Tag Archives: CB

Fed to lend to CBs in unlimited quantities (day 2)

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I’m keeping an eye on crude prices rising a lot more than the USD is falling; so, I suspect the great Mike Masters inventory liquidation has run its course.

Inventories are at record or near record lows.

If there has been net demand destruction, it hasn’t yet showed up in OPEC or Saudi production numbers.

The Saudis only pump on demand, at their price, so as swing producer it’s their production that should fall, not anyone else’s.

However, there can be 90 day type lags; so, October Saudi production could be down but not be reported until early November.

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This latest swap line expansion should be a target of Obama and McCain, but neither are touching it.

It’s a financial blunder, potentially of epic magnitudes.

It’s also an oversight issue of epic magnitudes that could dwarf the subprime issue at the first ECB USD auction tomorrow.

The $620 billion swap lines currently in place could swell to well over a trillion USDs.

It will reduce eurobanks cost of USD funds, bring down LIBOR, and normalize bank liquidity.

And the reduction of bank credit risk is bringing in credit spreads which makes room for equities to appreciate as well.

But that’s an empty victory that changes the lack of aggregate demand very little, if any.

And it adds a new element of systemic risk.

Unrestricted/’currency secured’ international USD lending has been tried before in the emerging markets.

Yes, this type of initial lending reduces financial stress, but then it must be sustained and increased to avoid a subsequent collapse, which then becomes inevitable.

Remember Mexico and the rest of Latin America?

It took a growing level of external USD debt to hold it together, until the number got too large and the controls impossible. And then it all fell apart.

All of these ‘top down’ measures that carry the hopes and anticipations of markets should continue to be let downs as no one addresses demand.

This happened in Japan after the banks were recapitalized and ‘healthy’ and nothing happened regarding lending.

Obama and McCain have a window to jump on this opening but don’t seem to be. McCain as the watchdog and Obama as the reformer are both letting us down. Again, as they show no insight and instead keep to their canned rhetoric.

Bush and congress missed a historic opportunity to move the US away from ‘materialism’ after 9/11.

I got a call from Congressman Gephart at the time, and I said this is an opening to show a different kind of leadership as people had turned ‘inward,’ with the following type of statement:

A nation is not richer because people sleep in hotels instead of staying at home. A nation is not richer because we eat out rather than have family meals at home. And now that we have become more introspective on life itself, we can continue this enlightened change of course, back to our real core values, and steer our efforts to educating our children and improving our health care service, etc. etc.

But instead, our leadership telling us:

“Get out of Church and get into the shopping malls!” in order to ‘save the economy’, etc. etc. Gephart didn’t do it. And we went back to the malls.

This go round was also an opportunity to make a fundamental change away from a lending based model to a more cash based model which seems to me has proven more stable over time and a lot more beneficial to human peace of mind.

We could have let most of our lending institutions go by the wayside and kept the banks that would be allowed to make more conservative home loans, installment loans, checking and savings accounts, and not much else. And the housing agencies operating a bit like the old savings and loan’s used to do, but this time with sustainable, matched treasury funding.

And rather than relying on lending for aggregate demand, which is inherently unstable, we could have supported aggregate demand with a fiscal package to provide sufficient income to buy our output and sustain growth and employment.

But instead we are first ‘fixing’ the lending institutional structure, without addressing aggregate demand.

It’s unlikely that costly (in terms of lost output and employment) credit bubbles will be reduced by first supporting the lending institutions and then supporting demand.


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Fed to lend in unlimited quantites to foreign CBs??? (Update1)

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This is hard to believe. Those CBs don’t have unlimited USD.

So, if true, they will be borrowing them from the Fed via an extension of Fed swap lines.

The FOMC has approved lines of $620 billion as last reported.

This is functionally unsecured lending to these CBs.

Repayment can only come from selling their own currencies for the needed USDs.

(or by somehow net exporting to the US or selling assets to the US which are hard to imagine.)

Somehow, this high risk, unsecured, ‘back door’ lending has remained under all radar screens.

