
NEW YORK-- The business of creating new finance vehicles like
derivatives and structured products has exploded in recent years. At a recent financial conference, there remained a mostly rosy view of such instruments, because their ability to help businesses and investors spread out risk. Lets go back in time and pined down where the accumulated problems began:
Kevin Lamarque
Stocks fell sharply Monday as investors try to digest the turmoil on wallstreet.
first, 2001- the explosion of the Internet bubble. Second, 2005-2007, the Federal Reserve lower interest rates from 6.5 to 1 percent. Now, keep in mind that with such low interest rates on mortgages, it is all the market needs to fuel " the boom," in the Real State Market. In ten years, the real price of homes has double in the United States of America. These problems created the beginning of a financially unfounded market. The " American Dream," a dream that curtails the accessibility for small investor, to purchase a second or a third home at significantly lower interest rate would seem to most an unreachable goal and to most North Americans is a blessed dream and to a few, is the ideal business deal. Contrastingly, to a banker represents a complex dilemma of rentability, because it doesn't matter how many loans it executes, its income average for selling a low interest rate is, lower. Before this particular paradox, multiple bankers came to the same realization. Then a light bulb went on. they ask themselves, ' lets give more loans with higher risk at a higher interest rate and, compensate the low margin with an augmented number of operations,' ( thousand loans times less is better than hundred times less) in terms of the first idea (give high-risk credit), bankers decided: to give mortgages to a new type of clients called " The NINJ," the acronym refers in the banking lexicon to clients with no jobs, assets, and income. Yes! people without fix income, unemployed, and no real guarantees. The ingenious plan was to charge the NINJ, with more interest, as precondition, for a high risk loan. what's more, the bankers said,' why not, also take advantage of the Real Sate "boom", ' and use it as security. Even further, they decided to concede mortgage loans at a higher value than the property of the NINJ bought. Which according to the foreseeable Real State Market, the house would be worth twice as much than the amount of the loan . And the economy soaring onto new frontiers brushing away any worries in risk volatility , erased dubt of client non-performance. So if the NINJ lost his job, he'll have no problem finding a new one and timely could pay his debt along the way. It seems that theoretically their plan was full proof.
Lets look at the different types of loans: the Prime Mortgages are those loans with low risk and Subprimes are those with higher risk (or no payment possibilities). In summary, Prime burrowers steered into higher rate loans paying additional interest payments ranging from $ 17,0000 to $43,000 per $100,000 borrowed over the scheduled life of the loan. It doesn't take long for the disparity to become significant: at the four year mark, a time period chosen to reflect average loan life, the difference in costs is a stark: $5,000.
Subprime mortgages are no longer a niche in the market; they have become a significant share of all new mortgages made in North America, making well over 20 percent of all the home loans originated in 2006 and currently representing $1.2 trillion of mortgages currently outstanding. Six million of these are outstanding. eighty percent of 2006 subprime loans were so called 2/28 mortgages, otherwise known as " exploding ARMs", whose interest rates are set to increase from 8%-9%-12% and 13% immediately after the second year, even with interest rates in the economy remaining constant. Even with the recent modest cut in interest rates, subprime borrowers will face a 40% or greater increases in their monthly mortgage payments once their initial " teaser" rates expire and their fixed interest rates reset into higher-rate variable rates. Similarly, more problematic were the Piggyback Seconds: the most intractable problem is the fact that a third to a of 2006 subprime borrowers took out piggyback seconds mortgages on their home at the same time as they tool out their first mortgage. Nevertheless, the holder of the second mortgage has no incentive to provide modifications that would free up borrower resources to make payments on the second mortgage. notwithstanding, the holder of the second mortgage has no incentive to support an effective modification, which would likely cause it to face a 100% loss. The holder of the second is better of waiting to see if a borrower can make a few payments before foreclosure. Beyond the inherent economic conflict, dealing with two servicers is a negotiating challenge that most borrowers cannot surmount.
