Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee about half the U.S. mortgage market, $ 12000000000000. Not long ago, had the Darling of Wall Street, next to the obligations of the United States as one of the safest and most conservative investments in the world. Preference shares in GSE (government sponsored enterprises ") felt that the bank is as safe as bank regulatory authorities to count the required capital cushion against loan losses. Actions are safe until this year when bothordinary and preference shares of the need to dive suddenly duo. Between May 15 and Aug. 25 Fannie shares lost 77% of their value, and its preferred shares lost 58.8% in a short time. Freddie Mac preferred shares subject to even more, to 65.5% 0.1
In July 2008, the Treasury and has sought a bailout package with an unlimited credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the government to buy their shares, partially nationalizing them. TreasurySecretary Hank Paulson said the package was too close. "If you have a bazooka in your pocket and people know it," he said, "probably will use it." But bazookas can ghost people were very reassuring. After the plan is approved, foreign central banks cut their Fannie and Freddie-related purchases by more than 25%, and shareholders rushed to dump their animals. August 22, Moody's downgraded Fannie and Freddie preferred shares outstanding from a total of fivenotches, from A1 to Baa3 (or slightly above "junk").
On September 7 he bazooka and fired Secretary Paulson announced that Fannie and Freddie would be under a conservatorship (equivalent to a bankrupt). Finance, debt GSEs guaranteed and will again capitalize the company in exchange for a newly issued preferred shares. At Monday, September 8 is almost Fannie and Freddie share values wiped out, fell 99% from their 52-week highs. It mayA disaster for many banks, the gills with these preferred shares were loaded. The banks already reeling from losses on mortgages and mortgage-backed securities now got the heart, reduces their capital base. Loss of bank capital works as leverage in reverse: a capital of 10%, $ 1 lost in capital, largely as a $ 10 loan. Millions of ordinary investors have also turned to mutual funds, 401k, pension funds and annuities that large firms haveIn Fannie and Freddie.
There are other aspects of the rescue plan that Paulson can give to our politicians of Maalox moments. As in a July 17 article in the Economist:
"[N] ationalisation … If all blame Fannie and Freddie in the budget of the federal government. As regards the book as this would almost double the public debt, but is a bit 'misleading. It would be difficult as the issue of $ 5200000000000 new Treasury bonds, because Fannie and Freddiedebt is backed by real assets. But fear [] that the taxpayer may have to absorb GSE debt …. It suggests another irony, the GSE debt has been trading as if it is guaranteed by the U.S. government, but the fault of the government is not as if Uncle Sam had guaranteed that the GSE 'second
The U.S. federal debt is already nearly $ 10000000000000, the country of its AAA rating in jeopardy. If the government takesGSEs' heavy burdens, and the government to its three times a score to lose, then their massive infusion of foreign lenders funds.3 But if the U.S. does not back GSEs to retire debt, the result was the same. China's 376 billion U.S. dollars of long-term U.S. agency debt is mostly in the activities of Fannie and Freddie. Yonding Yu, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank, warned on August 21:
"If the U.S. government of Fannie and Freddie to fail and international investorsnot compensated adequately, the consequences are disastrous. If this is not the end of the world, is the end of the current international financial system "4
The final approaches
This was the end of the international financial system in both ways, but we must not think. It's the end of the current financial system really so bad? The international financial system is managed by a network of private central banks that print national currencies and exchange themwith the governments of sovereign bonds (or debt). Bonds as a basis for creating many times their value in loans from commercial banks. At a 10% reserve, banks are allowed to fan $ 1 worth of reserves of $ 10 loans to the power effectively to make money in private hands. The price is estimated by this private money-making machine is compound interest continuously withdrawn from the top in a Ponzi scheme, which now limits his mathematical results.The main role of Fannie and Freddie to keep the Ponzi scheme of life, add "liquidity" to markets, which did not buy mortgages and bundle securities are then sold to investors. old loans are moved from the books of banks', making room for new loans, further expanding the money supply and drive up to home prices. As economist Michael Hudson noted in Counter Punch in July:
"Altruistic political talk aside, because the finance, insurance andReal Estate (fire) areas so hard for Fannie and Freddie argued that their financial function for housing is still council. They have inflated asset prices with homeowners credit due to an unprecedented level in history. Therefore, the real estate bubble burst, after all. But now the Congress act as if the only way the debt problem even more debt to make property prices even further by organizing credit even gave a blowthe prices that homebuyers must pay.