And, if true, we will soon see the total USD funding need in the Eurozone.

Fed Says ECB, Others to Offer Unlimited Dollar Funds

by John Fraher and Simone Meier

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) The U.S. Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood financial markets with dollars, backing up government efforts to restore confidence in the banking system.

The ECB, the Bank of England and the Swiss central bank will offer unlimited dollar funds in auctions with maturities of seven days, 28 days and 84 days at a fixed interest rate, the Washington-based Fed said today. The Bank of Japan may introduce “similar measures.”


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Bloomberg: Inflation weakening some currencies

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Interesting how reports of higher inflation have often meant stronger currencies in the short run due to higher anticipated rates from the CB.

Inflation, however, by definition means the currency buys less of most everything; therefore, inflation and a weakening currency are one and the same.

But it can take a long time for markets to discount this.

Emerging-Market Currency Rally Dies as Inflation Hits

by Lukanyo Mnyanda and Lester Pimentel

(Bloomberg) The five-year rally in emerging- market currencies is coming to an end as central banks from South Korea to Turkey struggle to contain inflation, say DWS Investments and Morgan Stanley.

The 26 developing-country currencies tracked by Bloomberg returned an average 0.86 percent in the past three months, down from 1.63 percent in the first quarter, 8.2 percent for all of 2007, and 30 percent annually since 2003. For the first time in seven years, investors are less bullish on emerging-market stocks than on U.S. equities, a Merrill Lynch & Co. survey showed last week.

Confidence in the Indian rupee is weakening after inflation accelerated at the fastest pace in 13 years, stoked by soaring food and energy prices. South Korea’s won will drop this year by the most since 2000, while Turkey’s lira will reverse its biggest gain since at least 1972, the median estimates of strategists surveyed by Bloomberg show.


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NYT: Too big to fail?

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Too Big to Fail?


by Peter S Goodman

Using public money to spare Fannie and Freddie would increase the public debt, which now exceeds $9.4 trillion. The United States has been financing itself by leaning heavily on foreigners, particularly China, Japan and the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf.

This is ridiculous, of course. The US, like any nation with its own non-convertible currency, is best thought of as spending first, and then borrowing and/or collecting taxes.

Were they to become worried that the United States might not be able to pay up, that would force the Treasury to offer higher rates of interest for its next tranche of bonds.

Also ridiculous. Japan had total debt of 150% of GDP, 7% annual deficits, and were downgraded below Botswana, and they sold their 3 month bills at about 0.0001% and 10 year securities at yields well below 1% while the BOJ voted to keep rates at 0%. (Nor did their currency collapse.)

The CB sets the rate by voice vote.

And that would increase the interest rates that Americans must pay for houses and cars, putting a drag on economic growth.

As above.

For one thing, this argument goes, taxpayers — who now confront plunging house prices, a drop on Wall Street and soaring costs for food and fuel — will ultimately pay the costs. To finance a bailout, the government can either pull more money from citizens directly,

Yes, taxing takes money directly, and it’s contradictionary.

But when the government sells securities they merely provide interest bearing financial assets (treasury securities) for non-interest bearing financial assets (bank deposits at the Fed). Net financial assets and nominal wealth are unchanged.

or the Fed can print more money — a step that encourages further inflation.

This is inapplicable.

There is no distinction between ‘printing money’ and some/any other way government spends.

The term ‘printing money’ refers to convertible currency regimes only, where there is a ratio of bill printed to reserves backing that convertible currency.

Skip to next paragraph “They are going to raise the cost of living for every American,”

True, that’s going up!


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Wed am recap

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Mainstream economics says:

Get inflation right and that ‘automatically’ optimizes long-term growth and employment.

Adding to demand with a negative supply shock turns a ‘relative value story’ into an ‘inflation story.’

The ECB is following mainstream theory, while the Fed is not.

why?

The Fed sees looming systemic, deflationary tail risk at the door. At least up to now.

