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Singapore in Recession?
- Thread starter surespam
- Start date
I share your thoughts. Singapore will have to pay more unless we diversify into food production joint venture with other countries. They got the land we got the $$. But too bad no political will :(
Last two quarters registered only 2% GDP output, a drastic drop of 6% from previous quarters. Will the next two quarters register negative output?
US is still facing credit crisis, the latest being affected by Freddie Mae and Fannie Mae, which purchased home loans from all the US Banks and Financial Institutions, then packaged the loans into derivatives for sale to global corporate and individual investors. Whatever derivatives Freddie and Fannie could not sell, they have to keep it for their own investment. Both the companies are now facing financial crisis. Will this cause a ripple to the already weak US economy, which is already facing recession on many other factors?
A severe US recession will, as experienced in the past, have a huge impact on Spore six months down the road in view of Spore's vulnerability and dependency on external trade.
US is still facing credit crisis, the latest being affected by Freddie Mae and Fannie Mae, which purchased home loans from all the US Banks and Financial Institutions, then packaged the loans into derivatives for sale to global corporate and individual investors. Whatever derivatives Freddie and Fannie could not sell, they have to keep it for their own investment. Both the companies are now facing financial crisis. Will this cause a ripple to the already weak US economy, which is already facing recession on many other factors?
A severe US recession will, as experienced in the past, have a huge impact on Spore six months down the road in view of Spore's vulnerability and dependency on external trade.
I thought junk bonds went out of fashion years ago!
Singapore GNI per Capita up US35,000, higher than Japan now. What do you think of the distribution of wealth?
No kidding?!? No wonder we don't hear such statistics any more!
I thought junk bonds went out of fashion years ago!
The CDOs were given fancy names with AAA investment grade rating using back door means making it "safe high return" for investment banks and government to play . Now the investment banks with the toxic investment need to raise their cash reserves in billions to cater for the price drops of the houses and America ppl who walked away (giving up their houses as a cheaper option when recent home price drop had make it a negative asset) 0% downpayment when they brought it and owing the bank more than the house worth.
Singapore GNI per Capita up US35,000, higher than Japan now. What do you think of the distribution of wealth?
The HNI are those who are not listed in the Forbes chart .
There was a news from foreign agency that sg is already in recession few mths back which is not reported locally and censored by isp .
I see in otherwords still junk bond in nature but called differently @#$%^&*. Well there have been a few lay-offs but mostly in the dying industry. Only time will tell and I hope it is not true.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae tumbled again Thursday on a report that government officials have begun planning for a possible collapse of the mortgage finance giants.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Bush administration officials have held talks about what to do in the event the two government-sponsored firms falter.
The government doesn't expect the firms to fail and no rescue plan is imminent, according to the report. But it reported that talks, which it said had previously been part of normal contingency planning, have become more serious recently given the financial woes and downward spiral in their stock prices.
Fannie and Freddie had both lost more than 60% of their value this year through the close of trading Wednesday. In early trading Thursday, shares of Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) lost another 18%, while those of Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) plunged 28%.
Fannie and Freddie are crucial components to the nation's home lending industry, as they buy pools of mortgage loans and sell securities backed by the flow of payments from those loans as well as the firms' own guarantees. The rising mortgage defaults and delinquencies have caused huge losses for the firms so far this year, forcing them to seek additional capital that will likely dilute the value of current shareholders' holdings.
There will be more lay-offs in the investment banks who got hit badly by the crisis . Look at citigroup shares 52 wks high usd53 to current usd 16.
Actually all the turmoil was started by the americans . There are theories of transferring of the toxic debts risks to foreign investors after initial gains were realized by the americans .
Even though the below do not affect us directly we will be indirectly dragged down .
The issue now is: what happens next to Fannie and Freddie given that they are effectively insolvent?
The conventional answer is that their shareholders get fully wiped out but that their creditors (those holding the $5 trillion of these agencies' debt and their other liabilities) are made whole as the U.S. government cannot afford reneging on the implicit guarantee of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie and it cannot risk a collapse of the mortgage and housing market that defaulting on part of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie would imply. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom may turn out to be right; but it could also turn out to be wrong.
