Archive for the ‘Economics’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Job Creation Strengthens, But Unemployment Increases?

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

American companies added 244,000 jobs to the economy in April, the fastest pace in five years.  In an ironic twist, however, the unemployment rate climbed to nine percent, according to the Department of Labor.  The unemployment rate fell to 8.8 percent in March after dropping continuously since November’s rate of 9.8 percent rate. Economists had predicted that just 186,000 jobs would be added, so the numbers show that the economy is gaining strength.  “What we’re seeing is a sustained pick-up in hiring and it suggests that businesses have gained enough confidence to look past short-term fluctuations in demand,” said Aaron Smith, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“Headwinds remain, but not enough to derail the recovery or set us back momentarily,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, although she remains cautious about the outlook.  According to Swonk, the increase in new unemployment claims were reported in the weeks after the April jobs surveys.  Job losses in the public sector could intensify, with more teachers getting laid off as the school year ends and local governments deal with budget shortfalls.

The number of officially unemployed Americans totaled 13.75 million in April, an increase over the 205,000 reported in March, according to the Labor Department.  “At this point, coming out of a recession this deep, we should be getting unambiguously huge growth, of 300,000 to 400,000 (new jobs) a month,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute.  “And it’s just nowhere near that.  We’re still in a rocky place.”

April’s job growth was in multiple sectors.  For example, the retail industry added 57,100, approximately half at general merchandise stores.  Manufacturing added 29,000 more workers in April.  Since December 2009, factory payrolls have risen by 250,000, according to the Labor Department.  Business and professional services, whose wages tend to be higher than average, grew by 51,000, with consulting businesses, computer services and architectural firms experiencing growth.  Educational and health services, and the leisure industry, each also added nearly as many jobs.  Even the construction industry saw a small gain in April.  Government was the sole employment group that declined; its payrolls contracted by 24,000, primarily due to cuts at state and public agencies.

According to Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, “The last three months we’ve added more than a quarter million jobs, on average, every month.  That’s very heartening and the fact that it was, really, across a whole lot of industries.”

According to Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for American Progress, a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C., “We need to see job growth break above 300,000 a month and stay at that level for many months before the unemployment rate will begin to come back down.  Today’s report provides a number of data points that point toward caution in interpreting the data positively in anticipation of that level of jobs growth returning anytime soon.  The average hours worked for production and nonsupervisory employees was 33.6 hours per week in April, the same as in March.  This remains below the 2000s recovery peak of 33.9 hours per week, and far below the late 1990s peak of 34.6 hours per week.  At the same time, employers shed 2,300 temporary workers, which either means they are hiring permanent employees or they are no longer seeing an increase in demand.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, General | No Comments »

Economic Indicators Showing Signs of Life

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Leading economic indicators (LEI) rose 0.9 percent in October, a sign that the U.S. economy is likely to see accelerated growth and not slip into a feared double-dip recession.  According to The Conference Board, its index of leading economic indicators rose significantly faster than the revised 0.1 percent rise in September and the 0.3 percent increase in August.  After growing at an anemic pace of just 0.9 percent in the first six months of 2011, the economy grew 2.5 percent in the July – September quarter.  Some analysts are looking for even stronger growth in the 4th quarter.

Economists said the October gain and other positive reports recently should ease fears that the nation is in danger of slipping into a double-dip recession.  According to Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein, the latest leading indicators report was pointing “to continued growth this winter, possibly even gaining a little momentum by spring.”

The leading economic indicators is a subjective gauge of 10 indicators designed to signal business cycle highs and lows.  Among the 10 indicators, nine made positive contributions in October, led by building permits, the interest-rate spread, and average weekly manufacturing hours.  The sole negative contribution came from faster supplier deliveries.

Increases in consumer spending, manufacturing and homebuilding — along with fewer job losses – highlight an economy that is weathering the turbulence in financial markets caused by the European debt crisis.  Even so, a nine percent unemployment rate and political gridlock over deficit-cutting are hurting confidence, which may hamper a further pickup in the pace of growth.  “The economy looks to be getting better despite the continued drumbeat of negativity in financial markets,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., who accurately forecast the gain.  “That speaks to U.S. resiliency.  If we can put some of these fiscal issues behind us, even for a short period of time, we might be able to come back.”

Another positive sign can be found in the University of Michigan’s six-month index of consumer expectations which rose to 56.2 in November, a five-month high, compared with 51.8 in October.  A word of caution — the measure remains below the 80.5 average of the previous expansion that ended in December 2007.

