I just got done watching this 12 and a half minute video on you tube and wanted to see if I could encourage my readers to take a look and comment. There are as many ways to slice and interpret the numbers as there are people attempting to do it. That said, this is a pretty negative review of the current version of the government's plan to deal with the toxic assets on banks' books. As far as I can tell, it's a more sophisticated, complicated (nefarious?) means of doing what Hank Paulsen's TARP plan was originally intended to do. I think it's important to keep in mind while watching this or giving attention to anything involving "toxic assets" is to remember that these things aren't abstractions, but at the most basic level are real things which we can all relate to, namely, home mortgages on houses which are worth more than the houses themselves are worth now, the same with commercial loans on office buildings and malls in the same spot as the home loans, and car loans, school loans, and credit card bills belonging to people who can't afford to pay them back.
I hope to get some thoughtful responses from you.
The Biggest Travesty of Capitalism
Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Capitalism 101: Chinese Drywall
This is a story that will probably be huge very soon but since I’m in the real estate business I’m hearing about it just before it breaks big. It seems since at least 2003 the real estate building boom resulted in a shortage of domestically produced drywall for home interiors. As with so many products, alternative economical sources were found in China.
Well guess what, like pet food, and children’s toys, and baby formula, the product was substandard to the point of functional inadequacy. It seems the Chinese drywall contains an excess of sulfur compounds which are having some rather serious effects after a period in the homes where it was installed. Sulfur, for those of you familiar with rotten eggs, the stench of hell, or the atmosphere while crossing the bridge over the Savannah River in the 1970s because of the paper mills (don’t know if they’re still there but it’s one of the intensely remembered experiences of my youth as the family drove back and forth from New Jersey to south Florida), is extremely unpleasant to say the least. Folks with the Chinese drywall are now subject to that smell always and throughout their homes because of the seeping fumes from the degrading poor product. As well, studies are underway to determine if the fumes are also causing damage to metal inside the walls themselves. Electrical wiring and plumbing are said to be eroding from the emanations from the walls.
While discussing this with a fellow traveler yesterday, he declared that the Chinese are at war with us already and we just don’t know it. It’s a delicious and nefarious conclusion to draw; deeply conspiratorial, but way too subtle to be of any value whatsoever. The truth, more than likely, is much more mundane and therefore uninteresting to anyone not fascinated by arcane matters of political and economic history.
China is a nation in the very early stages of an otherwise rapidly expanding manufacturing and capitalist economy and political landscape. Until twenty or twenty-five years ago, China was a desperately poor, overpopulated, agrarian society which flung around communist ideological statements from time to time usually to the grave detriment of its own citizens. But in the past couple of decades China has been in a headlong rush to modernize and with its command structure in government, together with the unfathomable human resources it has available, China has become the manufacturer of choice for cheap, mass-produced items at most non-heavy material levels for the United States.
Much of the growing commercial relationship between the US and China occurred under the radar during the 90s but has come out in the open in an ever-increasing level in this decade. We’ve noticed mostly when we’ve heard reports, which seem to happen more often these days, of dangerous or tainted goods coming from there which should never have been tainted in such ways much less at all. But I reject the notion that this is a war because that suggests some level of intent in a coordinated effort to destroy an enemy. My historical understanding tells me instead we are simply witnessing what happens when commercial productivity outstrips the institutional ability or philosophical desire of governing bodies to oversee that productivity.
China now is where the US was around 1890 in relative industrial development. The place is just so incredibly large that in this era it has been able to bloat even faster than the US did 120 years ago. Industrialists rush headlong into the activity that anyone in commerce does, they try to make as much money as quickly as they can. This is done by manufacturing and selling as much of their product as quickly and efficiently as possible at the lowest possible production cost so as to maximize the profits. If there aren’t any rules or no one available to check to see if inexpensive industrial chemicals are mixed in with baby formula to give the appearance of higher nutritional values, then an unscrupulous capitalist will do it to improve the bottom line.
Sure he probably gets caught down the line but by then it’s too late for the babies who have died, or the homeowners whose homes smell like a giant egg fart. Enforcement is for after the crime has been committed. Regulation prevents it from happening in the first place. In the absence of rules, the most aggressive will work the hardest to make the most money. That’s human nature. That’s capitalism. Nothing can change that. It can be tempered by a well-conceived regime of regulation followed by a stringent code of law which is rigorously enforced. When things like that happened in the US often enough at the end of the 19th century, efforts to create minimum standards and inspect for them came into effect. The degree to which they are brought to bear defines the politics within which that capitalism functions. From Communism on the left to totalitarianism or fascism on the right, and everything in between, capitalism is the way of man. China needs to do a better job of controlling its capitalists and our capitalists need to be better controlled before bringing Chinese crap over here which can be made just as easily at home. And the same goes for folks selling false financial promises from Wall Street throughout the world and peanut butter at home.
Read More...
Well guess what, like pet food, and children’s toys, and baby formula, the product was substandard to the point of functional inadequacy. It seems the Chinese drywall contains an excess of sulfur compounds which are having some rather serious effects after a period in the homes where it was installed. Sulfur, for those of you familiar with rotten eggs, the stench of hell, or the atmosphere while crossing the bridge over the Savannah River in the 1970s because of the paper mills (don’t know if they’re still there but it’s one of the intensely remembered experiences of my youth as the family drove back and forth from New Jersey to south Florida), is extremely unpleasant to say the least. Folks with the Chinese drywall are now subject to that smell always and throughout their homes because of the seeping fumes from the degrading poor product. As well, studies are underway to determine if the fumes are also causing damage to metal inside the walls themselves. Electrical wiring and plumbing are said to be eroding from the emanations from the walls.
While discussing this with a fellow traveler yesterday, he declared that the Chinese are at war with us already and we just don’t know it. It’s a delicious and nefarious conclusion to draw; deeply conspiratorial, but way too subtle to be of any value whatsoever. The truth, more than likely, is much more mundane and therefore uninteresting to anyone not fascinated by arcane matters of political and economic history.
China is a nation in the very early stages of an otherwise rapidly expanding manufacturing and capitalist economy and political landscape. Until twenty or twenty-five years ago, China was a desperately poor, overpopulated, agrarian society which flung around communist ideological statements from time to time usually to the grave detriment of its own citizens. But in the past couple of decades China has been in a headlong rush to modernize and with its command structure in government, together with the unfathomable human resources it has available, China has become the manufacturer of choice for cheap, mass-produced items at most non-heavy material levels for the United States.
Much of the growing commercial relationship between the US and China occurred under the radar during the 90s but has come out in the open in an ever-increasing level in this decade. We’ve noticed mostly when we’ve heard reports, which seem to happen more often these days, of dangerous or tainted goods coming from there which should never have been tainted in such ways much less at all. But I reject the notion that this is a war because that suggests some level of intent in a coordinated effort to destroy an enemy. My historical understanding tells me instead we are simply witnessing what happens when commercial productivity outstrips the institutional ability or philosophical desire of governing bodies to oversee that productivity.
