Bailout Watchdog: TARP Has Increased Risk of Another Crisis

January 31, 2010 · Posted in Government · 2 Comments

As we all know bailouts accomplish nothing but making matters worse, create false incentives, and make all of us poorer. Thus, as can be expected, the TARP watchdog reports:

The government’s response to the financial meltdown has made it more likely the United States will face a deeper crisis in the future, an independent watchdog at the Treasury Department warned.

The problems that led to the last crisis have not yet been addressed, and in some cases have grown worse, says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the trouble asset relief program, or TARP. The quarterly report to Congress was released Sunday.

“Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car,” Barofsky wrote.

Since Congress passed $700 billion financial bailout, the remaining institutions considered “too big to fail” have grown larger and failed to restrain the lavish pay for their executives, Barofsky wrote. He said the banks still have an incentive to take on risk because they know the government will save them rather than bring down the financial system.

Barofsky also said his office is investigating 77 cases of possible criminal and civil fraud, including crimes of tax evasion, insider trading, mortgage lending and payment collection, false statements and public corruption.

One case concerns apparent self-dealing by one of the private fund managers Treasury picked to buy bad assets from banks at discounted prices. A portfolio manager at the firm apparently sold a bond out of a private fund, then repurchased it at a higher price for a government-backed fund. A rating agency had just downgraded the bond, so it likely was worth less, not more, when the government fund bought it. The company is not being named pending the outcome of Barofsky’s investigation.

Barofsky renewed a call for Treasury to enact clearer walls so that such apparent conflicts are less likely.

Treasury said it welcomed Barofsky’s oversight but resisted the call to erect new barriers against conflicts of interest. The new rules “would be detrimental to the program,” Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said in a statement. The existing compliance rules “are a rigorous and effective method of protecting taxpayers,” she said.

Much of Barofsky’s report focused on the government’s growing role in the housing market, which he said has increased the risk of another housing bubble.

Over the past year, the federal government has spent hundreds of billions propping up the housing market. About 90 percent of home loans are backed by government controlled entities, mainly Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.

The Federal Reserve is spending $1.25 trillion to hold down mortgage rates, and millions of homeowners have refinanced at lower rates.

“The government has stepped in where the private players have gone away,” Barofsky said in an interview. “If we take government resources and replace that market without addressing the serious (underlying) concerns, there really is a risk of” artificially pushing up home prices in the coming years.

The report warned that these supports mean the government “has done more than simply support the mortgage market, in many ways it has become the mortgage market, with the taxpayer shouldering the risk that had once been borne by the private investor.”

Barofsky’s report echoed concerns raised by housing experts in recent months, as home sales and prices rebounded. They warn that the primary reason for the turnaround last year has been billions of dollars in federal spending to lower mortgage rates and prop up demand.

Once that spigot of cash is turned off, they caution, the market will be vulnerable to a dramatic turn for the worse. Daniel Alpert, managing partner of investment bank Westwood Capital, wrote in a report that national home prices are bound to fall 8 to 10 percent below the lows of last spring.

“The lion’s share of the remaining decline will occur in markets that saw sizable bubbles but have not yet retrenched,” he wrote.

Officials from the Obama administration counter that massive federal intervention has helped the housing market stabilize and prevented more dire consequences.

Barofsky’s report also disclosed that, while the Obama administration has pledged to spend $75 billion to prevent foreclosures, only a tiny fraction — just over $15 million — has been spent so far. Under the Making Home Affordable program, only about 66,500 borrowers, or 7 percent of those who signed up, had completed the process as of December.

He said the key to preventing future crises is to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, create and improve loan underwriting and supervision of banks. He stopped short of endorsing specific proposals for overhauling financial regulation, but said many of the proposals would go far to improving the system.

Sorry, but that conclusion is just hilarious. This really is akin to a woman in an abusive relationship who continues to believe her boyfriend will change and continues to run back to him, no matter how many times she gets beaten up.

The entire article points out how incapable of solving any one problem the government is and concludes with the solutions of “reforming” nationalized banks, “creating” loan underwriting, and doing some more bank supervision. Who does all these things? Of course, that same government! That is supposed to solve the structural problems in the financial system?

No, what needs to happen is to bring down what has brought about the financial crisis in the first place.

Who has created all the excess fiat money that flowed into the system to blow up price bubbles? The Federal Reserve Bank – so just close it down already!

Who has created all the excess credit that blew up the bubble? The fractional reserve banks – so just end the system of fractional reserve banking already!

Who has granted oligopoly status to the rating agencies who one after another failed to assess credit risk appropriately? The SEC – so end the credit rating cartel already!

In fact who has taken away oversight from the stock exchange companies to try and oversee all stock exchanges in the country, missing one giant fraud after another? Which organization was close to Making Bernie Madoff their chairman?? The SEC – so get rid of it already!

Even after some of the worst excesses of subprime lending, who proudly remains the sole subprime lender in the country? The government owned banks! – So close them down already!

Who has been propping up financial markets in secret over decades with taxpayer money, creating malinvestments and false incentives left and right? The mighty President’s Working Group on Financial Markets! – So get rid of it already!!

What is it that made the common man put so much money into the stock market? It comes to a large degree from the incentive through tax savings for retirement accounts. If the taxes weren’t there in the first place, surely people would think twice about transferring their hard earned and saved money over to Wall St.