The panic of 1907 and the early 1930s deflationary collapse (both previous examples given by the Fed) were gold standard events.

With a gold standard (and/or other fixed rate regimes) there are direct supply side constraints on the reserve currency. Interest rates are market determined, and during a credit crunch rates spike higher ‘automatically.’ Even the treasury must fund itself and faces the same supply side constraints, thereby limiting fiscal responses. This continues in today’s fixed fx currencies.

With floating fx/non-convertible currency there are inherent no direct supply side constraints on bank lending, deposit creation, and credit in general. Any constraints are on the demand side, including financial capital where constraints are also on the demand side. The CB necessarily directly sets rates, not market forces, and government spending is not constrained by taxing, borrowing, etc., hence fiscal packages are subject only to political choice.

Today’s risks are much the same as previous financial crisis type risks like 1987 and 1998, where the government and its agencies have the open option of ‘writing the check’ as desired, with inflation the price to pay, not government solvency as with fixed fx regimes.

Just like the 1970s, the Saudis are acting the swing producer and setting price and letting quantity they pump adjust. This is also necessarily the case when one is single supplier at the margin with excess capacity. The alternative of pumping flat out and hitting bids in the spot market is not a functional option for any monopolist. Only price setting is.

Russia is also a monopoly supplier at the margin and probably is also acting as a swing producer. So crude prices go to where the higher of the two set them.

Mainstream theory has not yet publicly addressed this kind of negative supply shock.

One option is to match the domestic inflation rates to the price hikes to try to avoid declining real terms of trade.

This is both politically impossible, and it can quickly lead to accelerating inflation.

We have two choices, neither particularly attractive:

  1. Watch our real terms of trade continue to collapse as crude prices are continuously hiked.
  2. Try to inflate to moderate the drop in real terms of trade.

Ironically, we will chose the later as we did in the 1970s because inflation is not a function of interest rates in the direction CBs subscribe to.

Increasing nominal rates increases inflation via the cost and demand channels.

Costs of holding inventory and investment rise with rate hikes.

Governments are net payers of interest to the non-government sectors; so, rate hikes also increase government spending on interest to support incomes in the non-government sectors.

Good luck to us!

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Money (USD)

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My take on the USD:

It was at a level based on foreigners wanting to accumulate $70 billion per month which also = the US trade gap (accounting identity).

Most of that desire to accumulate came from foreign CBs trying to support their exporters, oil producers accumulating USD financial assets, and foreign portfolios allocating some percentage of assets to USD assets.

Paulson cut off the CBs calling the currency manipulators and outlaws.

Bush cut off the oil producers by being perceived to be conducting a holy war.

Bernanke scared off the portfolio managers with what looks to them like an ‘inflate your way out of debt’ policy.

And US pension funds are diversifying out of USD into passive commodities and foreign securities.  Looks to me like the desire to accumulate USD overseas is falling towards zero rapidly.

This means they sell us less and buy more of our goods, services, and our real assets.

Volumes’ of non oil imports are falling and of oil imports are flat.

The dollar has gotten low enough for the trade gap to fall from over $70 billion to under $60 billion per month (February was an aberration IMHO).

The dollar will ‘adjust’ until it corresponds with a trade gap that = desired foreign accumulation of USD financial assets.

I see no reason to think the trade gap should not go to zero.

The USD probably has not traded down enough to reflect the zero desire to accumulate USD abroad.

The ECB has serious ideological issues regarding buying of USD.  Not the least of which they don’t want to give the impression that the USD is ‘backing’ the euro, which would be the appearance if they collected USD reserves.

The ECB has an inflation problem, and they believe the strong euro has kept it from being much worse.

The policy ‘shift’ might be the process of ending of US rate cuts at the next meeting by cutting less than expected.

This might first mean only a 25 basis point cut when the market prices in 50 basis points, followed by no cut when markets price in 25 basis points, for example.

This would firm the USD and soften the commodities near term, as after the last 75 basis point cut when markets were pricing 100 basis points.