But the global financial turmoil -- set off by problems with subprime mortgages -- has prompted a backlash in some quarters against such financial engineering. This complete groups of financial planing and integration of particularily high-risk instruments walked fine for a few years like any other seemingly stable foundation would hold. Remember, that all this time, the NINJ's were paying their monthly payments, confident that the price of their homes were going to double. So they proceeded more confidently to buy new cars, made renovation to their home, and took expensive vacations to Europ and the Middle East.
In retrospect to the compensation of lower margin by multiplying the number of operations, since banks started noticing that their funds were depleting, as a consequence of the numerous amounts of simultaneous loans, the solution presents itself in the form of approaching their fellow dumb friends: foreign banks. I mean what's globalization for, right?! Not to beat the globalization cliche to death but globalization has its pros and cons as the reader will experience. It is imperative that the reader pays close attention to this apologue to better understand the number of echelons that needed to be accomplished from the borrower of instruments to the Investment Banks and/or entities. " A taxi driver named, Charles, deposits in the... Investment Bank of London, his modest monthly savings early in the mourning. The same day in the afternoon, Charles' money can be in Illinois, because there is a bank there which has lend his money to a NINJ. Of course, the poor NINJ from Illinois doesn't know that his money is coming from London and let alone that, that [is] his money deposited in a credible and responsible banking institution. Probably, not even the Bank Manager from the branch Charles opened his account is, aware of the situation. At the most, the Branch Manager only has a vague idea that the money of his clients, is being invested at some important bank in the United States." I think up to here there is a somewhat clear view of the scenario and any person without extensive financial background can assimilate the small apologue. However the reader probably suspects that there have being some shift in etiquette by the investment firms.
"The Investment Bank of London has no clue of the inherent risks that it's assuming by the Investment Bank of Illinois, in the US. Until, one day the Branch manager while zipping tea comes across a headline in the local newspaper, disbursing scandalous claims that, ' the US is handing out subprime loans. The poor manager ponders loud inside his head, 'this Americans are crazy'!"
The reader is probably thinking,' don't this guys follow rules, or contract laws that impede them from negligence handling their client's money? well there is, but, the norm or mandate is applied in reference only to the balances of the bank's active and passive accounts. So, if the bank is asking for loans to other banks and are given large amounts of credit, the percentage of their capital actives are declining and automatically is disqualified to adhere in any way to The Norm of Basilea. for example: Active (liquid, given credit, total x millions) and Passive ( money loaned, capital and reserves, x millions). The Norm of Basilea demands that the banks' capital isn't inferior to a determined percentage of the active. Another brilliant idea has occurred to our bankers: It popped to their heads the advantages of Regurarization of Property: it gives The Investment Bank of Illinois the ability to " package" the loans in -- subprime and prime packages called MBS ( Mortgage Backed Securities), in other words obligation guaranteed mortgages. In summary, were the bank used to have 1000 mortgages loose inside the " credit account given" now has 10 bundles of 100 mortgages each, in which, there will be a good mixture of the two: good ( prime) and bad ( subprime) loans. Logically, like any financial institution, they need to find a way out to sell those bundles. Now, the question the reader should be asking is, ' where does the money go for those bundles?' It goes to the Active, the "banks liquid," which multiply many folds, inversely proportionate to " The Lending Credit Accounts", in which the proportion of capital/credit given, balances-out better and the bank seemingly adheres to The Norm of Basilea. The second question the reader should be asking is, who buys the packages so that the Investment Bank of Illinois, " betters" its balance immediately? The answer is simple. The Investment Bank of Illinois creates filial entities called, " Conduits", there not societies but trust, and as a result they don't need or have the [obligation] to consolidate its balances with the Matrix Bank. To put it simply, it appears in the market as two types of entities: The Illinois Investment Bank (with a clean face) and The Chicago Trust Corporation (or whatever name they want to call it), with the following balance: Active (10 bundles mortgage capital) and Passive (what it paid for the bundles).