"… The economy has reached the limit of debt and that its bankruptcy phase. We are not in a loop, but at the end of an era. The old world of debt pyramiding to a fraudulent level can not be repaired is …. The class war is back in business with a vengeance, instead of the familiar old class war between industrial employers and their workforce. This returns the old creditors pre-industrial class war against the debtors. L 'The basic principle is' big fish eat small fish, particularly the debt for the most dynamic economy, promised free elections.
"… No economy in history has ever been able to pay its debts is the essence of the" magic of compound interest .. 'Debts grow inexorably, to creditors, rich but impoverishing the economy in the process, through its ability to destroy to pay for this financial dynamic most societies recognize the logical answer selected .. From Sumer inThird millennium BC and Babylonia in the second millennium through Greece and Rome in the first millennium BC and then from feudal Europe to the Inter-Ally war debts and restore the maze of international finance, who died after the First World War, the answer is debt restore the ability to pay.
"You can only be done by cattle, from which the debt is paid, the alternative is debt peonage .. For most of history, the countries again and again that bankruptcy -cleaning of debt – is the way to free economies. The idea is to free him from a situation where the economic surplus removed from new tangible investment to pay bankers. The classical idea of free markets is to avoid privatizing monopolies, such as the unique privilege of commercial banks, bank credit and charge interest on it to "5
Under the current law, if the GSEs capital falls too far below required levels, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (theirregulator) is authorized to manage the companies to adopt a form of bankruptcy called a conservatorship is. What happens in a conservatorship is explained by the former adviser to the Federal Reserve, F. Todd Walker Midtjylland Article 23:
"Traditionally, conservatorship freezes bank account and you can restrict withdrawals until authorities determine the amount of frozen accounts may be distributed in proportion to the applicants. Following the appointment of a conservator, the newdeposits and other funds received, and new investments are fully protected, should be "6
Creditors to taxpayers, but is met by existing resources of the association. Creditors based on seniority, with senior creditors to shareholders, and the proceeds of a new company that is separate. Fannie and Freddie investors would take a loss on this scenario, but the pool available for the settlement of claims is quite large. Most of the GSE 'bonds are not junk, but it is real and must be paid. Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at the University of New York and has a popular website called Global EconoMonitor, estimates that the haircut for securities holders would be a modest 5% ($ 5,000,000,000,000 to $ 250 billion) would be. He noted that the governor due to a contribution of $ 50 billion each year more than they would have earned if invested in bonds of the United States, mostly because Fannie and Freddie carry more risk and riskmeans that the chances capsule. Roubini concludes:
"It '… Time to end the" mother of all bailouts coming "from a firm stop to save tax institutions Fannie and Freddie, which have worn in recent years as" mother of all leveraged hedge funds 'with their influence and reckless reckless financial activities.
".. [L.] a desire a spade a bloody shovel: to nationalize Freddie Mac and Fannie May never be privatizedfirst place. . . . Raise taxes or cut other public spending to finance the project. But stop pretending. Stop lying about the financial soundness of the institutions that distribute aid to favored constituencies "7
Nationalization without charge: the historical patterns of success
Roubini notes that the full nationalization of Fannie and Freddie would be a tax increase or spending cuts are needed more, but there are other possible funding solutions, with many anotherthe success of previous historians. If the layers of profiteers, speculators have been derived, commissions, bonuses, fees and general fraud eliminated from the mix, a nationalized Fannie / Freddie could finance. It was shown in 1930 with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (Holco), a governmental disaster created a wave of foreclosures of homes to stop. The Holco was funded by the finance reconstruction Corporation (RFC), another property of 'public bodythat the functions of a public bank. RFC successfully funded not only the New Deal, but U.S. participation in World War II. In a February 2008 article in The New York Times, Alan Binder recommended a return to Holco model as a way out of the current crisis environment. He wrote:
"The Holco was established in June 1933 to help needy families avoid foreclosures by replacing mortgages in or near default with new animals, homeowners can afford. This wasbuying old mortgages banks. . . and then issuing new loans to homeowners. The same Holco financed by borrowing on capital markets and treasury.