October’s results suggest strong ongoing economic activity, said Millan Mulraine, TD Securities’ economics strategist.  “On the whole, this report underscores the positive tone of the recent flow of economic reports pointing to a meaningful pick-up in overall economic activity during the quarter,” Mulraine said.  “And while the economy remains vulnerable to missteps in Europe and Washington, there is every indication that the recovery is slowly moving into the clear, building on the momentum from the last quarter.”

According to Ataman Ozyildirim, an economist at The Conference Board, “The October rebound of the LEI — largely due to the sharp pick-up in housing permits — suggests that the risk of an economic downturn has receded. Improving consumer expectations, stock markets, and labor market indicators also contributed to this month’s gain in the LEI as did the continuing positive contributions from the interest rate spread.  The Coincident Economic Index also rose somewhat, led by higher industrial production and employment.”

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, General | No Comments »

Craig Wortmann on Being an Entrepreneur

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Virtually anyone can be an entrepreneur, although starting one’s own business is a giant leap.  Many people look at becoming an entrepreneur as a cause and effect – the academic term being “causal logic”.  That may not be the optimal way to view entrepreneurship, however.  Rather, the world’s most successful entrepreneurs use effectual logic.  According to Craig Wortmann, Clinical Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, “It goes like this:  I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got this limited set of resources and I’m just going to begin, and I’m not exactly sure what the effect will be.”  Wortmann has more than 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial sales and marketing strategy experience.

According to Wortmann, this is a powerful way to think about entrepreneurship because the concept has such an underlying vibe of optimism.  This notion of entrepreneurship is just start the business, anyone can do it.  They are all personality types; they don’t have to be deep in domain knowledge.  Anyone can start a business.  The research suggests that as long as people are not rigid about reaching a certain outcome, they will be successful.

Wortmann asks budding entrepreneurs to think about the idea they have and ask what is the relative value to the idea.  He believes that many people get stuck as entrepreneurs because they say “I can’t be an entrepreneur because I don’t have the next Google.  I’m not waking up in the middle of the night with the next idea for Facebook.”  Any idea that will change the focus of people or get them to do something better or a bit different – you have a potential business.

Would-be entrepreneurs need to begin taking action.  They need to talk to potential customers and partners, and start to formulate a product or service to offer to people.  Chances are the fledgling entrepreneur will be rejected; there is no question about that.  But if they keep embracing that chaos and making contact with the market, things will begin to take shape.  They need to get out there and realize that they are the structure and the process.

The challenge for entrepreneurs can be maintaining momentum.  If it’s the product, stay close to the product.  If it’s the people, get out into the market, meet people and maintain energy.  According to Wortmann, “One of the things I like to talk to students about:  is shutting down a business failure?  It is in a way, but we’re all on a journey and that’s just a chapter.  In a microcosm, it is a failure.  But is it really a failure if you take those lessons and start something new or go back to a big company and leverage all those things you learned?  That looks like success to me.”

To listen to Craig Wortmann’s full interview on entrepreneurship, click here.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, General | No Comments »

Hungary’s Debt Downgraded to Junk

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Yet another European nation – and one not in the Eurozone – is facing a financial crisis now that Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded its credit rating to junk status. The nation is Hungary, whose status was changed as a result of concerns about proposed policy changes regarding the country’s central bank.  S&P cut its rating on Hungary’s debt to the non-investment grade of BB+ and warned that there could be additional adjustments.  Its negative outlook on the Hungarian front means there is at least a 33 percent likelihood of another downgrade over the next year if Hungary’s fiscal performance worsens.

The lower rating could mean that Hungary has more difficulty borrowing, and may have to pay higher rates on its debt.  Moody’s Investor Service, a rival credit-ratings agency, had already reduced Hungary’s rating to junk status in late November.  According to S&P, policy changes related to Hungary’s central bank will curtail its independence; these changes by necessity complicate the scene for investors.  They’re likely to negatively impact investment and fiscal planning, which will weigh on Hungary’s medium-term growth prospects.  “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the predictability and credibility of Hungary’s policy framework continues to weaken,” S&P said.