On top of that a policy manipulating and suppressing interest rates makes it completely unattractive to put money into savings accounts, and encourages people to be foolish. – So again, stop meddling with the credit markets, get rid of the central bank and with it would go all fractional reserve lending.

Why do you think it is so hard for honest small businesses to obtain funding in a flexible and straightforward manner? Why does it feel to most people like they are secluded from the majority of the action while Wall St. thrives? It is because every single government policy aiming at financial regulation has been designed to herd money into the stock market and lock it up in there for the kids to play with.

Which institution, out of all, is the least capable to be responsible about its finances, stay out of debt, live within its means? … it is of course the government itself.

Folks, wake up to reality, leave fantasy island. Come to your senses and work toward closing down that institution which is the root cause of all your problems: Close down the government and all the things I pointed out above and many more evils would automatically go with it.

Tags: anarchism, bailouts, corporate bailouts, tarp

CIT Files For Bankruptcy; Taxpayers Lose $2.3 Billion

November 14, 2009 · Posted in Business · Comment

The New York Times writes:

Three months ago, the CIT Group barely averted what it considered to be a ruinous bankruptcy filing that would likely have put the 101-year-old lender out of business.

On Sunday afternoon, the company filed for Chapter 11 — but under a so-called prepackaged bankruptcy plan that will enable it to emerge from court protection by the end of the year, under the control of its debtholders. (Read the filing after the jump.)

The filing, made in a federal court in Manhattan, will still mean much pain for many parties, beginning with taxpayers. CIT received $2.3 billion in government aid last year, a bailout that came in the form of preferred stock. That will almost certainly be wiped out in the bankruptcy process, the first realized loss in the government’s rescue of the financial system.

While several firms that have received bailout money, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have repaid the government, others — including the American International Group, General Motors and Chrysler — are expected to lead to losses.

CIT’s filing will test whether a financial company can survive the Chapter 11 process. Bankruptcy has long been considered a death knell for lenders, whose very existence depends on the confidence of its creditors and customers. The company’s struggles have been watched with interest and trepidation by analysts and the thousands of small and midsize businesses that borrow from CIT.

CIT was the nation’s largest provider of what is known as factoring, a type of lending used heavily by retailers. The company has spent months trying to reassure its clients that it will remain open for business as stores ramp up for the holiday season. Relatively few other companies serve as factors, and among them are other embattled lenders like GMAC.

The filing on Sunday capped months of efforts by CIT to stay alive. After being denied another bailout by the federal government, the company bargained with its creditors over a restructuring plan that would keep it operating and cut $10 billion in unsecured debt.

“The decision to proceed with our plan of reorganization will allow CIT to continue to provide funding to our small business and middle market customers, two sectors that remain vitally important to the U.S. economy,” Jeffrey M. Peek, CIT’s outgoing chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “This market-based solution allows CIT to enter into the reorganization process well-prepared and positioned for a swift emergence.”

While CIT had hoped to stay out of bankruptcy court through a bond exchange offer, that plan failed to win enough support from bondholders, the company said in a statement.

With $71 billion in assets and nearly $65 billion in liabilities, CIT is among the largest corporate bankruptcies on record, though it is dwarfed by the likes of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual. The company said in its bankruptcy petition that it had $800 million in bonds maturing from Sunday through Tuesday.

CIT said that only its holding company would file for bankruptcy, and that most of its important operating subsidiaries, including its Utah bank, would continue to operate normally.

Mr. Peek, the architect of its push to grow beyond its sleepy industrial-lending roots into a major new financial player, will step down by the end of the year. People briefed on the matter said the search for his replacement was continuing and ultimately remained up to the company’s new board of directors.

Bondholders will receive about 70 cents on the dollar through the prepackaged bankruptcy, though the company warned that investors could receive as little as 6 cents on the dollar in the alternative, a free-fall bankruptcy that lacked a preapproved reorganization plan.

Last month, CIT unveiled its debt-exchange offer, which would have let bondholders tender their holdings for new, longer-dated bonds and preferred stock. But it also began soliciting votes for the prepackaged bankruptcy option. Under federal bankruptcy law, approval of such a plan requires the support of more than 51 percent of the number of creditors voting and more than two-thirds of the dollar value of those bonds.

CIT said in a statement that holders of about 85 percent of its $30 billion in bond debt participated in the voting. Those investors voted almost unanimously to support the prepackaged bankruptcy plan.

Last week, the company secured several important agreements to aid its prepackaged bankruptcy plan. It obtained a $4.5 billion loan from several investors, including bondholders who lent it $3 billion in the summer. It also reached an accord with Goldman Sachs that would preserve a $2.13 billion loan even through bankruptcy protection, while paying only a portion of a $1 billion termination fee.

CIT also ended a fight with the investor Carl Icahn, who had offered to pay bondholders 60 cents on the dollar if they rejected the company’s prepackaged bankruptcy offering. Mr. Icahn instead offered a $1 billion loan, although people close to CIT said the company did not expect to use the financing.

The company will be represented in bankruptcy by the investment bank Evercore Partners, the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and the turnaround consulting firm FTI Consulting.

The most important piece of information to get out of this: This is the first honest and outright example of how TARP taxpayer money is beginning to evaporate.

Tags: bailout, bankruptcy, cit, tarp

New Bank Bonus Releases – Heads: Bankers Win, Tails : Taxpayers Lose

July 31, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · Comment

And more unsurprising news on the TARP front. Cuomo releases ugly details on bank bonuses:

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released his report on bonuses at the TARP Top 9. At these firms alone, over 800 people made north of $3 million in 2008. That’s a lot of scharole. See Appendix B for the bonus breakdown at each bank.