But this does not change the foreign desires to accumulate USD as direct intervention by the ECB would, for example.

So the adjustment process that gets us to a zero trade gap will continue.

And it will continue to drive up headline CPI with core not far behind.

And US GDP will muddle through in the 0% to +2% range with weak private sector consumption being supported by exports, US government consumption, and moderate investment.

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Changing dynamics for the Fed

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Cutting 75 basis points rather than the expected 100 basis points gave the Fed positive near term reinforcement from market participants:

  • Dollar went up
  • Food/fuel/commodities went down
  • Stocks did ok, including housing companies
  • Credit did ok

But it’s going to look to the Fed a bit like taking medicine: initial small doses have the desired effect, then things settle back, and it takes ever larger doses to keep moving the needle.

So now crude/food is moving back up, the USD is moving back down, stocks are doing ok, exports are booming, and the fiscal package is about to kick in.

For the Fed to keep moving the needle away from inflation it’s going to keep needing to not give markets all they are anticipating.

So with a 25 cut anticipated, they will realize they need to do no cut for a positive inflation response, and with no cut anticipated they need to hike, etc.

Credit markets will quickly get ahead of this and begin anticipating hikes.

The irony is higher rates will help support demand via the interest income channel.

And higher rates will support price increases via the cost channel.

Demand is being supported by increasing net fed spending and rising exports due to the reduced desires of non-residents to accumulate USD financial assets.

They no longer want to accumulate a net $60 billion a month of US financial assets (negative trade gap) due to the big 4 screaming fire in a crowded theater of previously content patrons:

  1. Paulsen calling CBs that buy USD currency manipulators
  2. Bush making it politically impossible for Muslim nations to further accumulate USD reserves
  3. Bernanke giving inflation a back seat to ‘market functioning’ via deep rate cuts into a triple supply shock
  4. Pension funds diversifying to passive commodity and non US equity strategies
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Re: Bear Stearns Cont’d

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(some email q&a’s)

UPDATED as more questions come in!!

Why would shareholders approve this sale?

Answer, they may not. They may take their chances with getting more $ in bankruptcy.

Or a higher bid might surface.

The Fed has turned Bear Stearns into a ‘free call’ with their non recourse financing,

And the Fed has moved spreads of agency and AAA paper back towards ‘fair value’ with their openended funding lines. This removes ‘liquidity risk’ and allows the securities to return to being priced on ‘default risk.’

This has dramatically increased the business value of Bear Stearns.

The large shareholders can now say no to the sale, maybe add a bit of capital or take on a ‘business partner,’ and outbid JPM for the remaining shares (if needed).
Might even start a bidding war.

There could still be well over $60 per share of value for the winner.

And there’s a reasonable amount of time for them to put something together.

And maybe this was Bear’s plan all along.

They knew they needed Fed funding to maximize shareholder value, and the JPM involvement to stabilize their client base and buy the time to find a real bid.

(CNBC now showing a chart showing $7.7 billion in breakup value.)

Seth writes:

For 2 a share is Chase getting a boat load of non prime paper that over time is worth a lot more than 2?

From what I’m hearing it’s already worth maybe 75 or more.

And the Fed gave jpm a free call.

The $2 is the least that it’s worth, as the fed is providing non recourse funding for the assets at prices that support the $2 price.

And at the same time the Fed took action to restore pricing of agency and aaa assets to more accurately reflect their actual default risk, which is near 0.

This is different.In this case the moral hazard is in not funding the primary dealers.It’s too easy for the predators (other dealers, hedge funds, etc.) to first get short the stock and then start a run on any broker that has to have any non tsy inventory financed and drive them out of business.

By funding the primary dealers who are in good standing (they report their finances to the fed) and regulating capital requirements and haircuts predators are kept at bay and shareholders continue to assume the business risk of the primary dealers.

Steve writes:

And the Fed has said in times of crisis they will not punish the many for the few.