"The scale of operations has been impressive. Within two years, Holco granted more than one million new loans (applies only to population growth." The corresponding figure today is linked to almost 2.5 million), almost one. Of every five home loans in the United States was in possession of Holco. The total loans amounted to $ 3.5billion. . . . (The corresponding figure today would be around 750 billion dollars.)
"As a publicly owned company chartered for a public purpose, the Holco a patient and even lenient lender …. But times were tough in 1930 and almost 20 percent of the borrowers default Holco anyway. Then the company acquired Ownership the end of about 200,000 homes, almost all of which were sold in 1944. Holco closed its books in 1951, or 15 years after the last connection paid in 1936;with a small surplus. It 'been a serious light, but the incredible Holco raised.
"Lift today would be much easier …. Given the current low interest rates, a new Holco borrow cheaply and should find easy to serve a two percentage point spread between borrowing and lending rates, for a useful gross of around four dollars a 8000000000 dollars a year "8
RFC Holco originally written with the purchase of its shares at $ 200,000,000. The Holco was authorized by law to release tentimes as much (or 2 billion U.S. dollars) in tax-exempt bonds. Similarly, the RFC in 1937-1938 created and financed by Fannie Mae as a wholly-owned by the government agency in order to inject money into the banking system so banks were the size of mortgages rose. RFC and its agencies, financed by selling their assets in a low mortgage rate to the Treasury and the public, then re-loan the funds received in an interest rate slightly higher. The "spread" was sufficient to coveroperating costs and losses from default and still turn a modest profit.
How did the administration Holco a worse crisis than we have today is negative and is still a surplus, in which Fannie and Freddie – even their money borrowed by selling shares to investors to launch – has become hopelessly failed to pursue? The difference seems to be that Holco was a public institution operated as a public service. Fannie and Freddie are private for profit enterprisesearn money for their investors and political exploiters. As Professor Roubini solid, these GSE "was designed to make losses they are. Expected loss. If you do not lose their political purposes." When profits and businesses as a work of public service mathematics.
There is another American model that is older than the Holco, which is even more exciting opportunities. In the first half of the 18th centuryprovince of Pennsylvania completely funded its government without taxes or debt, through a government-owned bank that issued paper money and Lent for farmers. The bank did not borrow capital before it made loans, but just created the currency on a printing press. The money was lent rather than spent in the economy, and returned to government in a circular flow, avoiding inflation and interest on loans was sufficient for the government to finance operations without taxation.Such a public bank today could solve not only the housing crisis, but a series of other problems, including the infrastructure crisis and energy crisis. (See E. Brown, "Sustainable Energy Development: How to reduce costs and half," webofdebt.com / articles, November 5, 2007).
Once bankrupt businesses have been restored to solvency, the usual practice is to return to private ownership, but a better plan for Fannie and Freddie can not be a public company thereinstitutions. On August 8 London Tribune, British MP Michael Meacher recommends this alternative for Northern Rock, a large British bank, which was recently nationalized after being insolvent. He wrote:
"[W them] the degree of public interest is not so bad, and even now continues to negotiate their promises that their profits are privatized while socializing the losses, not a bank owned by the most effective way to change the current corrosivefinancial culture of short-term investments lower domestic inflation, and the abuse of enrichment at the expense of systemic fragility for everyone else? Perhaps we should not return Northern Rock to the private sector to all "9
Perhaps we should not return Fannie and Freddie.