The key info is in one particular table, however:

(Click to enlarge in new window)

The columns to the right list the number of employees that received bonuses in excess of $3 mil/$2 mil/ $1 mil.

Banks that are still sitting on their TARP money (Citi, BofA, Wells among them) have no business paying out big bonuses before paying back the government. For that matter, neither do the others, who all continue to benefit from FDIC guarantees on debt and Fed lending facilities through which they’ve traded toxic loans in exchange for perfectly liquid Treasuries. They can use the Treasuries for repo collateral, get cash and then put that on deposit at the Fed where they now get paid interest on their excess reserves. It’s a great scam. One that feeds lots of cash into the 2009 bonus pool.

And GazetteOnline writes:

Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008, New York’s attorney general said Thursday in a report detailing the payouts by nine big banks.

The report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office focused on 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Cuomo has joined other government officials in criticizing the banks for paying out big bonuses while accepting taxpayer money.

Comparisons to historical payouts weren’t available, as the banks are not required to disclose the information publicly. They provided 2008 details to Cuomo’s office under subpoena.

Cuomo’s office found that the companies, which also included Bank of America Corp., Merrill Lynch & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., awarded nearly 4,800 million-dollar-plus bonuses, with much of the money going to Wall Street investment bankers.

Citigroup, which is now one-third owned by the government as a result of the bailout, gave 738 of its employees bonuses of at least $1 million, even after it lost $18.7 billion during the year, Cuomo’s office said. The bank’s top four recipients received a combined $43.7 million.

The New York-based bank received $45 billion in government money and guarantees to protect it against hundreds of billions of dollars on potential losses from risky investments.

“There is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” Cuomo said in the report, noting banks have not in recent years actually tied pay to performance as they claim when describing their compensation programs. Cuomo added that when banks’ performance deteriorated significantly, “they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well.”

Bank of America, which also received $45 billion in TARP money, paid $3.3 billion in bonuses, with 172 employees receiving at least $1 million and the top four recipients receiving a combined $64 million. Merrill Lynch, which Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America acquired during the credit crisis, paid out $3.6 billion, including a combined $121 million to four top employees.

Bank of America earned $2.56 billion in 2008, while Merrill lost $30.48 billion. Cuomo’s office said Merrill Lynch doled out 696 bonuses of at least $1 million for 2008.

Bank of America has been sharply criticized for its acquisition of Merrill Lynch because of mounting losses at the Wall Street bank and the size of bonuses Merrill paid its employees. Of the $45 billion in bailout funds Bank of America received, $20 billion was to support the acquisition of Merrill. Neither Bank of America nor Citigroup have repaid their TARP loans.

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment on the report. A spokesman for Citigroup did not return repeated calls for comment.

The truth is: The public has no business discussing and quarreling about how much banks decide to pay their employees in bonuses. Legislators had the choice to unconditionally reject the TARP bailout ripoff. Many tried to talks sense into people. They didn’t listen. They rewarded companies whose financial irresponsibility led them to collapse, so they could continue their adventures in screw-up land. What did they expect to see happen? Now these clowns are running around, trying to find scapegoats for their own incompetence and cluelessness. What a circus!

Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales appropriately call for the government to Stop Subsidizing the Street:

The word for “crisis” in Chinese, weiji, is written with two characters: one (wei) means danger; the other, ji, means opportunity. That’s because every crisis challenges the status quo and in so doing creates the opportunity for something new to emerge. “This process of Creative Destruction,” wrote economist Joseph Schumpeter, “is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in.”

We have experienced the destruction wrought by the financial crisis. Now it’s time to focus on the opportunities it brings. The first place to look is the site of the greatest destruction: the banking sector. While finance will remain a pillar of a well-functioning economy, it’s unlikely that banking will survive for long in its current form. The current banking model is broken. Citigroup has been on the verge of failing in three of the last four downturns: This is hardly a viable business model.

Even more important is that Americans are rapidly losing trust in their banks. A survey we conducted at the end of March showed that only 29% of Americans trusted banks, down from 34% three months earlier and 42% a year ago. Twenty percent of respondents felt that a bank had cheated or misled them in the previous 12 months, while 10% had withdrawn their FDIC-insured deposits and squirreled away the cash. The word “credit,” speaking of telling etymologies, comes from the Latin credere, which means “to trust.” Trust is essential in banking, and it’s unlikely that banks can restore it. It’s always difficult to regain trust; it’s easier to start anew.

Luckily, starting anew is exactly what’s happening in the banking sector, with the launch of several start-ups with innovative ideas. They range from new ways to insure mortgages to new models of lending to reliable consumers by bypassing the current banking system. Many others, such as Lending Club and Prosper, are popping up on the Internet, letting investors, rather than credit officers, decide who is creditworthy. It’s too early to tell if these attempts will succeed, but it’s vital that they occur. Through trial and error, a new world of banking will rise from the ashes of the old one.

Should the government subsidize these efforts? In a New York Times column this spring, Tom Friedman said yes, suggesting that it should dedicate a fraction of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money to promote innovation. Fortunately, several venture capitalists have rejected the idea online, and with good reason: The government’s record as a venture capitalist is rather poor.