Not surprisingly, the European Central Bank (ECB) is concerned about Hungary’s draft law that it says would undermine the independence of the country’s central bank. The government recently introduced proposals to merge Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) with the Financial Supervisory Authority, name a new president who will outrank the current central bank governor and increase the number of members of the governing council.  All of this would be “to the detriment of central bank independence,” the ECB said.  “In particular, by appointing a new president with authority over the Governor of the MNB, who would become the vice-president of the new institution, the personal independence of the MNB’s Governor would be impaired and Article 14.2 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks concerning the possible reasons for dismissing the Governor of a national central bank would be breached,” the ECB said.  “The Governing Council of the ECB has requested the Hungarian authorities to bring their consultation practice into line with the requirements of European Union law and to respect the obligation to consult the ECB.  Three major revisions of the central bank law in 18 months are incompatible with the principle of legal certainty.”

The independence of the central banks in European nations is enshrined in European Union treaties. However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wants to use his two-thirds majority in parliament to push through changes in the make-up of the decision-making entities of the MNB, with whom he has frequently disagreed over policy.

According to Business Week, “Hungary will probably overshoot its budget-deficit target next year, the central bank said.  The shortfall may be 3.7 percent of gross domestic product, compared with the government’s 2.5 percent goal, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank said.  The gap may be reduced to 2.6 percent with the ‘complete cancellation’ of budget reserves and assuming no unexpected spending and no shortfall in revenue in 2012.  A decline in risk premium may allow keeping the benchmark interest rate unchanged at seven percent, the highest in the European Union, or its ‘cautious reduction’, the central bank said, citing the rate-setting Monetary Council.  The rate may have to be ‘permanently’ higher if the pace of disinflation is slower than the bank’s forecast.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, Financing, General | No Comments »

New Housing Market Showing Some Strength

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Confidence in American homebuilders rose in December for the third consecutive month, a sign that the housing market is finally stabilizing.  The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) of builder confidence climbed to 21 — the highest level since May 2010 — from a revised 19 in November.   Economists had projected an index of 20, according to a Bloomberg News survey.  Readings below 50 mean the majority of respondents believe that conditions are poor.

Mortgage rates near record lows are attracting prospective homebuyers.  At the same time, a new wave of foreclosures means a sustained housing recovery could take years.  “We’re just seeing some incremental improvement,” John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston, said.  “It’s too early to say that the worst is over.  It’s too early to say that we’re pulling ourselves out of the morass of housing.”

Builders in the South had the biggest increase, with the index jumping four points to 25 this month.  The West reported a gain to 16 from 15, while the Midwest held steady at 24.  Confidence in the Northeast fell to 15 from 16.

“This is the first time that builder confidence has improved for three consecutive months since mid-2009, which signifies a legitimate though slowly emerging upward trend,” NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said.  “While large inventories of foreclosed properties continue to plague the most distressed markets and consumer worries about job security and the challenges of selling an existing home remain significant factors, builders are reporting more inquiries and more interest among potential buyers than they have seen in previous months.”

Low-ball appraisals are spoiling some deals, even after contracts have been signed.  As a result, some buyers are waiting to buy a new house because they can’t sell their home.  Those positioned to purchase are benefiting from lower prices and rates.  30-year fixed mortgages are 3.94 percent — a record low.  So far, those factors have not boosted new home sales.

The seasonally adjusted index, which parallels closely with single-family housing starts, is designed so that readings over 50 are considered “good.”  This hasn’t been the case since April 2006.

According to NAHB Chairman Bob Nielsen, “While builder confidence remains low, the consistent gains registered over the past several months are an indication that pockets of recovery are slowly starting to emerge in scattered housing markets.”

Each of the HMI’s three component indexes registered a third consecutive month of improvement in December.  The component gauging current sales conditions rose two points in the latest month to 22, while the component gauging sales expectations in the next six months edged up one point to 26.  The component gauging traffic of prospective buyers gained three points and is now at 18, which is its highest level since May of 2008.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Economics, Financing, General, Residential | No Comments »

We Deliver – More Slowly – For You

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

First-class mail is likely the next casualty as the United States Postal Service (USPS) looks for ways to stave off bankruptcy. The USPS is planning to shutter 252 mail processing centers nationally and slow first-class delivery as soon as spring, citing steadily declining mail volume.

According to USPS vice president David Williams, the agency wants to effectively eliminate the likelihood that stamped letters will arrive at their destination the next day.  Williams says the postal service is not “writing off first class mail”; rather, it must respond to changing market realities in which people are turning more to the Internet for email communications and bill payment.  After peaking in 2006, first-class mail volume is now at 78 million.  It is projected to drop by approximately 50 percent by 2020.