Moral hazard is not a fixed doctrine. It requires flexibility and in times of crisis they accept that their action (the Fed’s) will not address the doctrine. On balance it is a price (overlooking moral hazard) they must pay for the greater good.

They have done it in the past so doing it again reflects a degree of consistency not a change in policy.

Paul writes:

How do you respond to the moral hazard argument of the Fed bailing out Bear Stearns?

I’ll let the word ‘bailout’ go for now, and begin by saying the liability side of banking is not the place for market discipline, and it’s also probably not the place for market discipline for the Fed’s appointed (anointed?) ‘primary dealers.’

(I will also not here question the idea of having primary dealers in the first place, but don’t take that mean i approve of that setup, thanks!)

So given the Fed wants primary dealers, it then follows there are specific securities they go along with this assigned role.

Presumably those would include the likes of tsy secs, maybe agency paper, maybe AAA rated mtg backed securities, etc.

Presumably also are functions the Fed wants its primary dealers to perform, like being market makers, providing some notion of liquidity, etc. etc.

And, presumably, the Fed has some notion of public purpose behind this entire creation.

So, given all that, to support this ‘institution of public purpose,’ it behooves the Fed to ensure the primary dealers themselves have the available lines of credit to perform this vital public function (almost hurts to write that…).

The bank primary dealers do have ‘guaranteed liquidity’ and so are safely able to function as primary dealers, knowing they can always finance their inventory positions. This can be done via raising fed ensured bank deposits, and borrowing from the fed by using their inventory as collateral, etc.

The non banks were at a disadvantage to the banks in that they relied on the banks to fund their inventories.

Bear Stearns got shut down when the banks said ‘no’ for non credit related reasons. Bear had perfectly good collateral that they held as part of their primary dealer function (as defined by the govt regulations), and the banks said no, perhaps because they had their own internal issues.

The same would happen to the banks, and the entire economy, if the Fed simply said no to the banking system and one morning and didn’t open the payments system.

It’s just one of countless flaws in the institutional structure that doesn’t get noticed until it’s a problem, no matter how many times I’ve pointed it out to ‘authorities.’

So to your question, while I do see a lot of other moral hazard issues, I don’t see this as one of them.

The Fed simply told JPM to deal with Bear in the normal course of business and lend vs qualifying collateral as has always been the case, and as is the case when the Fed lends to JPM.

Let me know if I’m missing something, thanks!

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Re: proposals for liquidity and the dollar

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> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:14 PM, Saunders, Brock wrote:
> No problem….was just trying to think of solutions to regain liquidity in the credit market and provide some support for the USD.

Good thought!

My original proposal was for the Fed to reduce capital requirements for any bank absorbing its SIVs. And at the same time prohibit any new ones. The bank shareholders still are at risk of defaults, and this lets the sivs get absorbed, financed, and eventually mature. It costs the Fed nothing.

The Fed could at the same time accept them as collateral at TAF auctions once the capital issues are sorted out. The liability side is not the place for market discipline with a modern banking system.

To support the $ first you have to get Paulson to let the rest of the world know their cb’s are not outlaws or currency manipulators if they buy $US. That would help reverse the $ and help our standard of living. Fundamentally the $ is fine, it’s public the weak $ public policy that’s driving formerly happy holders to other assets.

warren

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Central bank debate: Is it inflation or deflation?

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Here’s how the inflation can persist indefinitely:

  1. In addition to the India/China type story for resource demand, this time around nominal demand for commodities is also coming from our own pension funds who are shifting more of their financial assets to passive commodity strategies.

    Pension funds contributions have traditionally been invested primarily in financial assets, making them ‘unspent income’ and therefore ‘demand leakages.’ Other demand leakages include IRAs (individual retirement accounts), corporate reserve funds, and other income that goes ‘unspent’ on goods and services.

    Supporting these demand leakages are all kinds of institutional structure, but primarily tax incentives designed to increase ‘savings’.

    These come about due to the ‘innocent fraud’ that savings is necessary for investment, a throwback to the gold standard days of loanable funds and the like.