Nevertheless, the government can foster the new and innovative in a crucial way: by ceasing to subsidize the banking dinosaurs. The evidence shows that subsidies to failing companies not only waste resources in keeping obsolete and inefficient firms alive, but also delay the entry of new and more efficient organizational models.

TARP was sold as a way to keep credit flowing, but it could wind up delaying the success of new ventures that could help revive credit in the economy. For finance to begin allocating resources efficiently again, the government must stop propping up Wall Street.

Tags: bailouts, bank bonuses, banks, Citigroup, tarp

TARP Inspector General – Treasury Failed at Transparency

July 20, 2009 · Posted in Government · Comment

The AP writes:

The watchdog overseeing the federal government financial bailout says the government’s maximum exposure to financial institutions since 2007 could total nearly $24 trillion, or about $80,000 for every American.

The whopping amount compiled by the inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program takes into account about 50 initiatives and programs set up by the Bush and Obama administrations as well as by the Federal Reserve.

Many of the programs are backed by collateral and the $23.7 trillion represents the gross, not net, exposure that the government could face. No one has suggested that the full amount, in fact, will be used.

The government’s main watchdog over the federal financial bailout says the Treasury Department has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations aimed at making the $700 billion program more accountable and transparent.

Neil Barofsky (buh-RAHF’-skee), the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, says in a report to Congress that Treasury’s inaction means taxpayers have not been told what the financial institutions that have received assistance are doing with the money.

…what a surprise.

Barack Obama Lied:

Flashback. Here’s what President Obama said in February 09:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here’s the important part. When asked if the cost for the bank bailouts could go as high as $4 trillion, Obama replied:

“No, we’re not gonna be spending $4 trillion worth of taxpayer money.”

Tags: tarp

Geithnerish Translated into English

April 21, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · Comment

In case people are still trying to make sense of Tim Geithner’s statements, here an attempt to provide some help – another day of superficial answers to superficial questions:

Most U.S. banks have enough capital to keep lending but a pile of bad debts is fostering doubts about their health and slowing a recovery, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday.

English: “The most relevant banks have absolutely no capital left but we will try to help them obscure their true numbers for as long as we can. By ‘most’ banks I am referring to the banks by number, not by relevance. This way I can make you all think that the banking industry is ‘mostly’ fine.”

Testifying before the Congressional Oversight Panel, which monitors the Treasury’s efforts to bail out troubled banks, he said toxic assets were “congesting” the U.S. financial system and hindering efforts to get credit flowing normally.

“Uncertainty about the value of legacy assets is constraining the ability of financial institutions to raise private capital,” Geithner said, adding that he hoped a public-private investment program will improve the ability to put a price on troubled mortgage and other assets.

English: “I ‘hope’ that no one will figure out that these toxic assets are worth nothing and I am confident that we will somehow be able to bail out their owners by making the taxpayer guarantee 97% of all assets acquired in the PPIP.”

Earlier, the special inspector general for the government’s bailout effort said the toxic-asset plan offered opportunities for fraud and abuse and warned it should be bolstered by tough conflict-of-interest rules.

English: The toxic asset plan WILL be abused and fraud will be rampant. We intend to act surprised once we find out.

Neil Barofsky also said subsidies for the public-private partnerships to buy assets could expose taxpayers to higher losses without matching increases in the potential for profit. He called for tough screening of investors as well as forced disclosure of ownership stakes and any dealings by the funds.

English: The taxpayer is cooked. He will lose billions, once again.

The government has injected hundreds of billions of dollars into banks to help them weather the damage from bad mortgage loans and is running stress tests on 19 of the largest banks to see whether they are prepared to deal with a further downturn.

English: The banks are getting a free ride. We intend to do everything to shield them from the real stress test, the market, no matter how much it will cost the taxpayer.

In a letter to panel chairman Elizabeth Warren, Geithner said the Treasury still has about $134.5 billion available out of an originally approved $700 billion for bolstering banks’ capital and said he wouldn’t need to ask Congress for more.

English: Geithner will ask Congress for more. Either the Treasury will do it directly, or the underfunded FDIC will collapse under the obligations of Geithner’s Public Private Investment Program and ask Congress for more funding.

STOCKS GET A LIFT
“Currently, the vast majority of banks have more capital than they need to be considered well capitalized by their regulators,” Geithner said, a comment that gave stocks a lift in morning trading.

English: “Currently, by market standards the banks absolutely don’t have sufficient capital left. But we don’t care what the market says, we let the “regulators” decide. In doing so, we minimize true regulation but maintain the appearance of it.”

But he conceded there were persistent worries about the health of the banking system and said that was impeding a broader economic recovery.

“Concerns about economic conditions — combined with the destabilizing impact of distressed ‘legacy assets’ — have created an environment under which uncertainty about the health of individual banks has sharply reduced lending across the financial system,” he said.

If the stress tests — parts of which are expected to be made public next month — show some banks need to raise more capital, then they will have options for doing so.

“Those banks that need more capital will have an opportunity to raise that capital from private sources or request capital from the Treasury in the form of convertible preferred stock,” Geithner said.

English: “No matter how lousy the banks, no matter how useless, they will get money from the taxpayer, even if private investors don’t want to touch them with a 10 foot pole.”

Some of the biggest banks have said they want to quickly repay money that they received under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, in part to avoid constraints on pay set out as a condition for getting the money.

GLAD TO TAKE MONEY

Geithner said if regulators certify that a bank would be sound without government help, the Treasury would gladly take the money back.