China now is where the US was around 1890 in relative industrial development. The place is just so incredibly large that in this era it has been able to bloat even faster than the US did 120 years ago. Industrialists rush headlong into the activity that anyone in commerce does, they try to make as much money as quickly as they can. This is done by manufacturing and selling as much of their product as quickly and efficiently as possible at the lowest possible production cost so as to maximize the profits. If there aren’t any rules or no one available to check to see if inexpensive industrial chemicals are mixed in with baby formula to give the appearance of higher nutritional values, then an unscrupulous capitalist will do it to improve the bottom line.
Sure he probably gets caught down the line but by then it’s too late for the babies who have died, or the homeowners whose homes smell like a giant egg fart. Enforcement is for after the crime has been committed. Regulation prevents it from happening in the first place. In the absence of rules, the most aggressive will work the hardest to make the most money. That’s human nature. That’s capitalism. Nothing can change that. It can be tempered by a well-conceived regime of regulation followed by a stringent code of law which is rigorously enforced. When things like that happened in the US often enough at the end of the 19th century, efforts to create minimum standards and inspect for them came into effect. The degree to which they are brought to bear defines the politics within which that capitalism functions. From Communism on the left to totalitarianism or fascism on the right, and everything in between, capitalism is the way of man. China needs to do a better job of controlling its capitalists and our capitalists need to be better controlled before bringing Chinese crap over here which can be made just as easily at home. And the same goes for folks selling false financial promises from Wall Street throughout the world and peanut butter at home.
Friday, March 27, 2009
An Outrageous Proposal
Just read this brief post by Matthew Yglesias regarding the reaction by fellow Repubelicurs and the press to the emptiness of the GOP “alternative plan” to Barry’s impending budget proposal. At the end he writes: “I’ve never really seen political reporters get outraged before about the fact that a policy document makes no sense in the past. It was a curious outbreak of substance among the press corps that I don’t think was particularly foreseeable.”
I will keep my fingers crossed first that this latest outrage grows legs and sticks around a while, and second, that it acts as a harbinger for the future both of reportage and Repube policy proposals.
In the first case, the so-called Repube alternative would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter. It’s simply another restatement of the same talking points they’ve been blathering on about for years about less tax and spend government. To the extent that these ideas have been implemented, they have gone a long way towards creating the current economic disaster we are living through. They persist in putting fancy covers on the same empty rhetoric and propose absolutely nothing which might actually directly address matters as they exist now. As opposed to last week’s outrage about AIG bonuses, from a political standpoint, this one matters. The minority party has nothing to say about anything and doesn’t have even the balls to admit that there’s no point in doing anything except saying “no” to everything, just to be in opposition. And god forbid they admit there might be some value in something the Democrats propose.
In the second place, maybe, just maybe this absurdity will finally snap the mainstream media as well as the few remaining thoughtful Repubes into focusing on some actual substance instead of how it would be marketed to the public if there was actually anything to market. It would be fascinating to see what it would be like to really have some competing valid ideas.
I am hopeful, but not optimistic.
Read More...
I will keep my fingers crossed first that this latest outrage grows legs and sticks around a while, and second, that it acts as a harbinger for the future both of reportage and Repube policy proposals.
In the first case, the so-called Repube alternative would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter. It’s simply another restatement of the same talking points they’ve been blathering on about for years about less tax and spend government. To the extent that these ideas have been implemented, they have gone a long way towards creating the current economic disaster we are living through. They persist in putting fancy covers on the same empty rhetoric and propose absolutely nothing which might actually directly address matters as they exist now. As opposed to last week’s outrage about AIG bonuses, from a political standpoint, this one matters. The minority party has nothing to say about anything and doesn’t have even the balls to admit that there’s no point in doing anything except saying “no” to everything, just to be in opposition. And god forbid they admit there might be some value in something the Democrats propose.
In the second place, maybe, just maybe this absurdity will finally snap the mainstream media as well as the few remaining thoughtful Repubes into focusing on some actual substance instead of how it would be marketed to the public if there was actually anything to market. It would be fascinating to see what it would be like to really have some competing valid ideas.
I am hopeful, but not optimistic.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Hell No We Won't Grow
The ocean liner USS American Dream is heading for an iceberg which does not appear as if it will be affected sufficiently by global warming before we hit it. That is unless Captain Barry Obama can steer this unwieldy beast out of the way. Trouble is a lot of folk are scared of what happens if we look in the other direction, so they think we should hit the ‘berg and take our chances. But not our captain, no.
After opening his news conference with a barrage of clichés worthy of the worst American Idol music writer, the prez rather stiffly ran through a workman-like run of questions. To me he seemed like he had been interrupted from considerably more interesting meetings and I must say it’s the first time I’ve seen him look like he has better things to do. Of course he does have better things to do, but one of the things he has to do is to be the front man promoting his multifaceted program of not just fixing the economy, but doing so in a manner which puts the country in some semblance of proper footing to actually deal with the challenges of the times rather than argue points of empty political and cultural philosophy as we have been doing more or less for a generation or so.
I’ll state here flatly that the baby boomer years of rising to and having power — the 80s and 90s — were essentially a complete waste. I think that historians will look back at this period as colossal wastes of time, energy, and resources. Politically, the entire period saw no attempt to see ahead and innovate into the future with the great exception of the geek culture managing to create the internet and related technology revolution. But those folks, by their nature as geeks, were systematically shut out of activities run by the cool guys like Bill Clinton and Georgie Bush. So for now the best we have to show for that singular advance is the great speed and volume with which quality porn has become accessible to the masses. The iconic movie of the boomers will turn out to be Wall Street with Gordon Gecko’s famous declaration that “greed is good” the eternal mantra of the era. The generation generally spent its time sucking out the resources of the world, and now the post-Boomers, like Captain Barry, have to act like the cleanup crew after their lifelong fraternity party has come to its stale, beer, vomit, and used condom conclusion.
So here we are and Captain Barry said quite clearly, as he has been all along, that we now have no choice but to address the issues which have lingered for at least a generation, if not longer, if we wish to continue to be, much less to grow, as a nation. We must address health care, education, and energy, all while rebuilding our financial system, or likely we will lose the ability to ever address these issues in a comprehensive, interconnected, and sensible way.
This is about the kind of country we want to have going forward. It’s really about resetting the clock back to before Lyndon Johnson screwed everything up by focusing his political gifts on Vietnam instead of his War on Poverty. Ever since, it’s been cultural and political war; among differing versions of false conservatism and flamboyant niche nurturing. It’s been fake money and mortgaged futures. It’s been fear and quick riches. It’s been “gimme!” and “it’s mine!” (genuflecting to the ghost of George Carlin).