If any person that worked at the banks from the General Manager to the financial Analyst knew something about it, they would probably feel disappointed. But since they don't, all of them spend most of the time congratulating each other on their weekly and monthly televised conferences and talk shows with absolutely, no idea of what's going on. third question the reader should be asking is, how the " conduits" get financed? in other words, where do they get the money to buy from the Investment Bank of Illinois those mortgage bundles? From different entities: through credits from other banks and hiring the services of investment banks who can sell the MBS's to, high risk investments Funds, hedge Funds, Insurance Co, Family Trust, etc.
By now the reader can have a well round view of the snow effect and the beginnings of very complex instrument management. But, more important, is the risk spread passed to the average consumer. However, the phase that the consumer sees, is the increasing profits and lavished broker expenses and media boost. The other phase is the small picture or invented financial structure presented here. So, any person can be mesmerized by financial promoters and invest their money in US market.
To be "financially correct", Conduits or MBS's had to astringently qualified by the rating agencies. That is why, foreign politician and regulators are seeking a role in the oversight of American markets, banks and rating agencies. These rating agencies qualify for function of solvency and liquidity, etc. This qualification read like a school report card: ' this x institution, this state, or this organization can be trusted to lend money without risk." Contrastingly, "be aware of this x institution, state, or this organization, because you might not get your money back."
The rating agencies are cataloged in different levels: AAA ( highest), AA, A, BB, C and D (they are really bad), large banks have a rating of AA, a medium bank a rating of A.
Rating agencies were supposed to qualify the conduits ( Investment Funds, Trust Funds, etc) and the emissions of the MBS ( Mortgage Backed Securities) with this levels but instead they would give them more sophisticated names to cloud the reality of this bundles. However, the bottom line was that the instrument said the same thing " they were financial crap." This is how investment grade is categorized: to the MBS which represented Prime Mortgages or the less risky ones ( AAA, AA and A), mezzanine, to the intermediate ( BBB and maybe BB), Equity, to high-risk investments, in other words, the subprimes, the ones less likely to pay (the really bad ones and the protagonist of these menageries of fragile and unfounded instruments of this crisis). investments banks put the dirt underneath the rug and distributed the better bundles or MBS (investment grade) to Conservative investors, obviously at a low interest rate. Other hedge fund managers, higher risk funds, etc., and even more aggressive entities preferred higher rentability or simply-- more risk. The reason being that "traders," managers and directors get their annual revenues in function of obtained rentability. However, we got now the MBS's left-- which are far from bad. The question is, how can they sell these backed securities with such a high rate of risk without anybody noticing?
well, some of the investment banks were able to get re-qualification from the rating agencies (this is something unheard off in the financial sector) but this will serve to understand a little bit in the coming events. The "re-rating" is an invention to spike the bad MBS's, which consist of, structuralizing them in shelves. The technical term is called, "Tranches." Within the tranches are subdivision given in the financial sector: the relative good, the regular and the really bad. There is a contractual obligation which defines the payment of those securities, and it goes as follows: " I agree to this contract that if no one pays the bad Tranche or if incurs on default, excluding only if i get revenue from the " regular tranche," and even more from the relative "good tranche," the gains will be cover by the "relative good tranche," in which can be qualified as a AAA rating. Ta-ra!!
Some specialist start calling this ' financial magic.' In the public eye this is just another mask of new financial genius and easy money. For clients like Charles, this MBS, ordered in tranches was re-baptized CDO (collateralized Debt Obligation). They could off giving it a more exotic name.
Apparently, despite all the efforts done by the investors, to maximize gains, were not sufficient. so they invent another instrument called CDS (credit default swap). In this case the buyer of CDO's, assumes the risk of losing the CDO that he bought, but if lucky, he would get a higher yield. In other words, the buyer says: " if it fails i loose and if I don't, I charge more interest." Continuing this financial revolution, the creators of this renascence of financial apogee created yet another type of instrument: the synthetic CDO. Most financial analyst and economist are -- still -- trying to decipher them, nonetheless the rentability presented by this instrument were unparalleled-- we are taking about serious gains. Moreover, those who bought the synthetic CDO's could buy them cheep and with low bank credit. Imagine that the rentability of this high instruments was such, that attracted long and prosperous companies, with long and impeccable track records. Specially insurance companies that were drooling at the idea of protecting very expensive instruments. Welcome to the party of AIG!!!!!
Please lets stop for a moment and reflect. before I keep rambling all this complex fusion of mathematical and financial jargon, and banking plots and conspiracies, I would like to remind the reader off one thing that might of been forgot on this financial triathlon. That is the fact that all this scenarios I've described is strictly based on the idea that the NINJ will pay their mortgage and that the American Real State Market will keep hovering nice and smoothly. At the beginning of 2007 the price of Real State Began its steady and inevitably decline. Most the NINJ pockets were getting hurt and like gravity, those who had a second and a third home found themselves paying more than the house was actually worth. Logically this people would have to stop paying these mortgages.
similarly, no one wanted to buy MBS, CDO, CDS, and synthetic CDO's-- and the ones who had them, couldn't sell them. " One day the Branch Manager of the Bank of London called poor Charles to tell him the horrendous news that the money he've saved and invested so vigorously had disappeared." To put it mildly, in the best of cases their clients had lost 60% of the value of the investment. Now the story broke and every body was trying to explain to Charles about the NINJ cases, about his money in the Bank of Illinois, Chicago Trust Corporation, the CDO, CDS and the synthetic CDO's!!!!!!
Notwithstanding, there is something that no one knows yet: where in hell did all this money go?!! There is a very good reason why this question does not have a definitive answer. Plainly, no one knows where it is. And when I say no one I mean no one. However the situation goes beyond, and since no one nor them knows the amount of crap inside those instruments, (investments banks included) behind back doors every single bank point fingers at each other looking for the villains. The banks won't even look at each other in the face. Although they don't trust each other they need liquidity, so they parked at the shop where all banks visit on time of insolvency -- the Interbank. The institution lends money to other banks or it doesn't or if it does requires the highest interest rate in the world. This interest rate at which they lend is called Euribor (Europe Interbak Offer Rate). Being in a pure state of insolvency, the consequences are: the non-approval of loans and mortgages. Most of what the client can do, is stare at the TV and look at the institution's stock plommeted in hopless stupor. Yet, always there is a benefiting side in the financial side of the coin. Now that the US economy is on the crapper, is the best time to stick it to them. the Central Bank of Europe porpusely starts rasing their interes rates with the Euribor at 12 months, which is the index of reference of the mortgages, sky rocketting it to an all time high. In Spain, doesn't it look suspicious that mayor banks are turning astronomical profits dispite the global receding economy?!
Another question that comes to mind is, how are banks broke? Easy. They start selling their stock to enterprices, selling their buildings and make campains so that people like Charles, invest more at better conditions. In Europe banks are offering their clients 4.5%. Incredible right. The ripple effects are felt everywhere and the places that it doesn't -- you can bet something very suspicious is happening. As a result, families in Europe feel daily living constraints, concecuense of high intrest mortgage payments.
Note to the reader: "please remember to read the small print in this contracts." Borrowers pull their hair back hopping that they have enough money to pay their rent at the end of the month.
With the down of consumerism, merchant companies buy less from the manufaturers. In this example lets make the raw material: textile (underware). the manufacturer have no idea what a NINJ is! The only detail it observes is the shortening of orders and logically, as a consequence, orders immediate employee lay-offs. In the financial market this reflects on the unemployment index or non-farm payroll, in percentages. It shows specifically the number of unemployment. Imagine the reflection in the financial maket, first is felt in the pockets of the people, near towns, cities, states and then in markets abroad.
How long is this going to last? That is a good question with a very vacillating answer, for diferent reasons. why? Because the dimension of the problem is stil unforseable. The numbers range from 500 billion to a trillion dollars and that is an a proximation, the real number could be aproaching two trillion. Also, there is not an exact data of how many people are affected. It is not even known, if, banks, like Charles' , categoricaly rank as AA, with long historical background and existance, stil have valuables in their active accounts. The amazing thing is that, the banks them selves don't know if they have it. Until the execution of mortgages by the NINJ are not done and the foreclosure properties are not sold by the banks ( at whatever price) we'll never know the exact value of the instruments: MBS, CDO, CDS and the synthetics. meanwhile, no one we'll lend to anybody!!
Some, have qualified this as the " grand Financial Sham." Other had said that the crash of 1929, in comparison with this, is a girl's game in the playing field of a convent for Nuns! A lot of traders perhaps have enriched themselves with the annual bonds and yearly yields all this years. But remember the young French banker that lost 5 billion to Bank Societe Generale just a few months ago? Where did he invest those funds? How is it that his supiriors didn't noticed? Or did they?
The financial authorities have great responsability upon what has happened here. The Norms of Basilea were design specifically to control this banking system; but they have stimulated the abuse of good financial instruments such as securitization of debts to such extends as to completely obscure and complicate the market enormously-- markets in which pretended to protect. Did you know that the US Investment banks are not regulated under the Federal Reserve in any way shape or form? The directive junctures of the financial entities involved in this mess have greater responsabilities and did not act on behave of the people in this country and probably this cheep skit of theater will banished soon with nothing resolved-- like everything else that happens of importance to the populous. And to make matters worst it probably won't make it to court. " The Investment Bank of london , the bank which Charles solely trusted with the few savings he had; because their investment was maladroit and mishandled in a bad faith; the bank is ultimately responsible for leaving his client homeless."
In conclusion, the great depression was triggered when half the banks closed, the stock market plummeted by 90 percent, and the unemployment reached 25 percent. Since late 1940's, the US has suffered through 10 recessions, with the worst lasting no more than 16 months. Everyone followed by periods of prosperity. It seems that every economic meltdownboils down to two basic inverse proporcional principles: risk and trust. More broadly, it has led to a better understanding of the downside of spreading risk so well-- it can be felt in all corner of the world, unsettleing hedge funds, banks, stock markets as far away as Australia, Thailand and Germany. In effect, reducing risk on a global scale appears to have increased it for some players. The head of the Council of Economic analysis in France has called complex securities to be scrutnized before banks are authorized to buy them. The crisis exted as far as $ 2.2 trillion on the market "rescue", financing on the day-to-day operations of businesses, as investors wonder wether the underlying assets were sound. " It's amazing how much ignorance and fear are out there," said Kevin Davis, a proffesor of finance at the University of Melboume. The principal Central Banks ( The Central Bank of europe and The Federal Reserve of the US) have injected some liquidity so that the traditional banks can operate. " Any plan that fails to stop foreclosures will ultimately fail to fix the crisis," said michael Calhoun, president of the Center of Responsability Lender. " Wall Street firms and banks caused a massive foreclosures crisis in this country, and this bailout provides no meaningful way to end it. It doesn't stop the epidemic that will continue to drag down property values for everyone. CRL estimates that the subprime foreclosures will cause 40 million homes that happen to be located nearby to lose as much as $ 352 billion in property values over the next few years. "There is nothing in the bailout that will mitigate widespread damage caused by foreclosures," he said. " the bill includes a vague provision that calls for the government to buy mortgages and securities and then try to modify them, but this will have very limited impact. Wall street splintered home loans into complex securities, making it very difficult for the government to fix the resulting scattered pieces of mortgages." It is, as if, Wall street had found the " financial magic" application to cut cocaine into crack, and feeding it to the needing class without caring about the concecuences. Effective approaches were widely available and yet ingnored in the final package-- approaches that imposed real duties on Wall Street and banks and did not cost any tax dollars. These included providing homeowner with the same rights to judicial