The estimated $3 billion in reductions are part of a wide-ranging effort by the cash-strapped USPS to cut costs without receiving any help from Congress.  Although the changes would provide short-term relief, they ultimately could prove counterproductive by moving more business onto the Internet.  The move has the potential to slow everything from check payments to Netflix’s DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines.

Ideally, first-class mail would be delivered in two to three days, a change from the current one to three days in the 48 contiguous United States.  But, the postal service said mailers “who properly prepare and enter mail at the processing facility prior to the day’s critical entry time” could have their mail delivered the following delivery day.”  Magazine delivery could take two to nine days.

“It’s a potentially major change, but I don’t think consumers are focused on it and it won’t register until the service goes away,” said Jim Corridore, an analyst with S&P Capital IQ, who tracks the shipping industry.  “Over time, to the extent the customer service experience gets worse, it will only increase the shift away from mail to alternatives.  There’s almost nothing you can’t do online that you can do by mail.”

The post office already has announced a penny increase in first-class mail to 45 cents, whch goes into effect on January 22.  “We have a business model that is failing.  You can’t continue to run red ink and not make changes,” said Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General.  “We know our business, and we listen to our customers. Customers are looking for affordable and consistent mail service, and they do not want us to take tax money.”

According to Donahoe, “We are in a deep financial crisis today because we have a business model that is tied to the past.  We are expected to operate like a business, but we do not have the flexibility to do so.  Our business model is fundamentally inflexible.  It prevents the postal service from solving problems and being effective in the way a business would.”

Senator Susan Collins, (R-ME), the ranking Republican of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was unhappy with the USPS’ plans.  “Time and time again in the face of more red ink, the Postal Service puts forward ideas that could well accelerate its death spiral,” Collins said.  “Closing thousands of rural post offices, eliminating Saturday delivery, and slowing first-class mail delivery could harm many businesses and their customers.”

Writing in the Washington Post’s Federal Eye column, Ed O’Keefe commiserates with postal customers, but offers no quick fixes. “And what about those customers who rely on first-class mail to get letters delivered the next day?  Donahoe and other officials hope those customers will switch to Priority or Express Mail, a more expensive option that can guarantee deliveries by a certain date.”

If the plan is approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission, the changes have the potential to save about $3 billion, and allow the Postal Service to cut approximately 28,000 jobs.

According to USPS spokesman Dave Partenheimer, the changes allow increased time between deliveries, clearing the way to close or consolidate mail processing centers across the country.  “It’s no longer a challenge of growth — it’s a challenge of staying ahead of the cost curve,” Partenheimer said.  “The fact of the matter is, our network is too big.”

Sally Davidow, a spokeswoman for the American Postal Workers Union, said the changes will hurt communities and take the Postal Service in the wrong direction.  “They should be trying to speed up and modernize the mail, not slow it down and make it less relevant in the digital age,” she said.

Davidow said the retirement payment mandate and overpayment into the Postal Service’s pension accounts are the main culprits.  She believes that USPS leadership should focus on pressuring Congress to fix them instead of cutting service and jobs.  “Addressing those two things would go a very long way toward resolving the crisis and giving the Postal Service the breathing room and the capital it needs to modernize and to be relevant in the digital age,” Davidow said.

The postmaster general offered his opinion on that.  “The American public pays bills online,” Donahoe concluded.  “We can’t sit back for another five, or six, or 10 years and wait for these changes.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, General | No Comments »

Bill Gates, Sr.: The Rich Must Pay More Taxes

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Bill Gates, Sr., a retired attorney in Washington state, supports a ballot initiative that would require the state’s highest earners — including himself and his son — to pay an income tax.  Currently, the state does not collect personal income taxes.

The father of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jr., believes that the poor pay too much tax, and that the rich don’t pay enough.  Washington’s school system, which is a catalyst for future economic growth in the high-tech state, suffers from too little funding because the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share, according to Gates.  His 1098 initiative — an income tax on adjusted earnings that exceed $400,000 a year per couple or $200,000 for an individual — is drawing protest from Washington business leaders, as well as anti-tax groups.

Initiative 1098 would give tax credits to approximately 80 percent of Washington-based businesses and slash the state share of property taxes by 20 percent for businesses and homeowners.  According to critics, the legislation would harm the economy by taxing the earnings of people who own the businesses — money that would be used to put people back to work.  The opposition’s Defeat 1098 campaign believes that an income tax on 38,400 of the state’s highest earners would take away vital competitive advantages and drive away entrepreneurs.  Even Governor Chris Gregoire’s Commerce Department has publicized Washington’s lack of an income tax in statements about the state’s business climate.

