After selling my house and resettling, I'm finally back to the point where I can finish answers to old posts that the list (sorta) returned too.
> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of John Williams > Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 4:05 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Re: My contribution to the bail-out > > Dan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > As had been mentioned here before, they are both very highly leveraged. > My > > memory is that Barclay's leveraged 30 to 1 and Deutsche Bank is > leveraged about > > 50 to 1. > > > > That means a modest run on ether bank will result in them becoming > unable to > > give people who request the money they put in the bank that money. > > You persist in oversimplifying, and in ignoring creditors and bondholders. > I wonder > if you have ever studied the balance sheet of a bank? > > I have mentioned before, and even given a link to a nice explanation, that > for the large US investment banks, if they are declared insolvent and put > into receivership, that there is enough debt to cover the bad assets > without costing the customers and countparties a dime. First, it isn't that simple, as the cascade of events following LB's bankruptcy illustrated very nicely. Second, I looked at a number of your posts, and the link I found was to a Hoover Institute guy (I hope you can see how I find this ironically apropos) who argued for a "market based" solution based on 1) Allowing a return to the accounting rules under which the S&L collapse occurred. 2) Eliminating (or drastically reducing reserve requirements. I was in Houston when it was the epicenter of the S&L mess (which also came after a spell of regulators looking the other way because government regulation was bad.....another of many coincidences, I suppose). What happened was simple to understand. The oil market had collapsed around '87. US rig count had fallen to around 750 IIRC. There were massive layoffs (in the 50% range) of good paying jobs. As a result, the Houston housing market had a collapse of epic proportions. Maybe the Nevada collapse matched it in absolute terms, but there were new 2200 sq. ft. homes in nice new neighborhoods going for $30,000. Granted, there's been inflation since then, but that's about $60k in today's money. But, banks hid their exposure to this by keeping the homes listed at the old values, not the new market values. On paper, they had no problem. Homes that couldn't be sold for 50k were being listed at 100k. This accounting fiction lasted only for a while, during which things continued to get worse. Finally, the Feds were caught paying a bundle. The second part of the proposal would allow banks to play it closer to the edge. But, if you noticed the folks who got in trouble first were the highest leveraged folks.....and that the banks with 10% M1 reserves were a more manageable problem. I cannot imagine why 2% margins or 0.2% margins would make everything all right. > I haven't looked at the balance sheets of Barclay's or Deutsche Bank, but > I would guess that they are in the same situation. There are two things worth noting. The balance sheets in question changed daily, aye, hourly. Since the S&L crisis, mark to market was demanded. So, the best guess of the market value had to be used as the value in the accounting. So, yes, I've looked at a number of balance sheets, including those which involved smoke and mirrors. I did look at the 2007 Barkley's and Deutsche Bank, and it was clear to me that the short term debt overwhelmed any ability of short term assets and subordinate bonds (which I think are the ones you are referring to....those folks who don't have accounts with the bank but own bonds issued by the bank like Ford issues bonds to raise money. They were clearly held up by the long term value of their loan packages, and were in no position to handle a run on the bank by those folks who had the right to ask for their money NOW. There are 40 _trillion_ of credit default swaps out there. Financial institutions have made such complicated deals, and, with the leverage they have, they can wake up on Wednesday with a +10 billion balance sheet and go to bed below water. Let's look If you disagree, then perhaps you can > take a look at their balance sheets and tell us what you find? I hope you think I covered that fairly well above. The data shows that if there was a run on short term liabilities (savings, checking, short term paper) for either of these banks, then the banks didn't have the assets (even assuming all of the bondholders assets were included) to cover those assets. Even with the intervention, I can personally see the effects of credit tightening. Checks from in-state banks which always cleared overnight took eight days to clear. When we closed on our house, the buyers had to reconfirm that they had the loan the day of the closing....a new standard procedure....even though they had 20% down, had a locked in mortgage, a good credit rating and were very much under the limit for % of income as household expenses. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