The president mentioned Pittsburgh in his opening remarks tonight. That city and its industrial output and work ethic used to define the American spirit and the American Dream. At some point in the past few decades that symbol became Las Vegas. Well boys and girls, it’s once again time to take a savage journey into the heart of the American Dream. If our politicians will allow us to take that journey, we may find the heart of the beast is still beating, and we’ll have the juice to steer away from the iceberg and steam ahead to a future we can still define.
Read More...
After opening his news conference with a barrage of clichés worthy of the worst American Idol music writer, the prez rather stiffly ran through a workman-like run of questions. To me he seemed like he had been interrupted from considerably more interesting meetings and I must say it’s the first time I’ve seen him look like he has better things to do. Of course he does have better things to do, but one of the things he has to do is to be the front man promoting his multifaceted program of not just fixing the economy, but doing so in a manner which puts the country in some semblance of proper footing to actually deal with the challenges of the times rather than argue points of empty political and cultural philosophy as we have been doing more or less for a generation or so.
I’ll state here flatly that the baby boomer years of rising to and having power — the 80s and 90s — were essentially a complete waste. I think that historians will look back at this period as colossal wastes of time, energy, and resources. Politically, the entire period saw no attempt to see ahead and innovate into the future with the great exception of the geek culture managing to create the internet and related technology revolution. But those folks, by their nature as geeks, were systematically shut out of activities run by the cool guys like Bill Clinton and Georgie Bush. So for now the best we have to show for that singular advance is the great speed and volume with which quality porn has become accessible to the masses. The iconic movie of the boomers will turn out to be Wall Street with Gordon Gecko’s famous declaration that “greed is good” the eternal mantra of the era. The generation generally spent its time sucking out the resources of the world, and now the post-Boomers, like Captain Barry, have to act like the cleanup crew after their lifelong fraternity party has come to its stale, beer, vomit, and used condom conclusion.
So here we are and Captain Barry said quite clearly, as he has been all along, that we now have no choice but to address the issues which have lingered for at least a generation, if not longer, if we wish to continue to be, much less to grow, as a nation. We must address health care, education, and energy, all while rebuilding our financial system, or likely we will lose the ability to ever address these issues in a comprehensive, interconnected, and sensible way.
This is about the kind of country we want to have going forward. It’s really about resetting the clock back to before Lyndon Johnson screwed everything up by focusing his political gifts on Vietnam instead of his War on Poverty. Ever since, it’s been cultural and political war; among differing versions of false conservatism and flamboyant niche nurturing. It’s been fake money and mortgaged futures. It’s been fear and quick riches. It’s been “gimme!” and “it’s mine!” (genuflecting to the ghost of George Carlin).
The president mentioned Pittsburgh in his opening remarks tonight. That city and its industrial output and work ethic used to define the American spirit and the American Dream. At some point in the past few decades that symbol became Las Vegas. Well boys and girls, it’s once again time to take a savage journey into the heart of the American Dream. If our politicians will allow us to take that journey, we may find the heart of the beast is still beating, and we’ll have the juice to steer away from the iceberg and steam ahead to a future we can still define.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Outrage About Outrage
$165 million in bonuses was distributed among the staff at the Financial Products Division of AIG. Those are the good people who brought you the current financial panic and have resulted in AIG receiving $170 billion in US government bailout money (so far).
To the average guy a bonus is something you get for a job well done — an unexpected something, given by grateful bosses to hardworking, successful employees. Sports fans have come to know of bonuses as a means of generating incentive in players to meet high performance goals. A-Rod makes it 50 homers, he gets to spend a night in the cage with Madonna, that sort of thing. In the case of AIG, though, it sounds like these folks were rewarded for driving a respected international corporation and, by extension, the entire world economy, to the edge of collapse. Seems pretty outrageous. How could the government allow this?
I’m not going to try to parse the machinations of the deal to give these bonuses other than to say it seems to be a product of the prior administration (with some advise and consent by Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and some others still hanging around the water cooler in DC). All the plans, in place before Barry came into office, are completely consistent with every other action taken by the former administration. They all had the effect of concentrating enormous amounts of taxpayer cash more or less directly into the hands of a relatively few number of hands at the top of the income pyramid while the entire edifice of political and corporate structure began to teeter below.
Here’s the thing, the guys at AIG getting these bonuses are splitting up one tenth of one percent of what AIG has received (so far). “Distasteful”, to quote the current straw man, recently appointed AIG chairman Edward Liddy, but not really all that outrageous. What I suspect will soon become the real outrage will happen as we start to understand more about where the $170 billion (so far) has gone.
The next meme to start popping up in the political and financial discourse will be “counter-parties”. AIG was primarily an insurance company which sold variations of just about every sort of insurance devised. A counter-party is the recipient of a check when a claim is made on the insurance coverage. In other words, if I have hurricane insurance on my house, then a hurricane blows down my house, I am the counter-party who gets the check from my insurance carrier to cover my lost house. Calling me a counter-party is a fancy way of saying I bought the insurance to protect myself.
This will become important because AIG has been infused with $170 billion (so far) basically to pay off claims on stupid risks taken by the Financial Products Department. They insured the stupid loans bundled together in instruments created by the banks. Most of the bad instruments are held by JP Morgan-Chase (Goldman, Sachs), HSBC (not a US bank), Wells-Fargo (Wachovia), Bank of America, and Citigroup. So really, the money that went to AIG (so far) theoretically is being used to pay claims against the debts (mortgages, credit cards, etc.) going bad at those banks. But wait a minute, those banks also received direct infusions in the neighborhood of $170 billion (so far) also.
From an accounting perspective, these companies have all been preserved after years of very bad management, taking huge risks, huge personal paydays for the folks who did the deals, and we are paying the bill for its failure. The phrase “privatize the profits, socialize the losses” was one I heard quite a bit while Randi Rhodes was still on the air and it’s starting to feel more and more like she was right. “They” get to keep the money when “they” make it, we have to pay for it when “they” lose (although that payment still goes to “them”). I understand and agree with the notion that in a severe recession/depression, the only viable source of capital infusion is the government. No one else is spending their own cash and in a world that revolves on the use and reuse of money only the government has sufficient resources to force a change. How that money gets spent is another issue.
What we are seeing now are the continuing consequences of the Bush administration’s outrageous philosophy come full circle. Barry was stuck with it on January 20th and in the absence of a signing statement to the contrary, he is bound by law to carry it out pretty much as he is doing. Personally, I’d feel better if every American instead, was instead given a portion of the $340 billion (so far) for specific use towards either their mortgages or their credit cards or some other bank originated debt. That way the banks are in the same spot as far as getting their cash infusion and at least the people are using their own tax dollars to wipe the debt off their own books. The debts now don’t go bad, AIG doesn’t have to pay the claims, and instead investigations into a foolish, probably criminally fraudulent insurance enterprise can proceed. Wouldn’t THAT be outrageous??
Read More...