    A total of perhaps $20 trillion of this ‘unspent income’ has accumulated in the various US retirement funds and reserves of all sorts.

    This has ‘made room’ for the government deficit spending we’ve done to not be particularly inflationary. In general terms, the goods and services that would have gone unsold each year due to our unspent income have instead been purchased by government deficit spending.

    But now that is changing, as a portion of that $20 trillion is being directed towards passive commodity strategies. While the nature of these allocations varies, a substantial portion is adding back the aggregate demand that would have otherwise stayed on the sidelines.

    That means a lot less government deficit spending might be needed to sustain high levels of demand than history indicates.

    And, of course, the allocations directly support commodity prices.
  1. We are faced with the same monopoly supplier/swing producer of crude oil as in the 1970’s.

    Back then the oil producers simply accumulated $ financial assets and were the source of a massive demand leakage that caused widespread recession in much of the world. And didn’t end until there was a supply response large enough to end the monopoly pricing power.

    But it did persist long enough for the ‘relative value story’ of rising crude prices to ‘turn into an inflation story’ as costs were passed through the various channels.

    And a general inflation combined with the supply response served to return the real terms of trade/real price of crude pretty much back to where they had been in the early 1970’s.
  1. This time around rather than ‘hoard’ excess oil revenues the producers seem to be spending the funds, as evidence by both the trillions being spent on public infrastructure as well as the A380’s being built for private use, and the boom in US exports- 13% increase last month.

    This results in increased exports from both the US and the Eurozone to the oil producing regions (including Texas) that supports US and Eurozone GDP/aggregate demand.

    At the macro level, it’s the reduced desire to accumulate $US financial assets that is manifested by increasing US exports.

    (This reduced desire comes from perceptions of monetary policy toward inflation, pension fund allocations away from $US financial assets, Paulson calling CBs who buy $US currency manipulators and outlaws, and ideological confrontation that keeps some oil producers from accumulating $US, etc. This all has weakened the $ to levels where it makes sense to buy US goods and services – the only way foreigners can reduce accumulations of $US is to spend them on US goods and services.)

    The channels are as follows:

    1. The price of crude is hiked continuously and the revenues are spent on imports of goods and services.
    2. This is further supported by an international desire to reduce accumulation of $US financial assets that lowers the $ to the point where accumulated $ are then spent on US goods and services.

    For the US this means the export channel is a source of inflation. Hence, the rapid rise in both exports and export prices along with a $ low enough for US goods and services (and real assets) to represent good value to to foreigners.

  1. This is not a pretty sight for the US. (Exports are a real cost to the US standard of living, imports a real benefit.)

    Real terms of trade are continually under negative pressure.

    The oil producers will always outbid domestic workers for their output as a point of logic.

    Real wages fall as consumers can find jobs but can’t earn enough to buy their own output which gets exported.

    Foreigners are also outbidding domestics for domestic assets including real estate and equity investments.
  1. The US lost a lot off aggregate demand when potential buyers with subprime credit no longer qualified for mortgages.

    Exports picked up the slack and GDP has muddled through.

    The Fed and Treasury have moved in an attempt to restore domestic demand. Interest rate cuts aren’t effective but the fiscal package will add to aggregate demand beginning in May.

    US export revenues will increasingly find their way to domestic aggregate demand, and housing will begin to add to GDP rather than subtract from it.

    Credit channels will adjust (bank lending gaining market share, municipalities returning to uninsured bond issuance, sellers ‘holding paper,’ etc.) and domestic income will continue to be leveraged though to a lesser degree than with the fraudulent subprime lending.

    Pension funds will continue to support demand with their allocations to passive commodity strategies and also directly support prices of commodities.
  1. Don’t know how the Fed responds – my guess is rate cuts turn to rate hikes as inflation rises, even with weak GDP.
  1. We may be in the first inning of this inflation story.

    Could be a strategy by the Saudis/Russians to permanently disable the west’s monetary system, shift real terms of trade, and shift world power.
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