First notice that, as discussed previously in this column, the farce that Fannie and Freddie were “private sector" firms was obviously a farce as investors always expected that the liabilities of the two GSEs would be eventually backed by the U.S. government. And in spite of the decade long rhetoric by Fed, Treasury, the Bush administration, conservative government-bashing hawks and a slew of other regulators that Fannie and Freddie were private firms, that investors should not assume that they would be bailed out if these firms turn out to be insolvent and that the moral hazard deriving from perceptions of an implicit guarantee should be stomped as hard as possible, the reality was different: these were effectively public institutions – not private ones - used by the government (especially this administration) to pursue public policy goals. The hawkish rhetoric about the “moral hazard” the from implicit guarantees that Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Bush and the administration peddled for eight years was thrown out of the window the moment the housing and mortgage bust started. Instead, for the last few months the GSEs – that were already bleeding and becoming insolvent on their own portfolio – have been used by the government to back stop the mortgage markets: their portfolio limits were raised, their regulatory capital was reduced and the limits to what conforming mortgages (that the GSE can repackage/insure) are were raised from $420k to over $720k. So much for barking in public about “moral hazard” and then going ahead and using already distressed GSEs to bail out the mortgage market and make them even more insolvent. Now this “the emperor has no clothes” farce has been revealed to be what it always was: a high-flatulin “moral hazard” farcical rhetoric with zero substance and credibility.
To minimize the financial cost of this farce the administration should stop pretending that these are private institutions and go ahead and take them over and nationalize them since they are going to bail them out anyhow. The financial costs of this farce include the $50 billion of subsidy that the GSEs bondholders/creditors are receiving every year as the spread of the agency debt over Treasury is now close to 100bps (100bps on $5 trillion of liabilities is equal to $50 billion). Today the market prices the debt of the GSEs as if there is a meaningful probability that – once bankrupt – these firms will be treated as private firms and their bondholders will take a loss. But if the government is going to bail them out - because the consequences of a capital levy on their bondholder will destroy the mortgage and housing markets - the government should at least make this implicit liability (the guarantee of the $5 trillion debt of the GSEs) explicit and thus save the U.S. taxpayer that $50 billion subsidy that is given every year to the creditors/bondholder of Fannie and Freddie. An implicit liability that is not made explicit is the worst of all worlds as fat cats on Wall Street and around the world get a 100bps spread relative to safe Treasuries ($50 billion subsidy) on their holdings of agency debt and they know they will be anyhow bailed out if Fannie and Freddie go bust. Saving those $50 billion will not make Fannie and Freddie solvent as their insolvency hole is too big to be filled but it would at least reduce the fiscal bailout bill – that could be as high as $200-300 billion – that their insolvency and government takeover will imply.
Leaving aside now the “positive” issue of how the government will deal with the insolvency of Fannie and Freddie, let us consider the “normative” question of not what it is most likely to be done (an issue that involves more politics than sound economics) but rather what should be done in an ideal world? The simple answer is that we need to limit as much as possible the moral hazard of a bailout of Fannie and Freddie. Such a bailout of the creditors/bondholders of the two GSEs would result in the “mother of all maoral hazard-laden bailouts” in terms of its size and consequences. And such a bailout is neither necessary, appropriate nor desirable.
Of course most of Wall Street, domestic and foreign investors and Congress are already screaming and begging “Bail us out, bail us out!” as their $5 trillion holdings of agency debt will take a significant hit if the insolvency hole of the GSEs – after the shareholders are wiped out – is filled not with public bailout money but rather with an haircut on the bonds held by Fannie and Freddie creditors. On top of bondholders not wanting to take a hit almost every politician – including McCain that in a former life was one of the shamed and corrupt members of the Keating Five club when he facilitated the S&L scam – is now clamoring for a bailout of Fannie and Freddie under the argument that not rescuing them would lead to a collapse of the mortgage and housing markets. But these screams of “the sky will fall” if we don’t rescue Fannie and Freddie are vastly exaggerated and incorrect for a number of reasons.
First, notice that the hit that bondholders will take will be limited in the absence of their bailout. With a debt/liabilities of about $5 trillion and expected insolvency – as of now and in the worst scenario of $200 to $300 billion – the necessary haircut is relatively modest: either a reduction in the face value of the claims of the order of 5% (if the mid-point hole is $250 billion) or – for unchanged face value – a very modest reduction in the interest rate on their debt after it has been forcibly restructured.
