Month: March 2010

Financial Reform: Will We Even Have A Debate?

By Simon Johnson

The New York Times reports that financial reform is the next top priority for Democrats. Barney Frank, fresh from meeting with the president, sends a promising signal,

“There are going to be death panels enacted by the Congress this year — but they’re death panels for large financial institutions that can’t make it,” he said. “We’re going to put them to death and we’re not going to do very much for their heirs. We will do the minimum that’s needed to keep this from spiraling into a broader problem.”

But there is another, much less positive interpretation regarding what is now developing in the Senate. The indications are that some version of the Dodd bill will be presented to Democrats and Republicans alike as a fait accompli – this is what we are going to do, so are you with us or against us in the final recorded vote? And, whatever you do – they say to the Democrats – don’t rock the boat with any strengthening amendments.

Chris Dodd, master of the parliamentary maneuver, and the White House seem to have in mind curtailing debate and moving directly to decision. Republicans, such as Judd Gregg and Bob Corker, may be getting on board with exactly this.

Prominent Democratic Senators have indicated they would like something different. But it’s not clear whether and how Senators Cantwell, Merkley, Levin, Brown, Feingold, Kaufman, and perhaps others will stop the Dodd juggernaut (or is it a handcart?)

This matters, because there is more than a small problem with the Dodd-White House strategy: the bill makes no sense. Continue reading “Financial Reform: Will We Even Have A Debate?” →

The Brown Amendment: Do the Volcker Rules Live?

The administration may be distancing itself from the Volcker Rules, but the same is not true of all Senators. (Why did President Obama go to the trouble of endorsing Mr. Volcker’s approach to limiting risk and size in the banking system, if his key implementers – led by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner – were going to back down so quickly?)

Among a number of sensible amendments under development in the Senate, Senator Sherrod Brown (D., OH) proposes the following language: (update: text now attached)

“LIMIT ON LIABILITIES FOR BANK HOLDING COMPANIES AND FINANCIAL COMPANIES.—No bank holding company may possess non-deposit liabilities exceeding 3 percent of the annual gross domestic product of the United States.”

And a few paragraphs later, an essential point is made clear: this includes derivatives,

“OFF-BALANCE-SHEET LIABILITIES.—The computation of the limit established under subsection (a) shall take into account off-balance-sheet liabilities.”

And there is a strong provision for requiring prompt corrective action if any bank exceeds this hard size cap.

Naturally, the Federal Reserve is pushing back. Continue reading “The Brown Amendment: Do the Volcker Rules Live?” →

The Administration Starts to Fight On Banking, But For What?

By Simon Johnson

Speaking to the American Enterprise Institute, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had some good lines yesterday,

“The magnitude of the financial shock [in fall 2008] was in some ways greater than that which caused the Great Depression. The damage has been catastrophic, causing more damage to the livelihoods and economic security of Americans and, in particular, the middle class, than any financial crisis in three generations.”

Like Ben Bernanke, Mr. Geithner also finally grasps at least the broad contours of the doom loop,

“For three decades, the American financial system produced a significant financial crisis every three to five years. Each major financial shock forced policy actions mostly by the Fed to lower interest rates and to provide liquidity to contain the resulting damage. The apparent success of those actions in limiting the depth and duration of recessions led to greater confidence and greater risk taking. “

But then he falters. Continue reading “The Administration Starts to Fight On Banking, But For What?” →

Bloomberg Reviews “13 Bankers”

By Simon Johnson

Bloomberg’s reviewer, James Pressley, emphasizes our historical parallels between big banks today and big business more generally at the start of the twentieth century. In 1900, the forces supporting the status quo seemed unassailable, yet real reform proved possible – making the economic system both fairer and more productive. We can rein in huge banks today – but only if our political leadership is willing to take the most powerful people on the planet.

“Though Jamie Dimon won’t like this (any more than John D. Rockefeller did), incremental regulatory changes and populist rhetoric about “banksters” are getting us nowhere. It’s time for practical solutions. This might be a place to start.”