To the average guy a bonus is something you get for a job well done — an unexpected something, given by grateful bosses to hardworking, successful employees. Sports fans have come to know of bonuses as a means of generating incentive in players to meet high performance goals. A-Rod makes it 50 homers, he gets to spend a night in the cage with Madonna, that sort of thing. In the case of AIG, though, it sounds like these folks were rewarded for driving a respected international corporation and, by extension, the entire world economy, to the edge of collapse. Seems pretty outrageous. How could the government allow this?
I’m not going to try to parse the machinations of the deal to give these bonuses other than to say it seems to be a product of the prior administration (with some advise and consent by Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and some others still hanging around the water cooler in DC). All the plans, in place before Barry came into office, are completely consistent with every other action taken by the former administration. They all had the effect of concentrating enormous amounts of taxpayer cash more or less directly into the hands of a relatively few number of hands at the top of the income pyramid while the entire edifice of political and corporate structure began to teeter below.
Here’s the thing, the guys at AIG getting these bonuses are splitting up one tenth of one percent of what AIG has received (so far). “Distasteful”, to quote the current straw man, recently appointed AIG chairman Edward Liddy, but not really all that outrageous. What I suspect will soon become the real outrage will happen as we start to understand more about where the $170 billion (so far) has gone.
The next meme to start popping up in the political and financial discourse will be “counter-parties”. AIG was primarily an insurance company which sold variations of just about every sort of insurance devised. A counter-party is the recipient of a check when a claim is made on the insurance coverage. In other words, if I have hurricane insurance on my house, then a hurricane blows down my house, I am the counter-party who gets the check from my insurance carrier to cover my lost house. Calling me a counter-party is a fancy way of saying I bought the insurance to protect myself.
This will become important because AIG has been infused with $170 billion (so far) basically to pay off claims on stupid risks taken by the Financial Products Department. They insured the stupid loans bundled together in instruments created by the banks. Most of the bad instruments are held by JP Morgan-Chase (Goldman, Sachs), HSBC (not a US bank), Wells-Fargo (Wachovia), Bank of America, and Citigroup. So really, the money that went to AIG (so far) theoretically is being used to pay claims against the debts (mortgages, credit cards, etc.) going bad at those banks. But wait a minute, those banks also received direct infusions in the neighborhood of $170 billion (so far) also.
From an accounting perspective, these companies have all been preserved after years of very bad management, taking huge risks, huge personal paydays for the folks who did the deals, and we are paying the bill for its failure. The phrase “privatize the profits, socialize the losses” was one I heard quite a bit while Randi Rhodes was still on the air and it’s starting to feel more and more like she was right. “They” get to keep the money when “they” make it, we have to pay for it when “they” lose (although that payment still goes to “them”). I understand and agree with the notion that in a severe recession/depression, the only viable source of capital infusion is the government. No one else is spending their own cash and in a world that revolves on the use and reuse of money only the government has sufficient resources to force a change. How that money gets spent is another issue.
What we are seeing now are the continuing consequences of the Bush administration’s outrageous philosophy come full circle. Barry was stuck with it on January 20th and in the absence of a signing statement to the contrary, he is bound by law to carry it out pretty much as he is doing. Personally, I’d feel better if every American instead, was instead given a portion of the $340 billion (so far) for specific use towards either their mortgages or their credit cards or some other bank originated debt. That way the banks are in the same spot as far as getting their cash infusion and at least the people are using their own tax dollars to wipe the debt off their own books. The debts now don’t go bad, AIG doesn’t have to pay the claims, and instead investigations into a foolish, probably criminally fraudulent insurance enterprise can proceed. Wouldn’t THAT be outrageous??
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Going All In
A few memes popping frequently upon the airwaves the past few days. One of them is “overloading the circuits”. This refers to the Obama administration moving quickly on policy matters which emanated from his campaign promises and which obstructionists argue have nothing to do with improving the economy. Of course, the obstructionists are on the right and they work hard to stop all forward motion on economic matters, particularly since the measures will end up having an effect on the pocketbooks of the folks at the top of the income pyramid.
The biggie is health care, an item addressed by every single modern economy in the world, and some not so modern, except for ours. I’m not going to address the merits or not of such a program right now, but rather the concept of trying to accomplish so many things apparently all at once.
Nothing about any proposed policy is new. Everything has been on the agenda for years, in the case of health care, 60 years (keep in mind Germany has had national health care since the 1870s). The issues have been discussed and debated; it’s just a matter of formalizing most of it at this point and getting it to the floors of congress for an up or down vote. Overloading the circuits means the opposition won’t have enough time to parse through the documents to find the stupid little crap they always find to go on the media outlets foaming at the mouth about how irresponsible the democrats are being, blah blah blah.
The democrats are right to go for everything now while the energy is there to do it. The GOP argues to wait for the economy to stabilize. Two outcomes are possible if that is allowed to happen. First, things can stabilize in which case any further moves will be made to look like a threat to stability so they shouldn’t be taken, or; second, things don’t stabilize in which case further moves shouldn’t be made because they will make things worse (and anyway, more effort must be made directly on the problems at hand rather than side issues).
So go ahead and overload the circuits. If those (Republicur) folks in Congress can’t keep up at this point, it’s just another example of their governing inadequacy. Years of inertia can be overcome if they want. They don’t want. They spent the entirety of their time in power trying to kill the beast and now that it’s nearly dead we are trying to revive the carcass. My friend Barry has made it clear that it’s possible to do more than one thing at a time. Dedicated readers here will note I said a long time ago not to play poker with this guy. He’s going all in. He can still be nice about it but I’m glad we have cute little grandma Nancy to bust out the rolling pin and flatten ‘em to get things cooked. Ah metaphors!!!
Read More...
The biggie is health care, an item addressed by every single modern economy in the world, and some not so modern, except for ours. I’m not going to address the merits or not of such a program right now, but rather the concept of trying to accomplish so many things apparently all at once.
Nothing about any proposed policy is new. Everything has been on the agenda for years, in the case of health care, 60 years (keep in mind Germany has had national health care since the 1870s). The issues have been discussed and debated; it’s just a matter of formalizing most of it at this point and getting it to the floors of congress for an up or down vote. Overloading the circuits means the opposition won’t have enough time to parse through the documents to find the stupid little crap they always find to go on the media outlets foaming at the mouth about how irresponsible the democrats are being, blah blah blah.
The democrats are right to go for everything now while the energy is there to do it. The GOP argues to wait for the economy to stabilize. Two outcomes are possible if that is allowed to happen. First, things can stabilize in which case any further moves will be made to look like a threat to stability so they shouldn’t be taken, or; second, things don’t stabilize in which case further moves shouldn’t be made because they will make things worse (and anyway, more effort must be made directly on the problems at hand rather than side issues).