Second, a 5% haircut is much smaller than the 75% haircut that the holders of Argentine sovereign bonds suffered in 2001-2005, much smaller than the haircuts that holders or Russian and Ecuadorean debt suffered after those sovereign defaults, and much smaller than the 30% haircut that holders of corporate bonds suffer on average when a corporation goes into Chapter 11 and its debt is restructured. So why should Uncle Sam – i.e. eventually the U.S. taxpayer – pay that $250 billion bill when investors in the U.S. and around the world can afford it? The same investors are getting a fat subsidy of $50 billion a year (whose NPV is much bigger than $250 billion) for holding claims that now provide a 100bps spread above Treasuries and are under the implicit guarantee of a full bailout.
Third, of the two options we need to pick one: either we formally guarantee those claims and start paying the Treasury yield on that debt saving the tax payer that $50 billion subsidy; or if we maintain the subsidy a credit event in the form of a small haircut because of insolvency would be the fair cost that such investors pay for earning the extra spread over Treasuries.
Fourth, while the haircut would reduce the market value of such agency debt and inflict mark to market losses to investors such losses are already priced by the fact that the widening of the agency debt spread relative to Treasuries – from 10bps to about 100bps – has reduced the mark to market value of such agency debt. So, in the current legal limbo of insolvent GSEs whose debt is however not formally guaranteed the persistence of the spread would lead to those $250 billion mark-to-market losses regardless of a formal default, restructuring and haircut on that debt. We may as well resolve that insolvency and restore the positive net worth of the GSEs by doing the haircut.
The issue now is: what happens next to Fannie and Freddie given that they are effectively insolvent?
The conventional answer is that their shareholders get fully wiped out but that their creditors (those holding the $5 trillion of these agencies' debt and their other liabilities) are made whole as the U.S. government cannot afford reneging on the implicit guarantee of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie and it cannot risk a collapse of the mortgage and housing market that defaulting on part of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie would imply. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom may turn out to be right; but it could also turn out to be wrong.
First notice that, as discussed previously in this column, the farce that Fannie and Freddie were “private sector" firms was obviously a farce as investors always expected that the liabilities of the two GSEs would be eventually backed by the U.S. government. And in spite of the decade long rhetoric by Fed, Treasury, the Bush administration, conservative government-bashing hawks and a slew of other regulators that Fannie and Freddie were private firms, that investors should not assume that they would be bailed out if these firms turn out to be insolvent and that the moral hazard deriving from perceptions of an implicit guarantee should be stomped as hard as possible, the reality was different: these were effectively public institutions – not private ones - used by the government (especially this administration) to pursue public policy goals. The hawkish rhetoric about the “moral hazard” the from implicit guarantees that Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Bush and the administration peddled for eight years was thrown out of the window the moment the housing and mortgage bust started. Instead, for the last few months the GSEs – that were already bleeding and becoming insolvent on their own portfolio – have been used by the government to back stop the mortgage markets: their portfolio limits were raised, their regulatory capital was reduced and the limits to what conforming mortgages (that the GSE can repackage/insure) are were raised from $420k to over $720k. So much for barking in public about “moral hazard” and then going ahead and using already distressed GSEs to bail out the mortgage market and make them even more insolvent. Now this “the emperor has no clothes” farce has been revealed to be what it always was: a high-flatulin “moral hazard” farcical rhetoric with zero substance and credibility.
To minimize the financial cost of this farce the administration should stop pretending that these are private institutions and go ahead and take them over and nationalize them since they are going to bail them out anyhow. The financial costs of this farce include the $50 billion of subsidy that the GSEs bondholders/creditors are receiving every year as the spread of the agency debt over Treasury is now close to 100bps (100bps on $5 trillion of liabilities is equal to $50 billion). Today the market prices the debt of the GSEs as if there is a meaningful probability that – once bankrupt – these firms will be treated as private firms and their bondholders will take a loss. But if the government is going to bail them out - because the consequences of a capital levy on their bondholder will destroy the mortgage and housing markets - the government should at least make this implicit liability (the guarantee of the $5 trillion debt of the GSEs) explicit and thus save the U.S. taxpayer that $50 billion subsidy that is given every year to the creditors/bondholder of Fannie and Freddie. An implicit liability that is not made explicit is the worst of all worlds as fat cats on Wall Street and around the world get a 100bps spread relative to safe Treasuries ($50 billion subsidy) on their holdings of agency debt and they know they will be anyhow bailed out if Fannie and Freddie go bust. Saving those $50 billion will not make Fannie and Freddie solvent as their insolvency hole is too big to be filled but it would at least reduce the fiscal bailout bill – that could be as high as $200-300 billion – that their insolvency and government takeover will imply.