Gates considers Washington state’s tax system to be “dramatically regressive”, something that was proved in 2002 when he led a commission created by the Legislature to study the state tax system.  The commission recommended replacing the sales tax or property tax with an income tax that would rebalance the load.  Gates cited data gathered by the national Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that show Washington’s poorest 20 percent pay 17 percent of their income in sales, property and other taxes.  By contrast, the wealthiest one percent pays less than four percent.

The initiative would impose a state income tax on individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning upwards of $400,000.  In other words, single people would pay a five percent tax on income over $200,000 and nine percent tax if they earn more than $500,000.  Couples would pay five percent over $400,000 and nine percent if they earn a combined income that exceeds $1 million.

“It’s not a matter of picking on someone,” Gates said.  “It’s a matter of correcting to some extent a bad historic situation and arguing — I think absolutely persuasively — that this is a proper source for a serious financial shortfall in our operations, namely the public education system.”

Gates’ proposal also has met opposition from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, and Jeff Bezos, President of Amazon.com, both of whom donated $100,000 to anti-tax groups.

Another voice of opposition is Stephen Moore, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “I wish I had a dollar for every time a wealthy liberal has declared he thinks he should pay more taxes. That list includes Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gates Sr., Mark Zuckerberg and even Barack Obama, who now says that not only should rich people like him pay more taxes, they want to pay more.”

Gates is joined by Berkshire-Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett in calling for higher taxes on the wealthy.  President Obama supports “the Buffett Rule”, a guiding principle to ensure that the rich pay as large a percentage of their income as the middle class.  Some millionaires insist that Buffett doesn’t speak for them.  “There is more of a difference between my financial position as a multi-millionaire and Buffett’s than there is between mine and a guy that makes minimum wage,” one CNN Money reader said.  “Why am I grouped with him and why does he feel he can speak for me?”

Just 24 percent of millionaires said higher taxes on large incomes is the optimal solution, according to a survey from Spectrem Group, a research firm specializing in the finances of affluent Americans.  The largest group of millionaires, 44 percent, believe that a flat-rate tax across all income brackets is the fairest system.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, Financing, General | No Comments »

Is the Timing Right for a Facebook IPO?

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Facebook is contemplating the idea raising about $10 billion in an IPO that would value the predominant social-networking website at more than $100 billion.  At $10 billion, the offering would raise significantly more money than any other technology IPO, and Facebook expects investors to be eager to buy into the social-networking company.  The IPO would overshadow that of the previous record holder, Infineon Technologies AG, which generated $5.23 billion in its 1999 debut.  Agere Systems Inc., which raised $4.14 billion in 2000, currently occupies second place.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 27-year-old founder and CEO, will undoubtedly be rewarded by the website’s rise.  A valuation of $100 billion will further increase Zuckerberg’s net worth which had earlier been estimated at $17 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Facebook expects federal regulators to call for the firm to disclose its financial results by April 30, 2012 — if it doesn’t go public sooner.  Facebook chose to wait until next year to launch its IPO to give CEO Mark Zuckerberg extra time to add users and increase sales.  Facebook, which has a staggering 800 million users, is also increasing its focus on mobile technology, aiming to leverage the shift to smart phones and tablets.  The firm expects its next billion users to connect primarily via mobile devices, rather than desktop computers.

Zuckerberg noted that an IPO isn’t something he has spent “a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about.  We’ve made this implicit promise to our investors and to our employees that by compensating them with equity and by giving them equity, that at some point we’re going to make that equity worth something publicly and in a liquid way.  Now, the promise isn’t that we’re going to do it on any kind of short-term time horizon.  The promise is that we’re going to build this company so that it’s great over the long term.  And that we’re always making these decisions for the long term, but at some point we’ll do that.