“It helps to underscore the basic point that the institutions of our financial system are in very different circumstances,” Geithner said.

But he hedged on whether he thought it would be good for the banking system if some banks returned the TARP money early, and he specified that regulators, not he, would decide whether to take bailout money back.

English: “Banks are in a Tarp Trap. We’ll let them out at our whim. I prefer to alleviate myself of any responsibility by shifting it to the regulators, whoever they may be.”

“My basic obligation and our responsibility is to make sure that system as a whole … has the ability to provide the credit that recovery requires,” Geithner said, “So we need to make a careful judgment about what policies are going to best promote that objective.”

English: “My basic responsibility is to do everything I can to force lending again, no matter how destructive credit has been to our economy, no matter how broke we are, and no matter how sick and tired of debt individuals are.”

Some analysts question whether letting some banks return the TARP money would add to investors’ and borrowers’ doubts about dealing with banks that still need government help, potentially making them more vulnerable to failure.

In response to questions, Geithner said it will be important for people to see what stress tests on major banks show, though he did not shed any further light on how extensive the publicly issued comments on banks’ health will be.

Transparency is vital, he said, adding “Without that, they are going to live with a deeper cloud of uncertainty over their financial health than they need to.”

English: “Transparency is terrible. With it, we would remove the cloud of uncertainty that currently covers up the truth about how this fractional reserve banking system and its credit expansion has brought about our demise.”

Geithner said the scope of the current crisis is unprecedented, so the government has no guide to follow in its efforts to ease the situation. But he insisted there were some signs of progress.

“Indicators on interbank lending, corporate issuance and credit spreads generally suggest improvements in confidence in the stability of the system and some thawing in credit markets,” he said.

English: “I have absolutely no clue what is going on. I will cover it up with platitutes since none of you seem to have a problem with it.”

Tags: ppip, tarp, tim geithner

The TARP TRAP – Banks Want to Return TARP Money

March 30, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · Comment

CNN writes Bankers: Take your TARP money back:

There’s a growing sense among some bankers that Troubled Asset Relief Program known as “TARP” has become toxic. As a result, they want to bail out of the bank bailout program.

“It should be called ‘TRAP,’ not TARP,” said Brian Garrett, chief executive of Bank of the Bay in San Francisco, who is trying to return bailout funding. “Giving it back is harder than getting it.”

Garrett and other bank executives complain the Treasury’s program to stabilize banks during these turbulent times is actually weighing down their potential for growth.

They’re especially concerned the limits on executive compensation – imposed in February, four months after Treasury starting sending out checks – could make it difficult to hold on to star talent who may jump to financial institutions that are not receiving any Government assistance.

That concern is now magnified after the public whipping insurance giant AIG received for granting executive bonuses. No one wants to be the next AIG (AIG, Fortune 500).

“Things have changed since TARP was announced. The rules have changed,” said Michael McMullan, CEO of the Bank of Florida, who withdrew his application for TARP funds Thursday. “We’re going to need to attract and retain key revenue drivers and great bankers.”

“The more restrictions that we are placed under from the Government, the less value we can deliver to our shareholders in the long run,” said McMullan.

Iberiabank in Louisiana, California’s Bank of Marin, and TCF Financial in Minnesota confirm to CNN Money that they are asking Treasury to take back their TARP funds.

“What these bank managers are saying is – listen, I want the Government out of my backyard, and I just want to give back the TARP, and I want to run my company by myself,” said Paul Miller, Financial Services Analyst at FBR Capital.

TARP is a miserable failure in every regard. The fact that banks are now trying to return money and the Treasury won’t let them is just another perverted outcome of a misguided, panic-driven, and irresponsible policy.

Please consider what I wrote back in mid February:

Most of these banks are now sitting on liabilities that pay out a fixed 5% annually without being able to pass the money on at a premium. Expect them to either buy back those shares (if they can) or at least not to accept any more government money from hereon out.

Whenever a government embarks upon a big project whose scope goes beyond the task of protecting the individuals’ life, health, or property, it is a safe bet that the project will be a disaster, that it will have unintended consequences, and that it will aggravate the situation it was supposed to cure.

These two quotes must be getting old at this point, but I will keep using them where appropriate until everybody gets it once and for all and acts accordingly:

Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged in 1957:

“Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.”

Ludwig von Mises wrote in his analysis Interventionism in 1940:

The various measures, by which interventionism tries to direct business, cannot achieve the aims its honest advocates are seeking by their application. Interventionist measures lead to conditions which, from the standpoint of those who recommend them, are actually less desirable than those they are designed to alleviate. They create unemployment, depression, monopoly, distress. They may make a few people richer, but they make all others poorer and less satisfied. If governments do not give them up and return to the unhampered market economy, if they stubbornly persist in the attempt to compensate by further interventions for the shortcomings of earlier interventions, they will find eventually that they have adopted socialism.

Tags: ayn rand, Ludwig von Mises, tarp

AIG – Sinking Money in a Hole

March 17, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · 1 Comment

It’s time for our dear politicians to act surprised again. It’s time for Congress again to complain about the results of false policies that they themselves recklessly approved, against all warnings. It’s time again for Ben Bernanke to fire off mindless blather, platitudes and predictions that will, as always and without exception, turn out to be abysmally false.