The full review is here.

Volcker And Bernanke: So Close And Yet So Far

By Simon Johnson

In case you were wondering, Paul Volcker is still pressing hard for the Senate (and Congress, at the end of the day) to adopt some version of both “Volcker Rules”. It’s an uphill struggle – the proposed ban on proprietary trading (i.e., excessive risk-taking by government-backed banks) is holding on by its fingernails in the Dodd bill and the prospective cap on bank size is completely missing. But Mr. Volcker does not give up so easily – expect a firm yet polite diplomatic offensive from his side (although the extent of White House support remains unclear), including some hallmark tough public statements. It’s all or nothing now for both Volcker and the rest of us.

But at the same time as the legislative prospects look bleak (although not impossible), we should recognize that Paul Volcker has already won important adherents to his general philosophy on big banks, including – most amazingly of late – Ben Bernanke, at least in part. In a speech Saturday, Bernanke was blunt,

“It is unconscionable that the fate of the world economy should be so closely tied to the fortunes of a relatively small number of giant financial firms. If we achieve nothing else in the wake of the crisis, we must ensure that we never again face such a situation [like fall 2008].” Continue reading “Volcker And Bernanke: So Close And Yet So Far” →

Metternich With A Blackberry

By Simon Johnson

If watching the twists and turns in European politics – “should we bailout Greece?”, “should we bring in the IMF?”, “should the Greeks go directly to the IMF, cutting out the EU?”, etc – has your head spinning and reminds you of overly complicated and opaque episodes from the history books, then you have actually caught the main point. European power structures and alliances webs are being remade before your eyes.

Is this all random – just the collision of disparate national interests with no coherent plans on any side? Or are there some strong, deliberate, and very personal hands at work guiding key pieces into place?

Prince Metternich worked long and hard to manoeuvre countries and people before and after 1815, cynically and cleverly building a system of interlocking interests that suited him – and his employer, the Austrian/Habsburg Emperor. Is there a modern Metternich now at work? Most definitely: Yes. Continue reading “Metternich With A Blackberry” →

Away Message

By James Kwak

I’ll be traveling and probably not blogging (hopefully not using a computer at all) until next weekend (March 27 or 28). Simon will be around, though. Bye.

A Little Book News

By James Kwak

So, we have a book that goes on sale a week from Tuesday (although you can pre-order it now). We created another blog for book-specific news, in order to avoid cluttering this blog with too much book stuff. But we are going to provide occasional updates (like this one) here with a few highlights.

In the last week, we got a friendly review by Arnold Kling, we learned that the books do actually exist, and we put up a page with some in-person events in case you’re wondering if we look like our photos. We also put up our first factual correction, having to do with the 10 percent cap on deposits. Note that we are interested in correcting errors of fact — we put a lot of effort into getting the facts right, including hiring our own professional fact-checkers (that’s another blog post for another time). If you think we made an error of interpretation (or an error of theory) . . . well, we’re happy to think about it, but don’t expect a correction.

Freefall

By James Kwak

I only recently finished reading Freefall,* Joseph Stiglitz’s book, so this review comes about two months late. It took me a while partly because I was busy, but partly because I didn’t feel a lot of dramatic tension . . . since I agreed with almost everything he said.

Unlike most crisis books, Freefall is relatively short on what caused the financial crisis. The historical background is mainly laid out in Chapter 1, “The Making of a Crisis,” although there is discussion of specific problems in later chapters, such as Chapter 4, “The Mortgage Scam.” Mainly this book is about the response to the crisis, what was wrong with it, and what needs to change in the future.

Reading the book gave me a familiar feeling. You see, our book (13 Bankers) is largely about historical and political background–our Chapter 1 begins with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, although most of the book is about the period since 1980–so there is relatively little topical overlap between the two. But where they do overlap, particularly in the discussion of government responses to the crisis, I had the sensation that we were saying much the same thing.

Continue reading “Freefall” →

Could The US Become Another Ireland?