So go ahead and overload the circuits. If those (Republicur) folks in Congress can’t keep up at this point, it’s just another example of their governing inadequacy. Years of inertia can be overcome if they want. They don’t want. They spent the entirety of their time in power trying to kill the beast and now that it’s nearly dead we are trying to revive the carcass. My friend Barry has made it clear that it’s possible to do more than one thing at a time. Dedicated readers here will note I said a long time ago not to play poker with this guy. He’s going all in. He can still be nice about it but I’m glad we have cute little grandma Nancy to bust out the rolling pin and flatten ‘em to get things cooked. Ah metaphors!!!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Whither Rush: Corpulent Bleats From the Republican Intellectual Desert
I could be wrong here, but I just don’t understand delusion. Like everyone else, I come in contact with various degrees of it on a daily basis and I generally pay no mind to it as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my own perceived existence. I am also an advocate of the canard expressed by Groucho Marx when he resigned from the Friar's Club, an exclusive club of well-known comedians. Upon receiving a note insisting he give an explanation for resigning, he stated, “because I wouldn’t want to be in a club that would have me as a member.” With the exception of sports teams when I was a kid, I’ve never been comfortable in large groups seeking common goals. That attitude probably has something to do with why I am a solo practitioner in my professional life, why I shy away from most spiritual gatherings, and why I don’t get directly involved in politics despite my obvious interest in its theory and practice.
Having said that, I shall now gush forth on the latest topic of political interest, Rush Limbaugh’s apparent de facto leadership of the intellectual strategy of the Republicur party. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, I relish the spectacle of the utter emptiness of Republicur thought these days. In my lifetime I haven’t seen a political party so dominate the national agenda as the GOP has throughout most of my lifetime, only to fall so far so fast with such ringing clarity as has happened since the ’06 elections. They have quite literally clung to the petard of the uselessness of government, no taxes, and brazen jingoism for decades now. They made Ronald Reagan into a saint no matter how he violated every principle he supposedly ever stood for. No better a symbol of the rot and hypocrisy of the GOP could be found than in the bloated Vicodin and Viagra cocktail popping Limbaugh. The audacity of him bouncing before the world proclaiming moral rectitude and manliness should appear as an astonishing joke by anyone who sees it.
Is Rush really interested in leading the GOP? Doubtful. I think Rush is interested in Rush. There was an article on him in the NY Times Sunday Magazine a while back. He acknowledged his upbringing as a southern conservative but he more or less considers himself a hired hand who is there to generate revenue for himself and his advertisers. Pure commercial shill though relatively honest about the positions he takes. He’s honest slime. But he has the hypnotized juden of CPAC that he is speaking for them. And for now that’s probably what they need to keep from slithering off in dispirited clots to Minnesota airport bathrooms.
On the other hand, it’s all meaningless showmanship at this point. Best to let a non-politician showman take the lead now. This is a time for the GOP to reassess itself and its positions as well as strategy. They already know how to sell the ideas, it’s just that for now no one wants what they’re selling. They can either back off and see if the Obama administration succeeds, in which case nothing the GOP can do will help them back into power for a long time, or see if the administration fails, in which case coming back to power will be easy if there’s any country left to misgovern. It’s the fuzzy in-between that matters and honestly, unless something really big and probably really bad happens, we won’t know where we stand economically and otherwise until about this time next year, just as the jockeying for the 2010 elections gets going in earnest.
That said, it’s probably best for democrats that Rush is indeed the voice of the party. It’s become increasingly difficult to contradict either form or substance when Rush wheezes political. The result is that the party is stuck with its discredited policies and philosophy cemented in place since Rush is not actually an intellectual of any kind but just an intake valve for natural and pharmaceutical resources while he spews out the old lines about bad big government, unfair taxes on his fellow offensively rich, individual responsibility from a guy who can probably barely reach around to wipe his own ass anymore, and manliness for a crowd of unnaturally homophobic dudes.
Of course, there is one lurking tendency I detect curled behind a fair amount of their rhetoric. When you can’t convince someone with the force of your ideas, you can only convince them with force. The tone of the Republicur rhetoric often gives me the shakes that they could easily edge in that direction. I don’t agree with them and because of that, I feel their dislike for me has a personal intensity and dehumanizing revulsion that I do not have towards them (ad hominem attacks on Rush for the sake of the words used admittedly notwithstanding). It is beyond disagreement. It is righteous hatred. It is delusion. And I don’t understand it.
Read More...
Having said that, I shall now gush forth on the latest topic of political interest, Rush Limbaugh’s apparent de facto leadership of the intellectual strategy of the Republicur party. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, I relish the spectacle of the utter emptiness of Republicur thought these days. In my lifetime I haven’t seen a political party so dominate the national agenda as the GOP has throughout most of my lifetime, only to fall so far so fast with such ringing clarity as has happened since the ’06 elections. They have quite literally clung to the petard of the uselessness of government, no taxes, and brazen jingoism for decades now. They made Ronald Reagan into a saint no matter how he violated every principle he supposedly ever stood for. No better a symbol of the rot and hypocrisy of the GOP could be found than in the bloated Vicodin and Viagra cocktail popping Limbaugh. The audacity of him bouncing before the world proclaiming moral rectitude and manliness should appear as an astonishing joke by anyone who sees it.
Is Rush really interested in leading the GOP? Doubtful. I think Rush is interested in Rush. There was an article on him in the NY Times Sunday Magazine a while back. He acknowledged his upbringing as a southern conservative but he more or less considers himself a hired hand who is there to generate revenue for himself and his advertisers. Pure commercial shill though relatively honest about the positions he takes. He’s honest slime. But he has the hypnotized juden of CPAC that he is speaking for them. And for now that’s probably what they need to keep from slithering off in dispirited clots to Minnesota airport bathrooms.
On the other hand, it’s all meaningless showmanship at this point. Best to let a non-politician showman take the lead now. This is a time for the GOP to reassess itself and its positions as well as strategy. They already know how to sell the ideas, it’s just that for now no one wants what they’re selling. They can either back off and see if the Obama administration succeeds, in which case nothing the GOP can do will help them back into power for a long time, or see if the administration fails, in which case coming back to power will be easy if there’s any country left to misgovern. It’s the fuzzy in-between that matters and honestly, unless something really big and probably really bad happens, we won’t know where we stand economically and otherwise until about this time next year, just as the jockeying for the 2010 elections gets going in earnest.
That said, it’s probably best for democrats that Rush is indeed the voice of the party. It’s become increasingly difficult to contradict either form or substance when Rush wheezes political. The result is that the party is stuck with its discredited policies and philosophy cemented in place since Rush is not actually an intellectual of any kind but just an intake valve for natural and pharmaceutical resources while he spews out the old lines about bad big government, unfair taxes on his fellow offensively rich, individual responsibility from a guy who can probably barely reach around to wipe his own ass anymore, and manliness for a crowd of unnaturally homophobic dudes.