The AP has a shocking surprise for us, Taxpayers unlikely to be fully repaid in AIG mess:

As the cost of the rescue swells, experts says it’s becoming harder to envision a scenario in which the government could recoup its full investment. Even though the AIG payouts to major banks have angered critics of the bailout, it might be legally impossible to claw back any of the billions already doled out.

Of course the taxpayer won’t get any of this money back. Is there a living creature with more than one brain cell that seriously expected the taxpayer would ever see this money come back? Of course it will be legally impossible to get the billions handed out back in any way. Congress and the Fed shouldn’t have been so stupid to throw it at them in the first place.

The government agreed to uphold those contracts when it seized control of American International Group in September. It argued that failing to repay the debts of the globally interconnected company could cause catastrophic losses at big international banks, potentially toppling the financial system.

…and the problem with that is what exactly? Toppling the financial systen? Does that mean the people who were instrumental to the credit expansion and the ensuing credit crisis would have gone out of business and we wouldn’t have to deal with their incompetence, greed, irresponsibility, and arrogance? Great! Anyone who has a problem with that should speak out and explain precisely why that would be such a terrible thing to happen. Especially he should explain why it is, on the flip side, good when instead the taxpayer who earned money with honest and productive work is milked to the Nth degree and driven into bankruptcy.

Scrutiny of AIG’s dealings with its trading partners comes after revelations over the weekend that the insurer planned to pay out tens of millions in executive bonuses. President Barack Obama on Monday accused AIG of “recklessness and greed.” He pledged to try to block the bonuses, which AIG insisted it’s contractually obligated to pay.

Mr. Obama, how about we pursue a policy of change? How about we no longer announce that we will react when the damage is already done. How about we proactively prevent disasters from happening? How about we listen to the people who advised us not to put the taxpayer on the hook for $170 billion for an organization whose market value is $2 billion? How about we realize that there is a reason why these organizations are not performing, why they are on the brink of bankruptcy? It is because they pursue the profession of wasting money. When we subsidize this behavior, we will get more of it. How much longer do we want to subsidize this bahavior?

Later, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration would modify the terms of a pending $30 billion bailout installment for AIG to at least recoup the $165 million the bonuses represent. That wouldn’t rescind the bonuses, just require AIG to account for them differently.

How retarded is this government? We hear from our President how outraged he is and at the same time his press secretary calmly announces that $165 million need to be accounted for in a slightly different manner, and then we’ll give them another $30 billion. Disgusting.

Asked if he’d favor trying to see if those AIG contracts could be broken so the government could recover some of those payouts, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, stopped short of endorsing the idea. But he said “that’s something that has to be examined.”

“I would want to know the consequences of not paying those debts,” Frank, D-Mass., told The Associated Press.

There is definitely something that needs to be examined. And that is Rep. Barney Frank’s head. This guy has been wrong on every single thing he said. He has been the strongest supporter of all bailouts and spending boondoggles that were brought before Congress. His dishonesty and hippocrisy are astounding.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, defending the $30 billion lifeline the government provided to AIG, said earlier this month that the government may eventually be able to “recover most or all” of the taxpayers’ investments.

*Yawn* *Sigh* No, Mr. Bernanke. The government will not be able to recover any of the taxpayers’ investments. You know that or you are the biggest idiot to ever head the Federal Reserve. Your statement is wrong, just as all your previous statements have been. Please, do us all a favor and shut the hell up.

Some words of wisdom in closing:

But Mark Williams, a former Fed examiner and finance professor at Boston University, said the AIG wind-down inevitably will cost taxpayers money. And he thinks it will take much more money — perhaps an additional $200 billion — to finish winding down AIG’s financial dealings so its core businesses can be sold off.

“No longer can we call it an investment,” he said. “We just have to call it what it is — and that’s sinking money in a hole.”

Tags: aig, bailout, bailouts, tarp

Lending Can’t be Forced

February 14, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · Comment

Moneymorning writes As Big Banks are Criticized for not Lending, Small Banks Find They Can’t Lend:

While congressional leaders this week excoriated the leaders of banks that have received billions of dollars in government bailout money for not doing enough to end the credit crisis, it may actually be consumer fear of borrowing that’s blunting banks’ efforts to lend.

Chief executives of eight big U.S. banks that have received the taxpayer-provided rescue money were in Washington this week to testify before Congress told U.S. lawmakers that their institutions have lent out more than $400 billion. Skeptical congressional leaders excoriated the executives for not doing enough to end the credit freeze that’s blunting consumer confidence and threatening to plunge the U.S. economy into an even deeper recession.

But the U.S. consumer may now be the real culprit. Banks want to make loans. The problem is that fear-frozen consumers just aren’t biting, said Curtis Hage, CEO of closely held Home Federal Bank of Sioux Falls, S.D., which received $25 million worth of federal bailout money via the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

“If there was a greater demand out there for loans, we’d be out there after them like a dog after a bone,” said Hage.

The upshot: Big banks are under the congressional microscope, even though the appetite for loans among many typical American consumers seems to have dried up. Small bankers around the country are finding that, for now, many customers are sitting tight.

Congressional leaders didn’t want to hear that as they grilled the CEOs of big U.S. banks earlier this week.

“There is a great deal of anger about the financial institutions here,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass, told the CEOs. “There is anger about us, and there is anger about the executive branch. If you want to give the money back, we’ll take it.”

TARP was designed to thaw frozen credit markets, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Nov. 24. But lending nationwide actually slowed after the Treasury Department began giving 389 banks $236 billion in TARP money on Oct. 28.