Leaving aside now the “positive” issue of how the government will deal with the insolvency of Fannie and Freddie, let us consider the “normative” question of not what it is most likely to be done (an issue that involves more politics than sound economics) but rather what should be done in an ideal world? The simple answer is that we need to limit as much as possible the moral hazard of a bailout of Fannie and Freddie. Such a bailout of the creditors/bondholders of the two GSEs would result in the “mother of all maoral hazard-laden bailouts” in terms of its size and consequences. And such a bailout is neither necessary, appropriate nor desirable.
Of course most of Wall Street, domestic and foreign investors and Congress are already screaming and begging “Bail us out, bail us out!” as their $5 trillion holdings of agency debt will take a significant hit if the insolvency hole of the GSEs – after the shareholders are wiped out – is filled not with public bailout money but rather with an haircut on the bonds held by Fannie and Freddie creditors. On top of bondholders not wanting to take a hit almost every politician – including McCain that in a former life was one of the shamed and corrupt members of the Keating Five club when he facilitated the S&L scam – is now clamoring for a bailout of Fannie and Freddie under the argument that not rescuing them would lead to a collapse of the mortgage and housing markets. But these screams of “the sky will fall” if we don’t rescue Fannie and Freddie are vastly exaggerated and incorrect for a number of reasons.
First, notice that the hit that bondholders will take will be limited in the absence of their bailout. With a debt/liabilities of about $5 trillion and expected insolvency – as of now and in the worst scenario of $200 to $300 billion – the necessary haircut is relatively modest: either a reduction in the face value of the claims of the order of 5% (if the mid-point hole is $250 billion) or – for unchanged face value – a very modest reduction in the interest rate on their debt after it has been forcibly restructured.
Second, a 5% haircut is much smaller than the 75% haircut that the holders of Argentine sovereign bonds suffered in 2001-2005, much smaller than the haircuts that holders or Russian and Ecuadorean debt suffered after those sovereign defaults, and much smaller than the 30% haircut that holders of corporate bonds suffer on average when a corporation goes into Chapter 11 and its debt is restructured. So why should Uncle Sam – i.e. eventually the U.S. taxpayer – pay that $250 billion bill when investors in the U.S. and around the world can afford it? The same investors are getting a fat subsidy of $50 billion a year (whose NPV is much bigger than $250 billion) for holding claims that now provide a 100bps spread above Treasuries and are under the implicit guarantee of a full bailout.
Third, of the two options we need to pick one: either we formally guarantee those claims and start paying the Treasury yield on that debt saving the tax payer that $50 billion subsidy; or if we maintain the subsidy a credit event in the form of a small haircut because of insolvency would be the fair cost that such investors pay for earning the extra spread over Treasuries.
Fourth, while the haircut would reduce the market value of such agency debt and inflict mark to market losses to investors such losses are already priced by the fact that the widening of the agency debt spread relative to Treasuries – from 10bps to about 100bps – has reduced the mark to market value of such agency debt. So, in the current legal limbo of insolvent GSEs whose debt is however not formally guaranteed the persistence of the spread would lead to those $250 billion mark-to-market losses regardless of a formal default, restructuring and haircut on that debt. We may as well resolve that insolvency and restore the positive net worth of the GSEs by doing the haircut.
Part 2
Fifth, a haircut on the debt of the GSEs does not need to destroy their business, the mortgage market or the housing market. The best debtor is a solvent debtor that has restructured and reduced its unsustainable debt burden: that is why firms coming out of a Chapter 11 process that reduces their debt burdens are viable businesses ready again to produce goods and services in a viable and profitable way. The worst thing that can happen to the GSEs is to remain as zombie comatose insolvent institutions whose debt burden is not restructured and who are barely propped by an implicit government lifeline. Do we really believe that GSEs with unrestructured debt kept alive in a zombie government “conservatorship” (the solution now most likely preferred by the U.S. administration) could function properly and continue their service of supporting the mortgage and housing market? Lets instead clean them up first and make them financially viable – after an out-of-court Chapter 11 style debt reduction – so as to ensure that they keep on providing the public goods that they are alleged to give.
