Where do we go from here?

Last week I had the opportunity to opine on this question at a lively conference on the financial crisis sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the World Bank.  Since I spoke about things I’ve been meaning to blog about for some time, I decided to post the transcript here.  Apologies that the tone is more Fed-esque than the usual posting, but here goes…

Where do we go from here?

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.  And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”  Rahm Emanuel, Feb. 2009

I would like to touch briefly on two issues in answer to the question posed for this session:  first, the integration of housing finance into the financial and regulatory mainstream; and second, the need to modernize budgetary and regulatory accounting.   I chose these topics for several reasons: they are important; they get less attention than is deserved; and I have thought quite a bit about them from both an academic and policy perspective.

Read Full Post »

Smoke and Mirrors at the FDIC

” ‘Sheila Bair would take bamboo shoots under her nails before going to Tim Geithner and the Treasury for help,’ said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers.” — New York Times, Sept 22, 2009

We learn today from the New York Times that the FDIC — the independent government agency that insures your bank accounts — is effectively insolvent. It is going to ask insured banks to prepay three years worth of deposit insurance premiums in order to raise $45 billion to replenish the FDIC insurance fund.

Read Full Post »

There’s Just No Accounting For Federal Bailouts

In the last few months, the federal government has intervened in financial markets to an extent unparalleled in U.S. history. A partial tally includes the $29 billion, no-recourse loan from the Fed to rescue Bear Stearns; the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their exposure to the credit risk on $5 trillion of residential mortgages; loans in excess of $100 billion to insurance giant AIG, and of course, open-ended Congressional authority for U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to purchase up to $700 billion in troubled assets from financial institutions, part of which has already financed the purchase of over $250 billion of preferred bank stock.

Whatever you think about the wisdom of these interventions, one fact is indisputable: The government is not saying how much it expects all of this to cost us. The dearth of official estimates has, on one hand, led to Pollyannaish claims like “taxpayers could actually make money on this.”. On the other hand, it has stoked fears that taxpayers may be on the hook for trillions of dollars in losses.

Read Full Post »

What Do They Know That We Don’t Know?

The problem with commenting on the financial rescue plan is that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. have not told us all that they know about the financial crisis. Specifically, we don’t know about the financial health of banks individually or in the aggregate. In this entry I will offer a guess: There is widespread bank insolvency and the point of the rescue plan is to use asset purchases to save banks that are good and, just as important, to facilitate closing banks that are bad. If this is right, the rescue plan is a sensible response to the crisis. In effect the plan has a secret component: widespread and controlled bank closings.

Read Full Post »

Putting a Price Tag on Bailouts: It’s Time to Make the Fed Accountable Too

As the debate continues over the wisdom or lack thereof of Congress having given Treasury Secretary Paulson a blank check to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat over the next 18 months, a point that seems largely overlooked is that there was only one realistic alternative. Either Congress could explicitly provide a financial backstop such as the one just enacted, or the Federal Reserve could later ride to the rescue a la Bear Stearns should the need arise. After all, there is widespread agreement that Fannie and Freddie are too big, and at the moment too important, to fail, and that taxpayers are ultimately on the hook.

Read Full Post »

How Much Will the Fannie and Freddie Bailout Cost Taxpayers?

It’s official.  After the administration’s protestations to the contrary last week – read my lips, no new bailouts – this morning Treasury announced a plan to inject “billions of dollars in loans and investments” to shore up Fannie and Freddie.

Read Full Post »