By Peter Boone and Simon Johnson

As Greece acts in an intransigent manner, refusing to act decisively despite deep fiscal difficulties, the financial markets look on Ireland all the more favorably. Ireland is seen as the poster child for prudent fiscal adjustment among the weaker eurozone countries.

The Irish economy is in serious trouble. Irish GDP declined 7.3% as of third quarter 2009 compared with third quarter 2008. Exports were down 9% year-on-year in December. House prices continue to fall. While stuck in the eurozone, Ireland’s exchange rate cannot move relative to its major trading partners – it thus cannot improve competitiveness without drastic private sector wage cuts. Yet investors are so pleased with the country that its bond yields imply just a one percent greater annual chance of default than Germany over the next five years.

Ireland’s perceived “success” is partly due to its draconian fiscal cuts. The government has cut take home pay of public sector workers by roughly 20% since 2008 through lower wages, higher taxes, and increased pension payments. As the head of the National Treasury Management Agency John Corrigan proudly advised the Greeks (and everyone else): “You have to talk the talk and walk the walk”.

So is Ireland truly a model for Greece and other potential problems in Europe and elsewhere? Definitely not – but it does provide a cautionary tale regarding what could go wrong for all of us. Continue reading “Could The US Become Another Ireland?” →

We Are All “Yappers Who Don’t Know Anything”

By James Kwak

According to ex-Lehman executives interviewed by Max Abelson (hat tip Felix Salmon). To summarize, they say that using borderline-legal transactions to massage your balance sheet at the end of a quarter is completely normal, everyone does it, $50 billion is no big deal anyway, only “nonprofessionals” would even notice, and the only reason the bankruptcy examiner made so much noise about it was to justify the fee for his work. (Abelson does point out that, according to internal Lehman emails cited in the report, there were Lehman executives at the time who were worried about what they were doing and did not think it was standard practice.)

Continue reading “We Are All “Yappers Who Don’t Know Anything”” →

Mario Draghi and Goldman Sachs, Again

By Simon Johnson

In its previous response to us, the the Bank of Italy pointed out that Mario Draghi (its current governor) did not join the management of Goldman Sachs until 2002 – hence he was not there when the controversial Greek “debt swaps” were arranged.

We agree that he joined Goldman only in January 2002 (this was in our original post). But the latest revelations regarding the Goldman-Greece relationship (on the Senate floor, no less) clearly indicate that Goldman was a lead manager of Greek debt issues in spring 2002, i.e., when Mr. Draghi was on board.

This raises three entirely reasonable and straightforward questions. Continue reading “Mario Draghi and Goldman Sachs, Again” →

A Whiff of Repo 105

The following guest post was contributed by Jennifer S. Taub, a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Business Law Program within the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (SSRN page here). Previously, she was an Associate General Counsel for Fidelity Investments in Boston and Assistant Vice President for the Fidelity Fixed Income Funds.

To the uninitiated, the term ‘Repo 105’ evokes the name of a basic finance course or perhaps an expensive perfume. However, the broader implication of Lehman’s corrupt accounting strategy is neither simple nor does it pass the smell test.

While hiding $50 billion off balance sheet is nothing to sneeze at, ‘Repo 105’ may be an unfortunate distraction. We should focus our attention on a far more mainstream and dangerous use of repurchase agreements backed by securitized bonds to grow balance sheets. This practice, enabled by a 2005 legal change, directly destabilized the financial sector and led to the ultimate credit crisis of 2008. In other words, the approximately $7-10 trillion repo financing market created what Gary Gorton and Andrew Metrick call the “run on repo” or what Gerald Epstein describes as a “run on the banking system by the banking system.”

A repurchase agreement or “repo” is a two-part arrangement. The seller (cash borrower) agrees to sell securities at a slight discount to a buyer (cash lender). Under that same agreement, that original seller agrees to buy them back at a future date at a higher price. The securities are known as “collateral.” The discount is known as the margin or a “haircut.” The ratio between the increase in price and the original price is known as the rate.

