TARP! Now With MORE Moral Hazard!!!
by: sjwillis39
February 03, 2010 4:39 PM
One of the most striking things in the report is the lack of problems that were supposed to be addressed but haven't. From the executive summary:
The substantial costs of TARP - in money, moral hazard effects on the market, and Government credibility - will have been for naught if we do nothing to correct the fundamental problems in our financial system and end up in a similar or even greater crisis in two, or five, or ten years' time. It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been
addressed to date.• To the extent that huge, interconnected, "too big to fail" institutions contributed to the crisis, those institutions are now even larger, in part because of the substantial subsidies provided by TARP and other bailout programs.
• To the extent that institutions were previously incentivized to take reckless risks through a "heads, I win; tails, the Government will bail me out" mentality, the market is more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save systemically significant institutions. This perception was reinforced when TARP was extended until October 3, 2010, thus permitting Treasury to
maintain a war chest of potential rescue funding at the same time that banks that have shown questionable ability to return to profitability (and in some cases are posting multi-billion-dollar losses) are exiting TARP programs.• To the extent that large institutions' risky behavior resulted from the desire to justify ever-greater bonuses - and indeed, the race appears to be on for TARP recipients to exit the program in order to avoid its pay restrictions - the current bonus season demonstrates that although there have been some improvements in the form that bonus compensation takes for some executives, there has been little fundamental change in the excessive compensation culture on Wall Street.
• To the extent that the crisis was fueled by a "bubble" in the housing market, the Federal Government's concerted efforts to support home prices - as discussed more fully in Section 3 of this report - risk re-inflating that bubble in light of the Government's effective takeover of the housing market through purchases and guarantees, either direct or implicit, of nearly all of the residential mortgage market.
Further on the report says that it is now in explicit policy of the government to prop up housing and could very well re-inflate the housing bubble.
To the extent that the crisis was fueled by a "bubble" in the housing market, the Federal Government's concerted efforts to support home prices risk re-inflating that bubble in light of the Government's effective takeover of the housing market through purchases and guarantees, either direct or implicit, of nearly all of the residential mortgage market...Supporting home prices is an explicit policy goal of the Government. As the White House stated in the announcement of HAMP for example, "President Obama's programs to prevent foreclosures will help bolster home prices."
Here are the programs that been set up to support prices and their intended consequences (click to enlarge):
For all of the support that is going into this I still think once the support is taken away the bottom will fall out and find the true bottom for what is sustainable.
I am so glad that this emergency legislation was passed by our leaders who had to act and thought that they were wise enough to take over the mortgage market. Remember this "to the extent that institutions were previously incentivized to take reckless risks through a "heads, I win; tails, the Government will bail me out" mentality, the market is more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save systemically significant institutions."
Before it was only assumed that large companies wouldn't be allowed to fail now it is practically official government policy, the tax payers will get screwed over again. When politicians say "no more bailouts" they really mean that we will have perpetual bailouts.
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