Of course, there is one lurking tendency I detect curled behind a fair amount of their rhetoric. When you can’t convince someone with the force of your ideas, you can only convince them with force. The tone of the Republicur rhetoric often gives me the shakes that they could easily edge in that direction. I don’t agree with them and because of that, I feel their dislike for me has a personal intensity and dehumanizing revulsion that I do not have towards them (ad hominem attacks on Rush for the sake of the words used admittedly notwithstanding). It is beyond disagreement. It is righteous hatred. It is delusion. And I don’t understand it.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Brief Observations, Post "State of the Union"
Here is President Obama, promising to do everything he said he was going to do and for the moment making it seem like it’s all possible while invoking a non-existent line-item veto to make it all cost less.
Here is Governor Jindal, Mardi Gras gumbo dripping off his lapel and still woozy from the post-Zulu parade festivities, saying no we shouldn’t let Obama do it, just wait for the Minutemen to show up.
Congressional Republicurs will recede to the background and the Republicur governors will come forward.
Let the games begin...
Read More...
Here is Governor Jindal, Mardi Gras gumbo dripping off his lapel and still woozy from the post-Zulu parade festivities, saying no we shouldn’t let Obama do it, just wait for the Minutemen to show up.
Congressional Republicurs will recede to the background and the Republicur governors will come forward.
Let the games begin...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Death By Half Is Still Death
I am ever more deeply believing that the major banks of this country are zombies and have been since the initial crisis hit them last September. TARP was intended to prevent an immediate meltdown at the time and this is it did. It never had much of anything to do with liquidity and possibly may have been a last ditch effort for Bush people to funnel some Treasury cash to their cronies while keeping the banks themselves filled with employees drawing paychecks. I recognize that statement borders on conspiracy theory but we’ll see how things develop in the years ahead. Now, other than the employees (stockholders have already taken their hit), I wonder who at the top end of the pyramid will lose their valuables if the big banks eventually shutter, the zombies no longer able to gnaw on the brains of us taxpayers for sustenance? If they get nationalized we may never find out and instead continue to feel the cold air of day whiffle across our collective financial grey matter. Mmmm, feels like being at dinner with Hannibal Lecter. In other words, I don’t feel bold action is being taken and I wonder why?
The stimulus I am more optimistic about. This I believe is a leading edge for what will require by necessity more financial pumpitude down the line. The infrastructure projects will need to be expanded and maintained, particularly any aimed at developing a new energy grid. Gee, I’m going out on a limb supporting the ideas of the newest Nobel laureate in economics but I’m on the bus with Paul Krugman here that tax breaks don’t do much and we need to spend a lot more to build things up, get money in folks’ pockets and do it by keeping them busy on useful projects.
The foreclosure plan proposed today, well this one seems like a half-measure. I’ve written several times on this blog what I think should be done here to rebuild a housing market. Simply stated it requires a write down of mortgage principal available for everyone regardless of how they got in the situation they are in. We don’t have time to collectively shake our sanctimonious fingers at people who got bad loans through whatever means because getting the economy moving again is vastly more important. At some point, the wide net of devaluing homes will sweep up everyone and then all we’ll have is blame. You can’t eat blame. We’ll have time for that down the road (don’t you worry all you mortgage brokers, we’ll get around to auditing you eventually — yeah I know, it wasn’t just you, but I enjoy the fantasy).
The main focus of the plan is to slow the foreclosure rate so that folks can stay in the homes they are in now. And that’s ok as far as it goes. But for the purposes of a consumer economy, it doesn’t go far enough. This plan does nothing for the principal on loans, which will remain higher than the values of the homes they are on. Interest rates and terms may be stretched out to reduce payments, but the homeowners, although safe in their homes, are effectively trapped in them until such time in the future (at least four or five years in normal times for housing value appreciation, and much longer in the hardest hit places, California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada) when home values manage to reach back up to where they were when the loans were initially made.
The trouble will be that by that point the banks, receiving regular payments, will have no incentive to approve short sales (the sale of a home for less than the amount due on the loan) so folks can’t relocate, can’t downsize or upsize depending on their circumstances (if they can upsize then they could presumably cover the difference in an undervalued home at closing, but then there’s no cash to pay towards a new home of any size). Meantime, we haven’t even hit bottom on devaluation and now we’re planning ahead for increases? We’ll end up back in the death spiral where the only way to get out is to default.
The only way to affect principal in this plan is through bankruptcy. That may work out for me since I’ve long planned to increase my law practice in that area, but honestly, it’s not good for the nation altogether. The banks will still end up losers in that kind of deal. But now, the homeowners end up having their credit destroyed which will make it difficult to impossible for them to remain involved in a consumer economy in any big way. Cash on the barrelhead for those folks only. In a world short on cash for consumers, that’s no way to run a recovery.
The only semi-reasonable explanation for why my friend Barry is taking this approach, which is feeling like a slowed down death instead of a guillotine on the one hand or a reprieve on the other, is pure political pragmatism. It comes back to doing what you can do. The Republicurs are convinced they have the nation’s ear with their constant trumpeting about tax and spend Democrats. And they’re right, they do have the ear. Except for my friend Barry himself, no Democrat seems yet to have figured out how to explain themselves in such a way that reaches people in the tasty little soundbites that they have to create to swing the discussion their way. It’s frustrating as hell because it doesn’t seem that tough but I haven’t been on TV and been asked the questions so I don’t know (though I’m working out my chops with occasional appearances on the friendly format of Progressive Blend Radio).
I’m halfway hoping that these are half-measures designed to work only so far while the Republicurs act like the philosophical Neanderthals they have become (read, dead-end). By the end of this year or the beginning of next, I’m hoping the results of policies to that point will demonstrate the absolute necessity to go all the way on stimulus spending and mortgage principal modification. At that point John Boner’s head can pop off in the well of the House and the remaining Republicurs can join their Whig forebears in the history books.
The only other thing that can get in the way of this, or anything else, would be something extremely nasty happening in foreign affairs, probably involving Pakistan as it continues to morph in to Talibanistan. In that case at least one thing I have going for me is I can make several wicked varieties of curry so I could have a peace offering in a pinch.
Read More...
The stimulus I am more optimistic about. This I believe is a leading edge for what will require by necessity more financial pumpitude down the line. The infrastructure projects will need to be expanded and maintained, particularly any aimed at developing a new energy grid. Gee, I’m going out on a limb supporting the ideas of the newest Nobel laureate in economics but I’m on the bus with Paul Krugman here that tax breaks don’t do much and we need to spend a lot more to build things up, get money in folks’ pockets and do it by keeping them busy on useful projects.
The foreclosure plan proposed today, well this one seems like a half-measure. I’ve written several times on this blog what I think should be done here to rebuild a housing market. Simply stated it requires a write down of mortgage principal available for everyone regardless of how they got in the situation they are in. We don’t have time to collectively shake our sanctimonious fingers at people who got bad loans through whatever means because getting the economy moving again is vastly more important. At some point, the wide net of devaluing homes will sweep up everyone and then all we’ll have is blame. You can’t eat blame. We’ll have time for that down the road (don’t you worry all you mortgage brokers, we’ll get around to auditing you eventually — yeah I know, it wasn’t just you, but I enjoy the fantasy).