Sixth, the existence of GSEs and the implicit subsidy that they provide to the housing sector and mortgage market is a major part of the overall U.S. subsidization of housing capital that will eventually lead to the bankruptcy of the U.S. economy. For the last 70 years investment in housing – the most unproductive form of accumulation of capital – has been heavily subsidized in 100 different ways in the U.S.: tax benefits, tax-deductibility of interest on mortgages, use of the FHA, massive role of Fannie and Freddie, role of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, and a host of other legislative and regulatory measures.
The reality is that the U.S. has invested too much – especially in the last eight years – in building its stock of wasteful housing capital (whose effect on the productivity of labor is zero) and has not invested enough in the accumulation of productive physical capital (equipment, machinery, etc.) that leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and increases long run economic growth. This financial crisis is a crisis of accumulation of too much debt – by the household sector, the government and the country – to finance the accumulation of the most useless and unproductive form of capital, housing, that provides only housing services to consumers and has zippo effect on the productivity of labor. So enough of subsidizing the accumulation of even bigger MacMansions through the tax system and the GSEs.
And these MacMansions and the broader sprawl of suburbian/exurban housing are now worth much less – in NPV terms – not only because of the housing bust and the fall in home prices but also because: a) the high oil and energy prices makes it outrageously expensive to heat those excessively big homes; b) households living in suburbian and exurban homes that are far from centers of work, business and production that are not served by public transportation are burdened with transportation costs that are becoming unsustainable given the high price of gasoline. So on top of the housing bust that will reduce home values by an average of 30% relative to peak high oil/energy prices make the same large homes in the far boonies of suburbia/exurbia worth even less – probably another 10% down – because of the cost of heating palatial MacMansions and because of the cost of traveling dozens of miles to get to work in gas guzzling SUVs. Thus, it is time to stop this destruction of national income and wealth that a cockamamie decades long policy of subsidizing the accumulation of wasteful and unproductive housing capital has caused.
So, all the above economic arguments and the need to control the moral hazard from the activities of the GSEs suggest that the creditors/bondholders of Fannie and Freddie should not be made whole, i.e. bailed out, once the insolvency hole of these institutions emerges. The optimal policy response would be to have such creditor take a haircut that is financially affordable and substantially desirable from a social point of view. The cost of borrowing for the GSEs after such haircut will be certainly higher but that is an outcome that is economically desirable: it will induce less unproductive and subsidized accumulation of wasteful housing capital.
Will this optimal policy solution - an haircut for bondholders - be undertaken? Most likely not as the political economy of housing, mortgages and of “privatizing profits and socializing” losses may dominate the policy outcome. Financial institutions love a system where they gamble recklessly, pocket the profits in good times and let the fisc (taxpayer) pay the bill when their reckless behavior triggers a financial crisis; this is socialism for the rich. That is why you already hear the whole Wall Street Greek chorus moaning for a bailout of the GSEs. But the financial costs of this financial crisis – the worst since the Great Depression – are mounting so fast that any bailout will become fiscally extremely expensive.
Indeed, my initial estimates of $1 to $2 trillion dollars of losses from this financial crisis did not include the bailout of Bear Stearns' creditors, the bailout of the GSEs bondholders, the fiscal costs of the Frank-Dodd bill, the fiscal costs a severe U.S. recession that is mushrooming an already large fiscal deficit, the fiscal cost of bailing out – a' la Bear Stearns - the last four remaining major independent broker dealers (as the time for such independent broker dealers is now gone as – given their wholesale overnite funding - they are subject to bank-like runs much more severe than for banks), the cost of bailing out the Federal Home Loan Bank system (another GSE system that pretends to be private and that has been happily propping up or bailing out – to the tune of hundreds of billions of liquidity support – illiquid and insolvent mortgage lenders). Switching the informal guarantee of GSEs debt to a formal government guarantee would by itself increase the US gross public debt by $5 trillion and effectively double it.
