
``It is a serious extension of putting the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet in harm’s way,’’ said Vincent Reinhart, former director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Fed and now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ``That’s got to tell you the economy is in a pretty precarious state.’’
The move is Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s latest step to alleviate a seven-month credit squeeze that’s probably pushed the U.S. into a recession. The dollar tumbled to a 12-year low against the yen and Treasury notes rallied as traders increased bets that officials will reduce their main rate by 1 percentage point when they meet tomorrow.
`Race to the Bottom’
``Clearly, the Fed is trying to provide more liquidity to prevent a more vicious cycle and race to the bottom,’’ said Gary Schlossberg, senior economist at Wells Capital Management in San Francisco, which oversees $200 billion. ``The problem is there’s so much concern about credit quality that now there are solvency issues, and it’s something the Fed has a more difficult time dealing with.’’
Asian stocks tumbled. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 3.7 percent at the close in Tokyo, and the Hang Seng Index was 5.1 percent lower at 3:52 p.m. in Hong Kong.
``We’ve got a credit crunch situation in every corner of the market,’’ said Tetsuro Sugiura, chief economist at Mizuho Research Institute Ltd. in Tokyo. ``The near collapse of Bear Stearns has shocked the authorities.’’
Officials from the Fed and the Treasury Department, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, worked with the firms over the weekend to forge an agreement on the sale of Bear Stearns. Paulson kept President George W. Bush informed through the weekend, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.
Interest-Rate Difference
The Fed reduced the difference between the discount rate and the main federal funds rate to a quarter point. In August, at the onset of financial-market pressures, the Fed narrowed the spread to a half point from 1 percentage point. The funds rate, currently 3 percent, is the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans.
Opening up lending to firms other than commercial banks represents a shift in the Fed’s 94-year history. The so-called primary dealers include firms that are units of commercial banks and several that aren’t, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co.
Bernanke, 54, is increasing efforts to keep strains in financial markets from spiraling into a full-blown meltdown. Last week the central bank agreed to emergency loans to a non-bank, Bear Stearns, for the first time since the 1960s. Fed officials also announced a program to swap $200 billion in Treasuries for debt including mortgage-backed securities.
`Sense of Urgency’
``These moves underscore the extreme sense of urgency at the Fed,’’ said David M. Jones, a former New York Fed economist who has written four books on the central bank. ``It seems unlikely the measures taken so far will calm the market down, but eventually they will stabilize the market.’’
JPMorgan yesterday agreed to buy Bear Stearns, the second- biggest underwriter of U.S. mortgage securities, for $240 million, less than a 10th of its value last week. In order to strike a deal before the opening of Tokyo trading, the Fed agreed to help JPMorgan finance up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’s ``less liquid assets.’’
The Fed is in effect assuming responsibility for managing the assets, a Fed official told reporters in a conference call. The central bank will manage the positions to minimize any market strains and maximize long-term value, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
``We learned that Bear Stearns’s balance sheet on close examination was worth a 10th of its market value,’’ said Reinhart. ``Second, the Federal Reserve wants to be sure the other entities coming to them are covered by a broader umbrella,’’ he said, referring to the primary dealers.
Volcker’s Saturday Night
Shifting policy on a weekend is rare, though not unprecedented. About two months after Paul Volcker took office as Fed chief in 1979, he called a Saturday meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee to raise interest rates.
Yesterday’s events are ``nothing like the 1970s, which was about fighting inflation,’’ said Jones. ``This is fighting a negative, self-reinforcing process’’ of sliding collateral values, tighter bank credit and weakening of economic conditions, he said.
Starting today, the dealers who trade with the New York Fed bank daily will be able to borrow at the discount rate under a new lending facility, to be in place for at least six months, the Fed said. The Fed will accept a ``broad range’’ of investment- grade collateral.
``These steps will provide financial institutions with greater assurance of access to funds,’’ Bernanke said during a conference call with reporters after the announcement.
Investors expect the Fed to lower its separate benchmark rate by as much as a full percentage point, to 2 percent, when policy makers meet tomorrow. That would exceed the 0.75-point emergency reduction on Jan. 22, which is the largest since the overnight interbank lending rate became the main tool of monetary policy about two decades ago.
Exodus
Yesterday’s steps indicate the Fed is increasingly concerned about the investor exodus from mortgage debt, which threatens to deepen the housing contraction.
New York Fed President Timothy Geithner said on the call that ``this is designed to help get liquidity to where it can help play an appropriate role in helping address the range of challenges facing particularly asset-backed securities markets.’’
Fed governors agreed that the ``unusual and exigent circumstances,’’ as stated in the Federal Reserve Act, existed for approving the lending to primary dealers, a Fed official said on the conference call. The actions were approved by all five members, a Fed official said.
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Following is a list of primary dealers in government securities:
BNP Paribas Securities Corp. Banc of America Securities LLC Barclays Capital Inc. Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Countrywide Securities Corporation Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC Daiwa Securities America Inc. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities LLC. Goldman, Sachs & Co. Greenwich Capital Markets, Inc. HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. J. P. Morgan Securities Inc. Lehman Brothers Inc. Merrill Lynch Government Securities Inc. Mizuho Securities USA Inc. Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated UBS Securities LLC.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York
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To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman HCC bloomberg.net Last Updated: March 17, 2008 03:53 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4y9PDJ8ZpSk&refer=home#
By : Discount Rate
March Monday 17 2008
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