With ‘Repo 105,’ Lehman, according to volume III of the examiner’s report, acting as a seller (cash borrower), treated $50 billion in repo transactions as sales instead of financing transactions. Lehman did not reveal to investors that it was doing so. In contrast, standard practice was to record these transactions on balance sheet by increasing both cash (assets on the left side) and collateralized financing (liabilities on the right side). Thus a properly recorded repo transaction results in both a larger balance sheet and also higher leverage ratios.

Not wanting to issue more equity to boost leverage ratios, Lehman instead chose a cosmetic solution. With ‘Repo 105,” near the end of a reporting period, Lehman treated the transactions as sales and used the cash proceeds to pay down other liabilities. This made the firm appear to have a smaller balance sheet and less leverage than it truly had. The transactions were called ‘Repo 105’ and ‘Repo 108’ in reference to the size of the haircut. In other words, for ‘Repo 105’ transactions, Lehman would provide collateral purportedly worth 105% of the amount of cash it received.

As we blame the bad apples at Lehman, we fail to see how recent legal changes brought about bigger problems in the repo markets and how instead of reversing these missteps, the law may instead amplify it. Indeed, as discussed below, language in the Dodd draft released Monday, March 15^th suggests we have not learned some basic lessons.

Continue reading “A Whiff of Repo 105” →

Enron and Merrill, Greece and Goldman

By Simon Johnson

Did big banks break the law during our recent global debt-fuelled boom? The usual answer is: no – they just took advantage of loopholes and captured regulators. The world’s biggest banks are widely supposed to be too sophisticated to be tripped up by the legal system.

But is this really true? The new Valukas report on Lehman suggests there are grounds for civil action, i.e., people can sue for damages. News reports give no indication of potential criminal charges, but this may change soon. The hiding of Lehman’s true debt levels – through the so-called “Repo 105” structure – is strikingly reminiscent of how Enron’s balance sheet was disguised through fake asset “sales” (as Senator Kaufman now points out).

And, of course, the people who ended up facing criminal charges and – in some prominent cases – going to jail, included not only Enron executives, but also responsible bankers from Merrill Lynch (see The Smartest Guys in the Room, Chapter 13). Arthur Anderson, Enron’s accountant, was also effectively broken by the scandal. It is a serious crime for professional advisers and financiers to assist in securities fraud.

The failure of Lehman therefore opens a can of worms for close and potentially productive examination in coming weeks. But so does the issue of Greek government debt in April 2002. Continue reading “Enron and Merrill, Greece and Goldman” →

Senator Kaufman: Fraud Still At The Heart Of Wall Street

By Simon Johnson

Last week, Senator Ted Kaufman (D., DE) gave a devastating speech in the Senate on “too big to fail” and all it entails. A long public silence from our political class was broken – and to great effect. Today’s Dodd reform proposals stand in pale comparison to the principles outlined by Senator Kaufman. And yes, DE stands for Delaware – corporate America has finally decided that its largest financial offspring are way out of line and must be reined in.

Today, the Senator has gone one better, putting many private criticisms of the financial sector – the kind you hear whispered with conviction on the Upper East Side and in Midtown – firmly and articulately on the public record in a Senate floor speech to be delivered (this link is to the press release; the speech is in a pdf attached to that – update: direct link to speech, which will be given tomorrow). He pulls no punches:

“fraud and potential criminal conduct were at the heart of the financial crisis”

He goes after Lehman – with its infamous Repo 105 – as well as the other entities potentially implicated in those transactions, including Ernst and Young (Lehman’s auditors). This is the low hanging fruit – but have you heard even a squeak from the White House or anyone else in the country’s putative leadership on this issue?

And then he goes for the twin jugulars of Wall Street as it still stands: The idea that we saved something, at great expense in 2008-09, that was actually worth saving; and Goldman Sachs. Continue reading “Senator Kaufman: Fraud Still At The Heart Of Wall Street” →