Thus, soon enough, if we fiscalize all of these losses the U.S. may fast lose its AAA sovereign debt rating and eventually end up like an insolvent banana republic. It is thus time to put a stop to the coming “mother of all bailouts” starting with a firm stop to the fiscal rescue of Fannie and Freddie, institutions that have behaved for the last few years like the “mother of all leveraged hedge funds” with their reckless leverage and reckless financial activities.
Fifth, a haircut on the debt of the GSEs does not need to destroy their business, the mortgage market or the housing market. The best debtor is a solvent debtor that has restructured and reduced its unsustainable debt burden: that is why firms coming out of a Chapter 11 process that reduces their debt burdens are viable businesses ready again to produce goods and services in a viable and profitable way. The worst thing that can happen to the GSEs is to remain as zombie comatose insolvent institutions whose debt burden is not restructured and who are barely propped by an implicit government lifeline. Do we really believe that GSEs with unrestructured debt kept alive in a zombie government “conservatorship” (the solution now most likely preferred by the U.S. administration) could function properly and continue their service of supporting the mortgage and housing market? Lets instead clean them up first and make them financially viable – after an out-of-court Chapter 11 style debt reduction – so as to ensure that they keep on providing the public goods that they are alleged to give.
Sixth, the existence of GSEs and the implicit subsidy that they provide to the housing sector and mortgage market is a major part of the overall U.S. subsidization of housing capital that will eventually lead to the bankruptcy of the U.S. economy. For the last 70 years investment in housing – the most unproductive form of accumulation of capital – has been heavily subsidized in 100 different ways in the U.S.: tax benefits, tax-deductibility of interest on mortgages, use of the FHA, massive role of Fannie and Freddie, role of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, and a host of other legislative and regulatory measures.
The reality is that the U.S. has invested too much – especially in the last eight years – in building its stock of wasteful housing capital (whose effect on the productivity of labor is zero) and has not invested enough in the accumulation of productive physical capital (equipment, machinery, etc.) that leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and increases long run economic growth. This financial crisis is a crisis of accumulation of too much debt – by the household sector, the government and the country – to finance the accumulation of the most useless and unproductive form of capital, housing, that provides only housing services to consumers and has zippo effect on the productivity of labor. So enough of subsidizing the accumulation of even bigger MacMansions through the tax system and the GSEs.
And these MacMansions and the broader sprawl of suburbian/exurban housing are now worth much less – in NPV terms – not only because of the housing bust and the fall in home prices but also because: a) the high oil and energy prices makes it outrageously expensive to heat those excessively big homes; b) households living in suburbian and exurban homes that are far from centers of work, business and production that are not served by public transportation are burdened with transportation costs that are becoming unsustainable given the high price of gasoline. So on top of the housing bust that will reduce home values by an average of 30% relative to peak high oil/energy prices make the same large homes in the far boonies of suburbia/exurbia worth even less – probably another 10% down – because of the cost of heating palatial MacMansions and because of the cost of traveling dozens of miles to get to work in gas guzzling SUVs. Thus, it is time to stop this destruction of national income and wealth that a cockamamie decades long policy of subsidizing the accumulation of wasteful and unproductive housing capital has caused.
So, all the above economic arguments and the need to control the moral hazard from the activities of the GSEs suggest that the creditors/bondholders of Fannie and Freddie should not be made whole, i.e. bailed out, once the insolvency hole of these institutions emerges. The optimal policy response would be to have such creditor take a haircut that is financially affordable and substantially desirable from a social point of view. The cost of borrowing for the GSEs after such haircut will be certainly higher but that is an outcome that is economically desirable: it will induce less unproductive and subsidized accumulation of wasteful housing capital.
Will this optimal policy solution - an haircut for bondholders - be undertaken? Most likely not as the political economy of housing, mortgages and of “privatizing profits and socializing” losses may dominate the policy outcome. Financial institutions love a system where they gamble recklessly, pocket the profits in good times and let the fisc (taxpayer) pay the bill when their reckless behavior triggers a financial crisis; this is socialism for the rich. That is why you already hear the whole Wall Street Greek chorus moaning for a bailout of the GSEs. But the financial costs of this financial crisis – the worst since the Great Depression – are mounting so fast that any bailout will become fiscally extremely expensive.