Writing in the New York Times’ “Deal Book” column, Steven M. Davidoff isn’t certain that this is the correct time for a Facebook IPO.  “Facebook is in a corner.  Another Internet hotshot, Groupon, is trading below its offering price, and the market for internet initial public offerings over all appears to be deflating.  The European sovereign debt crisis isn’t helping the market gloom.  The coming months are shaping up to be a bad time to undertake an IPO.  Still, Facebook will almost certainly have to go public during this time whether it wants to or not — and whether or not it can get a valuation of $100 billion or more in doing so.  And it’s partly Facebook’s fault — it just has too many shareholders.  Securities regulation requires a United States company with 500 or more shareholders of record to begin filing reports, including audited financial information, with the Securities and Exchange Commission four months after the year it exceeds this threshold.  Facebook most likely exceeded 500 shareholders this year.  By the end of April 2012, it will become subject to this heightened regulation and have to disclose a spate of confidential business information.”

What does the prospect of an IPO mean to potential investors? TechCrunch writer Josh Constine wasn’t optimistic in a post bluntly titled “Why Greedy Stockholders and a $100 Billion IPO Could Hurt Facebook.” Constine says that if Facebook becomes subject to the desire of its stockholders, the site will innovate less by making profit a higher priority than user experience.  For example, more ads are likely to pop up on users’ pages.  “Outside stockholders could detract from Facebook’s vision and momentum,” he wrote.  “They could push for faster returns, and pressure the company to display more ads, turn mobile into a direct revenue stream, and play it safe with product.  This might produce short-term gains, but could hamper what CEO Mark Zuckerberg has built into a core communications utility for the world.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, General | No Comments »

The Fed’s Secret Bank Loans Revealed

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

In a stunning revelation, Bloomberg has obtained 29,000 pages of Federal Reserve documents detailing the largest bailout in American history.  According to an article that will appear in the January issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine, the “Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on December 5, 2008, their single neediest day.  Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy.  And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates.”

The $7.77 trillion that the central bank made available stunned even Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009.  According to Stern, he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.”  It overshadows the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) program.  When you add up guarantees and lending limits, it becomes clear that the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March, 2009 to rescuing the financial system. That is more than half the value of the U.S. GDP that year.  “TARP at least had some strings attached,” said Representative Brad Miller (D-NC), a member of the House Financial Services Committee.  “With the Fed programs, there was nothing.”

According to Bloomberg’s editors, “Even as they were tapping the Fed for emergency loans at rates as low as 0.01 percent, the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of the program were assuring investors that their firms were healthy.  Moreover, these banks used money they had received in the bailout to lobby Congress against reforms aimed at preventing the next collapse.  By keeping the details of its activities under wraps, the Fed deprived lawmakers of the essential information they needed to draft those rules. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, for example, was debated and passed by Congress in 2010 without a full understanding of how deeply the banks had depended on the Fed for survival.  Similarly, lawmakers approved the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to rescue the banks without knowing the details of the far larger bailout being run by the Fed.

“The central bank justified its approach by saying that disclosing the information would have signaled to the markets that the financial institutions that received help were in trouble.  That, in turn, would make needy institutions reluctant to use the Fed as a lender of last resort in the next crisis.  Fed officials argue, with some justification, that the program helped avert a much bigger economic cataclysm and that all the loans have now been repaid.”

Derek Thompson, a senior editor at The Atlantic, argues that the Fed’s secret bailout is a sign that it was doing its job.  According to Thompson, “First, you can be furious that the Federal Reserve ‘committed’ $7.7 trillion — a sum of money equal to half of the U.S. economy — to save the financial system.  I understand the shock, but we were at the precipice of catastrophe and that money wasn’t ‘spent’ so much as it was put at risk and subsequently recouped.  The economy has struggled in the three years since, but we avoided meltdown.  The trillions worked.

“Second, you can be furious that the banks made a profit off of their own mistakes — but $13 billion is a small price to pay for staving off Armageddon.  Third, you can be furious that the Federal Reserve went to court to keep this information out of the hands of journalists.  There, I’d agree.  It’s Congress’s job (not the Federal Reserve’s job) to pass laws that govern the banking sector, but Congress needs information to make good decisions about regulating banks and it’s disappointing that the Federal Reserve withheld details about its bailouts while the commission and the Dodd-Frank debate were ongoing.  Fourth, you can be furious that our central bank basically did the right thing when it had to, and its counterpart in Europe won’t — at the risk of a continental meltdown.”

Times’ Massimo Calabresi agrees. According to Calabresi, “But the Fed saved the world economy through all this lending without losing a penny in the process.  And after its initial heavy breathing, the article does give the Fed an opportunity to explain itself.  ‘Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme stress is a core function of central banks,’ said William B. English, director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs.  “Our lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.’  In other words, lending money to banks in a crisis is the whole point of the Fed:  saving the world economy by flooding the system with money when it is about to freeze up is exactly what the central bank was created to do.”