Outstanding loans and credits at commercial banks fell to $7.057 trillion in the week ending Jan. 28 from $7.266 trillion in October, according to the Federal Reserve.
The CEO’s of the big banks that received the first allocation of $125 billion of TARP funds were put on the hot seat yesterday (Thursday) as Congress demanded to know exactly what they had done with the government money, MarketWatch reported.

But they defended their actions, saying they had actually increased lending, largely because of funds they had received from the bailout program. In fact, two bank chiefs said they lent out even more money than they received from TARP.

“We are actively putting our capital to work,” said Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein.

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) CEO John G. Stumpf said that his bank made $72 billion in new loans in the fourth quarter, adding that the loans were almost three times what the bank received in bailout funds.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) CEO Kenneth D. Lewis said the bank lent roughly $127 billion in the fourth quarter. More than half that money was doled out to commercial real estate and businesses.

Citigroup Inc. (C) CEO Vikram S. Pandit said that the bank provided more than $75 billion in new loans to consumers and businesses in the fourth quarter.

But some question whether enough lending is taking place. Based on a 1 to 10 lending ratio, critics argue that these banks should be lending $1.3 trillion based on the $125 billion allocated to them.

House members reiterated their concerns about how banks are using the government money and raised questions about whether banks have been using the capital injections for making acquisitions instead of lending.

In fact, Money Morning was one of the first news organizations to really examine how TARP money was being misdirected, and wasn’t being deployed as originally intended. As our ongoing investigation has demonstrated, billions in U.S. bank rescue funds are financing buyouts worldwide – instead of lending at home. Some of those buyouts deals are being done in markets as far away as China, even as banks outright refused to discuss the matter.

For its part, the Obama administration will mandate that any TARP funds it releases to banks will be directed specifically for lending, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday (Feb. 10).

But by essentially targeting Wall Street banks, Congress may be missing out on what’s really happening – or not happening – out on Main Street.

C.R. “Rusty” Cloutier of MidSouth Bank in Lafayette, La., wants to do his part for the economy by lending locally for cars, homes, and small businesses – if only he could get his customers to cooperate.

After his bank received a $20 million cash infusion from TARP on Jan. 9 he went on the road to 14 “town hall” meetings, hoping to entice borrowing by consumers in its business market.

“What we want to do is make people aware we have $250 million to lend,” Cloutier said. But, at one meeting, the 20 or so customers in the audience were outnumbered by bank employees handing out cookies and bottled water. Not one person asked for an application.

While he has attracted a few fresh borrowers, people are “very, very nervous” about taking on significant new debt, the 61-year-old banker said. “Credit hasn’t tightened, but the ability to find creditworthy borrowers has tightened.”

Some MidSouth officials wonder if the bank did the right thing in accepting TARP assistance, said Will G. Charbonnet Sr., MidSouth’s chairman.

The $20 million was in exchange for 20,000 preferred MidSouth shares, which the Treasury Department bought for $1,000 each, according to the bank. MidSouth pays a 5% annual dividend. In addition, the Treasury received 208,768 warrants for common shares, according to Bloomberg.

I wrote about this a while ago in Where Has All the Money Gone. A few more people seem to be understanding it now. Count out Congress, whose members are ranting and shouting day in and day out about the lack of credit, tightness of credit, and stingy banks.

People are sick and tired of borrowing, spending, and debt. They want to save up money and/or consolidate debt which they have failed to do for the longest time.

Most of these banks are now sitting on liabilities that pay out a fixed 5% annually without being able to pass the money on at a premium. Expect them to either buy back those shares (if they can) or at least not to accept any more government money from hereon out.

Tags: banks, lending, tarp

TARP Overpaid $78 Billion for Bank Assets

February 6, 2009 · Posted in Government · Comment

Moneymorning writes Watchdog Agency Says TARP Overpaid $78 Billion for Bank Assets:

The watchdog agency overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) said Friday that the Treasury Department paid banks $78 billion more for assets than they were worth.

The Congressional Oversight Panel said the Treasury dispersed $254 billion for capital purchases of bank assets worth about $176 billion under the TARP program.

“The loss estimate is conservative,” said House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Alan Grayson, (F-Fla.). “It could turn out that those assets in the end are worthless.”

The $700 billion TARP program has been under scrutiny since it began in October because of a general lack of understanding of how the program is being run and where the money is going.

The congressional report is the latest in a series of revelations about the taxpayer-provided bailout money. An ongoing investigation by Money Morning has detailed how banks have used the first $350 billion: They’ve used the capital to finance investments in other banks and to pay bonuses to executives. Then they audaciously refused to say where the money went, or how it was used, Money Morning has shown.

The Congressional Oversight Committee detailed what the Treasury has spent so far in the TARP program. In addition to the $194.2 billion spent on direct equity investments in banks, $40 billion funded a program to shore up American International Group, Inc. (AIG), $52.5 billion was set aside to stabilize Citigroup, Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC), and $20.8 billion was earmarked for Detroit automakers.

Neil Barofsky, TARP’s special inspector general, said in congressional testimony Thursday that he will ask companies to detail their planned use of the funds, including how they will comply with executive compensation rules. He will also ask the companies to document how the funds were used and to give the inspector general’s office accuracy certifications, Forbes reported.

“The most significant failing from a transparency standpoint: Understanding the process and criteria Treasury used to decide who would receive TARP funds and what the recipients have done with the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been invested,” Barofsky said.

The public’s stake in the nation’s banking system continues to mushroom as President Barack Obama’s team works to pull the economy out of the deepest recession in at least two generations. TARP, which is part of the $8.5 trillion the government has pledged to stabilize the economy, has guaranteed $350 billion to banks and the auto industry so far, with another $350 billion set to be allocated in coming months.

“Our money – and our economy – are on the line, and we all have a stake in the outcome,” Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren told the Senate Banking Committee. Warren heads the five-member congressional oversight panel overseeing TARP.

So far, TARP hasn’t succeeded in clearing bad assets from banks’ balance sheets, which would allow the companies to lend money and get the economy going again, Gregory Miller, chief economist at Sun Trust Banks Inc. (STI), told Bloomberg News.

“It hasn’t cleaned up the asset side of bank balance sheets and it hasn’t helped bank uncertainty about bank balance sheets at all,” Miller said. “Uncertainty has now overwhelmed economic decision making.”

The lack of transparency has put TARP administrators on the defensive. Neel Kashkari, appointed by the Bush administration to run TARP, on Dec. 5 told the Mortgage Bankers Association that the government isn’t “looking for a return tomorrow.”

“We are looking to try to stabilize the financial system, get credit flowing again, and over time, we believe that the taxpayers will be protected and have a return on their investment,” he said.

Indeed, former Treasury Secretary Paulson, who was succeeded last month by Timothy Geithner, originally promoted TARP as a possible moneymaker.

“This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cost taxpayers anything,” Paulson said Oct. 20.

On a sidenote: The losses will be much more than 78 Billion. These are very optimistic figures, the final numbers will be much worse. Most of these assets will turn out to be completely worthless.

My comment: Yes, TARP overpaid. The taxpayer got screwed. Paulson was wrong with what he said on October 20th. Every single argument advanced in favor of TARP was wrong. Everyone who supported it was wrong. As it always is when scare tactics are used, all warnings went unheeded. Should this be a surprise to anyone? Of course not. This was the whole point of the bill. To screw over the taxpayer. What else should one expect? As I pointed out again and again, the people who supported it have been wrong consistently. Every single thing they had said was wrong. Why would it be any different this time? And they will continue to be wrong. But it won’t matter.

It is the same old song, again and again. When our leaders tell us that disaster is impending, we tend to stop thinking and give in to false emotions. When Paulson told us that it needed to be done “quick and clean” or else a “delay would put the economy at risk“, he had no logical arguments to support his thesis. But that’s the whole point. If you have no arguments you need to scare people to have it your way.

A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future…

Sound familiar? This is yet another successful attempt to cover up a lack of logic and reason, and to appeal to fear and use scare tactics. This time it’s not George Bush or Henry Paulson fulfilling this solemn duty. It is Barack Obama.

Welcome to “Change”!

Tags: president obama, tarp

More Money Needed for Banks

January 25, 2009 · Posted in Interventionism · Comment

Clueless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says more money may be needed for banks:

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Pelosi resisted the notion that the government would nationalize some banks, but when asked whether more funds would be needed above those already approved for the TARP, she said that “some increased investment” in return for equity might be necessary.
“Change has to happen in terms of what is done, what the transparency of it is, what the accountability of it is,” Pelosi said. “Only then would we be able to pass any additional funding.”
With banks reporting ever-increasing losses, Wall Street has been hoping for new plans to tackle the financial crisis from the newly arrived administration of President Barack Obama.
But some segments of the public, especially those who own financial stocks, fear that the government might seize ailing banks, getting rid of their bad assets and making a profit where possible but also wiping out their shareholders.

Whoever still owns bank shares has to be out of his mind. Dump that crap. The government will dilute your holdings and destroy your wealth. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the epitome of bureaucratic arrogance. She has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Her unquestioning bailout policy will be instrumental to the destruction of the US economy.

TARP I hasn’t worked. And before even embarking upon TARP II, which will also not work of course, we are being prepped for yet more bank bailout money. I hope people will hold Pelosi and other enablers accountable once we see the inevitable consequences. Not a single thing she suggests will in the slightest fix our problems. It will perpetuate and aggravate them. My only wish is that people don’t pretend to be surprised once the painful collapse occurs.

Vice-President Joseph Biden said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Timothy Geihtner, who is expected to be confirmed Monday as Treasury Secretary, will first try to get more funding for TARP to help the banks.

Of course he will. It’s probably futile to point out that Geithner was making statements to the contrary just a few days ago:

Geithner also said Treasury had no current plans to request additional bailout money beyond the existing $700 billion already authorized, but said the situation was “dynamic” and required careful monitoring.

I have low expectations and hence do not expect anything else than more lies and deceit. Of course all these measures were and are bound to fail as already pointed time and again.

Unfortunately we have a fascinating propensity to keep listening to those people who have been, without a single exception, wrong on what they have been saying, again and again.

Everyone should pull out their money from US assets and put them into gold or silver. I still believe Silver has Bottomed out and reversed its trend. An interesting trend has emerged last week: The Dollar rose against the Euro and the Pound but at the same time gold and silver still went up in Dollar terms. This is a very strong sign of global delevaraging coupled with save haven investments. Since governments abroad are not acting any better, the current Dollar strength will likely continue for a little while. However, regardless of that, in absolute terms holding US Dollars in cash is a much bigger gamble than holding hard assets.

Tags: bailouts, nancy pelosi, tarp