Indeed, my initial estimates of $1 to $2 trillion dollars of losses from this financial crisis did not include the bailout of Bear Stearns' creditors, the bailout of the GSEs bondholders, the fiscal costs of the Frank-Dodd bill, the fiscal costs a severe U.S. recession that is mushrooming an already large fiscal deficit, the fiscal cost of bailing out – a' la Bear Stearns - the last four remaining major independent broker dealers (as the time for such independent broker dealers is now gone as – given their wholesale overnite funding - they are subject to bank-like runs much more severe than for banks), the cost of bailing out the Federal Home Loan Bank system (another GSE system that pretends to be private and that has been happily propping up or bailing out – to the tune of hundreds of billions of liquidity support – illiquid and insolvent mortgage lenders). Switching the informal guarantee of GSEs debt to a formal government guarantee would by itself increase the US gross public debt by $5 trillion and effectively double it.
Thus, soon enough, if we fiscalize all of these losses the U.S. may fast lose its AAA sovereign debt rating and eventually end up like an insolvent banana republic. It is thus time to put a stop to the coming “mother of all bailouts” starting with a firm stop to the fiscal rescue of Fannie and Freddie, institutions that have behaved for the last few years like the “mother of all leveraged hedge funds” with their reckless leverage and reckless financial activities.
Heehee back in my schooling days such loans were just simply called bad debts. :p Hard to believe they are still so creative. Then again scary...
Well, it's good to know what's going around and get really for whatever is to come. Yes we will have undue worries now and then, even doubts, fears and uncertainly ahead but then again, recession or not, life still need to go on. Tough times neber last but the toughies do.:p
Well, it's good to know what's going around and get really for whatever is to come. Yes we will have undue worries now and then, even doubts, fears and uncertainly ahead but then again, recession or not, life still need to go on. Tough times neber last but the toughies do.:p
True. Me just afraid govt. continue to 'help' us!
the way i see it, our recession can be "managed"
simply put, how do we define it? negative gdp growth for 2 quarters. but the construction industry is a big contributor to gdp numbers as it represents a set of final goods and services produced by the country. so although the entire climate is gloomy and people are losing out in terms of real wages, the gdp can be boosted by simply putting up more land for development and sale. what i'm trying to say is that the gdp number is being managed well with the help of the construction of the IR and F1 and so on - but how permanent do we expect these gains to be? And what contribution will this make to the man in the street who can't afford the entry fee to the IR or seats to the F1 anyway?
if we define recession in a different manner, we may be in the midst of one already. it all depends on how the authorities want to play with the numbers and labels.
simply put, how do we define it? negative gdp growth for 2 quarters. but the construction industry is a big contributor to gdp numbers as it represents a set of final goods and services produced by the country. so although the entire climate is gloomy and people are losing out in terms of real wages, the gdp can be boosted by simply putting up more land for development and sale. what i'm trying to say is that the gdp number is being managed well with the help of the construction of the IR and F1 and so on - but how permanent do we expect these gains to be? And what contribution will this make to the man in the street who can't afford the entry fee to the IR or seats to the F1 anyway?
if we define recession in a different manner, we may be in the midst of one already. it all depends on how the authorities want to play with the numbers and labels.
Best if you have 20k at least. You can go for one of those trading course. If you're hardworking enough, those strategies can be found online. Just need to read and understand. Anymore qn can pm me
I like to keep it simple recession occurs when more people are losing their jobs. As far as I can see things are still bearable. Then again real income has be declining and it HURTS!!!!! :(
Well, actually Singapore is already in recession.
The funny thing is, that we have a good employment rate (which is low - about 1.8 - 2.3%) and a rising inflation rate (which is 6.5 to 7%). Both these factors says that we are not in recession but economically doing well. However, our interest rates are very low (Savings), which indicates that we are in recession. As thats shows we are in recession.
So at the end of the day, the country is in recession, but showing the rest of the world that we are not due to our GDP growth and high inflation rate. This is a contradiction to Economics rationale.
This is IMHO only.
The funny thing is, that we have a good employment rate (which is low - about 1.8 - 2.3%) and a rising inflation rate (which is 6.5 to 7%). Both these factors says that we are not in recession but economically doing well. However, our interest rates are very low (Savings), which indicates that we are in recession. As thats shows we are in recession.
So at the end of the day, the country is in recession, but showing the rest of the world that we are not due to our GDP growth and high inflation rate. This is a contradiction to Economics rationale.
This is IMHO only.
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