The Fed has been lending money to banks since just after it was established in 1913. By the end of 2008, the Fed had created or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to financial firms that were unable to obtain short-term loans from their usual sources.  “Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of central banks,” said William English, director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs.  “Our lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.”

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, Financing, General | No Comments »

Home Delinquencies Fall; Foreclosures Rise

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Fewer borrowers currently are delinquent on their home loans, a Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) report shows.  Curiously, new foreclosures are rising in states like California.  This is evidence that the nation still must endure significant pain before the housing crisis finally comes to an end.  According to some analysts, the nation is only halfway through the wrenching grip of the foreclosure epidemic.  That’s reflected in the housing market, where sales and prices continue to sag despite record low interest rates.  Five years after the crisis began, 7.99 percent of all mortgages were behind by at least one payment in the 3rd quarter but not yet in foreclosure.  Nevertheless, that’s down by nearly half a percentage point from the 2nd quarter and more than one percent when compared with last year.

The percentage of American mortgages that were somewhere in the foreclosure process at the end of the 3rd quarter was 4.43 percent, a slight increase over last year.  The rate of homes in foreclosure was highest in the East and Midwest that route residential repossessions through the courts, with Florida at more than 14 percent and New Jersey at eight percent.

Rather surprisingly, new foreclosures rose to 1.08 percent of all loans from 0.96 percent in the prior three months, according to the MBA. The rate had been declining since the 3rd quarter of 2010, when regulators began investigating robo-signing.  Some of the nation’s largest banks temporarily halted foreclosures while they addressed claims of flaws in their court documents.  The moratoriums clogged the entire foreclosure pipeline as banks investigated their procedures, said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.  “Banks are starting to speed up the process now that they’ve cleaned up their paperwork,” Newport said.  “We’re seeing the backlog begin to move.”

Unfortunately, the improvement may be short lived.  For the 4th quarter, the pace probably will slow to 2.3 percent, according to the median estimate among 86 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.  The pace likely will slow to two percent in the first three months of 2012, according to the estimates.  “While the delinquency picture changed for the better in the 3rd quarter, the foreclosure data indicated that we are not out of the woods yet and that the issues continue to vary by geography,” Michael Fratantoni, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s vice president of research and economics, said.

“That’s really just reflecting the modest improvement we’ve seen in the economy broadly and the job market in particular,” Fratantoni said. “Job growth is not what we want it to be, but it’s been good enough to keep the unemployment rate at least level and that’s been beneficial here with fewer people falling behind.”

“While foreclosure activity in September and the 3rd quarter continued to register well below levels from a year ago, there is evidence that this temporary downward trend is about to change direction, with foreclosure activity slowly beginning to ramp back up,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.  “Third quarter foreclosure activity increased marginally from the previous quarter, breaking a trend of three consecutive quarterly decreases that started in the fourth quarter of 2010,” according to Saccacio.  “This marginal increase in overall foreclosure activity was fueled by a 14 percent jump in new default notices, indicating that lenders are cautiously throwing more wood into the foreclosure fireplace after spending months trying to clear the chimney of sloppily filed foreclosures.”

Foreclosure were filed on 214,855 U.S. properties in September, a six percent decrease from August and a 38 percent decrease when compared with September of 2010.  September marked the 12th consecutive month where foreclosure activity decreased on a year-over-year basis.

A report issued by the Center for Responsible Lending found that 6.4 percent of mortgages created between 2004 and 2008 ended in foreclosure.  Another 8.3 percent of mortgages are at “immediate, serious risk.”  According to Fratantoni, “Given the pace of foreclosure sales — about one million foreclosure sales a year — it’s a three- or four-year process to get it back to a more typical level of foreclosed properties.”

The refinance share of mortgage activity fell to 77.3 percent of total applications from 78.6 percent the previous week.  The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 6.1 percent from 5.8 percent of all applications.  In October, 50.6 percent of refinancing applications opted for fixed-rate 30-year loans, 28.8 percent opted for 15-year fixed loans and six percent went with ARMs.  In terms of applications for home purchase mortgages, 85.5 percent were for fixed-rate 30-year loans, 6.9 percent for 15-year fixed loans and 5.9 percent for ARMs, the lowest share of that vehicle for purchases since January.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Economics, Financing, General, Residential | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »