What About Greedy Bankers?

Some like to point out that Wall Street creating the easy home securities like ARM and sub-prime loans, but realize that Wall Street would not have been able to create these things if Alan wouldn’t have allowed interest rates to drop well below market rates.

Its Official, Alan Greenspan Is To Blame | PennyJobs

Not sure I agree with the statement (it seems like a circular argument), but I, too, place a lot of blame on Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. And my opinion isn’t influenced, in this case, by the fact that I think the Fed does too much. It’s based on the idea that one of the, if not THE, central functions of the Federal Reserve is to regulate banks and other financial institutions.

The Fed failed in its oversight of the banks; in fact, they encouraged risky behavior. I think they were of the mind that all of these “derivatives” were reducing — if not eliminating — the risk naturally inherent in risk-based securities. After all, mortgages, for example, have inherent risks and their priced almost solely according to this risk (in the form of the interest rate).

A simple economic lesson: Higher interest rate = Higher perceived risk

As interest rates dropped to historically low numbers, the market clearly perceived lower risk. But people still lose jobs, hurricanes still happen, blight still occurs.

As the bubble inflated, more and more people pumped more and more air into it. As a bubble expands, it becomes more likely to burst.

And BURST it did.

It would be interesting to know what the money multiplier was during the early 2000s versus other 5- or 10-year periods. I would guess that it was rather high.

Technorati Tags: Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve, the Fed, Fed, Wall Street, Mortgage Meltdown, Credit Crunch, interest rates, housing, recession

One sure sign that the markets may be getting ahead of themselves this summer: Wall Street banks are recommending each other’s shares again.

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Bill’s take on this: Yes, we should all be very, very afraid. It always bugged me that banks recommended banks, the “watchdog” SEC and Moody’s, S&P, and other rating agencies not only didn’t “get” the economic downturn we’re all living in, but they showed a complete negligence about the disaster. Further, they all have conflicts of interest.

For example, the rating agencies. Take S&P. (Please!) They “rate” securities, presumably on risk. The riskier the underlying securities, for example, on a bond, the riskier the bond, the lower the rating. (First off, does anybody understand the rating system? Why can’t it simply be A-F? Why quadruple double-A, which means, not so good? I made that up, but you know what I mean.)

However, the S&P benefits by giving good ratings. If a company gets poorly-rated, they don’t do ANY business with S&P, which has a whole host of business services it sells Wall Street firms.

In the interest of “transparency,” then, a rating agency really should have no other duty. I don’t know how they’d make money, but that’s for them to figure out.

You cannot tell me that the “risk” side doesn’t take the potential lost business into consideration. I bet the “risk” side even takes some heat from the revenue-generating side.

Used to be, investing in an index was a sound investment idea. Now that all the parties are having affairs and inbreeding, I’m not so sure.