The main focus of the plan is to slow the foreclosure rate so that folks can stay in the homes they are in now. And that’s ok as far as it goes. But for the purposes of a consumer economy, it doesn’t go far enough. This plan does nothing for the principal on loans, which will remain higher than the values of the homes they are on. Interest rates and terms may be stretched out to reduce payments, but the homeowners, although safe in their homes, are effectively trapped in them until such time in the future (at least four or five years in normal times for housing value appreciation, and much longer in the hardest hit places, California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada) when home values manage to reach back up to where they were when the loans were initially made.
The trouble will be that by that point the banks, receiving regular payments, will have no incentive to approve short sales (the sale of a home for less than the amount due on the loan) so folks can’t relocate, can’t downsize or upsize depending on their circumstances (if they can upsize then they could presumably cover the difference in an undervalued home at closing, but then there’s no cash to pay towards a new home of any size). Meantime, we haven’t even hit bottom on devaluation and now we’re planning ahead for increases? We’ll end up back in the death spiral where the only way to get out is to default.
The only way to affect principal in this plan is through bankruptcy. That may work out for me since I’ve long planned to increase my law practice in that area, but honestly, it’s not good for the nation altogether. The banks will still end up losers in that kind of deal. But now, the homeowners end up having their credit destroyed which will make it difficult to impossible for them to remain involved in a consumer economy in any big way. Cash on the barrelhead for those folks only. In a world short on cash for consumers, that’s no way to run a recovery.
The only semi-reasonable explanation for why my friend Barry is taking this approach, which is feeling like a slowed down death instead of a guillotine on the one hand or a reprieve on the other, is pure political pragmatism. It comes back to doing what you can do. The Republicurs are convinced they have the nation’s ear with their constant trumpeting about tax and spend Democrats. And they’re right, they do have the ear. Except for my friend Barry himself, no Democrat seems yet to have figured out how to explain themselves in such a way that reaches people in the tasty little soundbites that they have to create to swing the discussion their way. It’s frustrating as hell because it doesn’t seem that tough but I haven’t been on TV and been asked the questions so I don’t know (though I’m working out my chops with occasional appearances on the friendly format of Progressive Blend Radio).
I’m halfway hoping that these are half-measures designed to work only so far while the Republicurs act like the philosophical Neanderthals they have become (read, dead-end). By the end of this year or the beginning of next, I’m hoping the results of policies to that point will demonstrate the absolute necessity to go all the way on stimulus spending and mortgage principal modification. At that point John Boner’s head can pop off in the well of the House and the remaining Republicurs can join their Whig forebears in the history books.
The only other thing that can get in the way of this, or anything else, would be something extremely nasty happening in foreign affairs, probably involving Pakistan as it continues to morph in to Talibanistan. In that case at least one thing I have going for me is I can make several wicked varieties of curry so I could have a peace offering in a pinch.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Stimulus: Pissing in the Ocean?
Like many folks I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the causes, effects, and consequences of the economic meltdown we are enduring while still trying to maintain a semblance of my own personal economic existence. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m in the real estate business and I’m in south Florida, so I’ve been feeling the effects of this downturn for going on 4 years now. Business has been steadily declining since hurricane Wilma hit here in October 2005. For me, I manage because I have very low overhead and can operate in a variety of fields, but for real estate specialists, stand alone title companies, and real estate sales offices, well, there are a lot of shuttered storefronts they used to occupy. And there are a lot of empty homes around here as well with many more soon to come empty.
So I heard a figure regarding the amount of debt that is actually hanging out there waiting to fall all over us. The figure is incomprehensible to people outside the astronomy business. It’s 1.14 quadrillion dollars. That is a thousand trillion. Every trillion is a thousand billion and each billion is a thousand million. That 1.14 quadrillion (and I am intentionally NOT italicizing or otherwise emphasizing the number. If it doesn’t already pop your eyes out to see the word, then more emphasis won’t help) is the amount calculated to be owed to the end-holders of the so-called derivative debt held throughout the world. That is compared to the total estimated Gross Domestic Product of the entire world which is approximately 60 trillion dollars. Yes that is correct — the debt owed is almost 20 times the actual value of everything OF value on the planet. (I am also not making links here because a simple Google search of these figures will provide you with numerous references from all manner of sites, both reputable and otherwise).
I will once again make reference to my first assessment of the financial crisis in that it’s not really a problem of credit in and of itself. The problem is that so much credit has already been extended that there is no way that the collateral which backs it can ever hope to come close to even cover a bankruptcy level of pennies on the dollar. Value is the problem. There isn’t any. The banks blew it. They are dead. Giving them money to revive is a false hope. They are dead. Not comatose, not faltering, not on the precipice, not pinin’ for the fjords, but dead.
The bank bailout (TARP) was nothing it was billed to be in the sense of saving the economy — at least not in the long term. It was a very expensive stopgap. Or at least it seems expensive to us mere mortals. The purpose of the TARP had much more to do with stopping the imminent complete meltdown of the world financial system while the US was in the midst of a tumultuous presidential campaign. The failure to include oversight meant that instead of going to lending, it went to cover salaries of the banks’ employees. And yeah, also to immoral bonuses to executives who made bad bets because there was no downside to them for losing on such risk —hence executive life under the Bush administration. But mostly it probably went to salaries for bank tellers and the like.
Further payments to banks won’t solve the problem, and I can’t see how at this point any so-called “bad bank” can soak up the level of bad debt that is out there. I’ve heard it said that the mortgage crisis, the foreclosures being endured in the marketplace, don’t really infect everything like the “bad apple theory” says. But my understanding of how these derivatives work defines them as classic bad apples.
Let’s say you have a bunch of loans that were made in 2004. Some in that bunch were $500,000 no-downpayment loans, pic-a-pay deals allowing $400 per month regardless of interest rate. The unpaid interest gets tacked on as additional principle to be recalculated later. The buyer is an unemployed janitor but it’s a no-doc loan so no one is checking anyway. “Don’t worry in a few years of steady payments your credit rating will improve and you can refinance for a regular 30 year fixed at a better rate and for more than you’re borrowing now because the values always go up my friend.” Well 5 years later, the loan resets, the pic-a-pay option is no longer valid and now it’s a $3,000 per month payment on a house now worth $300,000. I don’t care where our friend washes floors now, he’s out on his ass pretty quick.
But his loan lives on because it was sold off in pieces long ago. Complicated math algorithms, which I admit I can sense more than explain, take pieces of the $500,000 loan, its expected interest, and the time at which they all accrue over a 30 year period, and bundle them together with other pieces of other home loans, commercial loans, credit card debt, and other instruments of financial encumbrance, into a package which then gets insured in similar pieces, and then bet on to either stay solvent or not. Soon it all becomes a giant greasy clot of financial promises which can never be kept. But as long as not too many of the internal debts go bad, the dishes can continue to be spun in the air. Well folks, too many went bad. The banks holding them can’t pay. We can throw money at them forever and they will never be worth anything. Unless we get to Zimbabwean levels of inflation of course, which is possible, and that might not still cover it.