modification of their home loan that Wall Street have for their debts, a short-term deferral of foreclosures to provide time for negociations with servicers, and requirements that the lenders at the least make an attempt to fix a loan before foreclosing. Wall Street and the banks bloked all these options, while at the same time demanding their own massive bailout. The Federal Reserve and The Department of the Tresury of the US despite the historic slide in the stock market made a $700 billion bailout package that allows the tresury to buy toxic debt from financial institution. So that they can buy mortgages, titles and other instruments--which we now know are, garbage. I would think the idea is to clean the bad wallet and the balances of the banks, investment firms and insurance companies with blemished instruments. The Home Ownership Preservation and Protection Act of 2007. This bill would help stop many abusive lending practices that led to the foreclosure crisis, including abusive prepayment penalties, yield-spread premiums (extra compensation paid to brokers that encorage them to overcharge borrowers), and lack of generally accepted underwriting practices by lenders. Already a number of states have passed or are actively considering these types of protection to prevent more unesesary forecloseures in the future. A strong federal law would guarantee minimum protections nationwide that would help stop reckless lending practices that became communplace during the subprime heyday. I think this can be put in Latin american terms very easly: what the American government have done is nationalized the loses and privatized the gains.
The Congressional budget office report says that the market drop has erased 20% of the value of Americans' retirement accounts, wiping out an austaunding $ 2 trillion since last year. " This is a financial panic right now," said financial planner Kurt Brouwer of the San Francisco, " and one reason it feels so bad is that everything is going down."Before I finish the conclusion I just wanted to mention a resent speach by Pope Benedict-- talking about the bagavond oportunist." The Pope denounces greed", said the week," the global economic crisis should lead the nations of the world back to religion." Now, isn't this a huge contradiction? It is like avarice calling avarice, greedy. " He who builds only on visible and tangible thigs like success, career and money, builds the house of life on sand," he said. I personally like the mutated part of the sentence, in contrast of what it actually translates on the Bible. " Only God's words are solid reality" of the Catholic church. Vatican City, July 6, 2007.- here is the presentation made in the mourning on the economic report of the Holy See for 2000. cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, president of the prefecturefor the Economic Affairs of the Holly See, made the presentation at a press conference. " Together with my closest collaborators, I have the pleasure of presenting the Consolidated financial Statement of the Holly See for the physical year 2000", said Cardinal Sergio Sabastiani, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, made a presentation at a press conference. " Together with my closest collaborators, I have the plesure of presenting the Consolidated Financial Statement of the Holly See for the physical year 2000", said Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani. Being a consolidated financial statement, this represent the sum of all the expenses and the income of the diverse Vatican administartions which enter into the consolidation: the Administartion of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) which is the largest; the congregation for the Evangelization of People; the Apostolic Camera; Vatican Radio; Ossevatore Romano-- Vatican Press (incorporated into one with regard to administration); the Vatican Television Center, and the Vatican Publishing House. The Vatican's revenues exeedes the 300 billion mark and it has been for eight years consecutevely. And these numbers are fact not hyperbole. However, whether the numbers are true and we could guranteed that those are the correct numbers is pure meiosis.
Today, we are all paying for the negligence, avarice and bad faith of a lot of bankers, supervisors and all the politicians that refused or could't stop the avarice of a few. We now project that almost 2.2 million subprime foreclosure will occur primiraly in late 2008 through the end of 2009, up from our original 1.1 million estimate made in 2006. additionally we estimate that 40.6 million homes in neighborhoods surrounding those foreclosure will sufer price declines averaging over $ 8,667 per home and resulting in a $352 billion total decline in property values. These new projections-- representing only property value declines caused by nearby foreclosures, not other price drops associeted with the slowdown in housing markets-- are based on CRL reasearch combined with data from Mrrill Lynch, Moody's Economy.com and the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Paradox: Henrry " Hank" Paulson and Ben Bernake had asked Congress for additional powers to administrate the crisis! Would YOU trust these people??????
FAV