I’m afraid the stimulus bill isn’t what you think it is either. It’s not intended to save the economy. $800,000,000,000 when you’re staring down the barrel of a $1.14 quadrillion ($1,140,000,000,000,000) is pissing in the ocean. You might feel warm where you stand, but it doesn’t last long or go far from its source. The bill is intended to keep people busy doing the important work of making sure this country can be self-sufficient when we get to the other end of this thing. Self-sufficiency is not the American way anymore. Premature globalization has made Ross Perot a genius as so many major industries no longer manufacture any products in this country anymore. And we don’t power the things we still do here with our own energy supplies. No one in power can say it because of the effect it would have on markets, though it gets slyly referred to all the time, but the world’s finances are already shot and we’re just now trying to get a jump on the cleanup before the full extent of the filth rolls over on us. If I’m right and that’s what the stimulus is really for, then it probably isn’t enough. More of these will come down the line as reality finally sets in. Whether the republicurs get on the bus as well will largely determine their survival as a viable party.
The stimulus is to pay paychecks for folks who will build whatever it is that’s about to get built. I’m wondering when the banks will finally be shuttered, our accounts guaranteed by that New Deal stroke of genius, the FDIC, and someone can tell us no one has a mortgage to pay anymore. THAT would free up some spending money. Especially if we don’t have to pay the credit cards off anymore either. If that happens, hell I’m selling off the gold necklace I have stashed away safely on ebay to someone in the Chinese Politburo and using the cash to open a community bank on my front porch.
Read More...
So I heard a figure regarding the amount of debt that is actually hanging out there waiting to fall all over us. The figure is incomprehensible to people outside the astronomy business. It’s 1.14 quadrillion dollars. That is a thousand trillion. Every trillion is a thousand billion and each billion is a thousand million. That 1.14 quadrillion (and I am intentionally NOT italicizing or otherwise emphasizing the number. If it doesn’t already pop your eyes out to see the word, then more emphasis won’t help) is the amount calculated to be owed to the end-holders of the so-called derivative debt held throughout the world. That is compared to the total estimated Gross Domestic Product of the entire world which is approximately 60 trillion dollars. Yes that is correct — the debt owed is almost 20 times the actual value of everything OF value on the planet. (I am also not making links here because a simple Google search of these figures will provide you with numerous references from all manner of sites, both reputable and otherwise).
I will once again make reference to my first assessment of the financial crisis in that it’s not really a problem of credit in and of itself. The problem is that so much credit has already been extended that there is no way that the collateral which backs it can ever hope to come close to even cover a bankruptcy level of pennies on the dollar. Value is the problem. There isn’t any. The banks blew it. They are dead. Giving them money to revive is a false hope. They are dead. Not comatose, not faltering, not on the precipice, not pinin’ for the fjords, but dead.
The bank bailout (TARP) was nothing it was billed to be in the sense of saving the economy — at least not in the long term. It was a very expensive stopgap. Or at least it seems expensive to us mere mortals. The purpose of the TARP had much more to do with stopping the imminent complete meltdown of the world financial system while the US was in the midst of a tumultuous presidential campaign. The failure to include oversight meant that instead of going to lending, it went to cover salaries of the banks’ employees. And yeah, also to immoral bonuses to executives who made bad bets because there was no downside to them for losing on such risk —hence executive life under the Bush administration. But mostly it probably went to salaries for bank tellers and the like.
Further payments to banks won’t solve the problem, and I can’t see how at this point any so-called “bad bank” can soak up the level of bad debt that is out there. I’ve heard it said that the mortgage crisis, the foreclosures being endured in the marketplace, don’t really infect everything like the “bad apple theory” says. But my understanding of how these derivatives work defines them as classic bad apples.
Let’s say you have a bunch of loans that were made in 2004. Some in that bunch were $500,000 no-downpayment loans, pic-a-pay deals allowing $400 per month regardless of interest rate. The unpaid interest gets tacked on as additional principle to be recalculated later. The buyer is an unemployed janitor but it’s a no-doc loan so no one is checking anyway. “Don’t worry in a few years of steady payments your credit rating will improve and you can refinance for a regular 30 year fixed at a better rate and for more than you’re borrowing now because the values always go up my friend.” Well 5 years later, the loan resets, the pic-a-pay option is no longer valid and now it’s a $3,000 per month payment on a house now worth $300,000. I don’t care where our friend washes floors now, he’s out on his ass pretty quick.
But his loan lives on because it was sold off in pieces long ago. Complicated math algorithms, which I admit I can sense more than explain, take pieces of the $500,000 loan, its expected interest, and the time at which they all accrue over a 30 year period, and bundle them together with other pieces of other home loans, commercial loans, credit card debt, and other instruments of financial encumbrance, into a package which then gets insured in similar pieces, and then bet on to either stay solvent or not. Soon it all becomes a giant greasy clot of financial promises which can never be kept. But as long as not too many of the internal debts go bad, the dishes can continue to be spun in the air. Well folks, too many went bad. The banks holding them can’t pay. We can throw money at them forever and they will never be worth anything. Unless we get to Zimbabwean levels of inflation of course, which is possible, and that might not still cover it.
I’m afraid the stimulus bill isn’t what you think it is either. It’s not intended to save the economy. $800,000,000,000 when you’re staring down the barrel of a $1.14 quadrillion ($1,140,000,000,000,000) is pissing in the ocean. You might feel warm where you stand, but it doesn’t last long or go far from its source. The bill is intended to keep people busy doing the important work of making sure this country can be self-sufficient when we get to the other end of this thing. Self-sufficiency is not the American way anymore. Premature globalization has made Ross Perot a genius as so many major industries no longer manufacture any products in this country anymore. And we don’t power the things we still do here with our own energy supplies. No one in power can say it because of the effect it would have on markets, though it gets slyly referred to all the time, but the world’s finances are already shot and we’re just now trying to get a jump on the cleanup before the full extent of the filth rolls over on us. If I’m right and that’s what the stimulus is really for, then it probably isn’t enough. More of these will come down the line as reality finally sets in. Whether the republicurs get on the bus as well will largely determine their survival as a viable party.
The stimulus is to pay paychecks for folks who will build whatever it is that’s about to get built. I’m wondering when the banks will finally be shuttered, our accounts guaranteed by that New Deal stroke of genius, the FDIC, and someone can tell us no one has a mortgage to pay anymore. THAT would free up some spending money. Especially if we don’t have to pay the credit cards off anymore either. If that happens, hell I’m selling off the gold necklace I have stashed away safely on ebay to someone in the Chinese Politburo and using the cash to open a community bank on my front porch.
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