August « 2009 « TheCenterLane.com

A Helluva Read

August 31st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 31 2009

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August 31, 2009

We are constantly being bombarded with predictions and opinions about where the economy is headed. Since last fall’s financial crisis, people have seen their home values reduced to shocking levels; they’ve seen their investments take a nosedive and they’ve watched our government attempt to respond to crises on several fronts. There have been numerous programs including TARP, TALF, PPIP and quantitative easing, that some of us have tried to understand and that others find too overwhelming to approach. When one attempts to gain an appreciation of what caused this crisis, it quickly becomes apparent that there are a number of different theories being espoused, depending upon which pundit is doing the talking. One of my favorite explanations of what caused the financial crisis came from William K. Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law. In his lecture: The Great American Bank Robbery (which can be seen here) Black explains that we have a culture of corruption at the highest levels of our government, which, combined with ineptitude, allowed some of the sleaziest people on Wall Street to nearly destroy our entire financial system.

William Black recently participated in a conference with a group of experts associated with the Economists for Peace and Security and the Initiative for Rethinking the Economy. The panel included authorities from all over the world and met in Paris on June 15 – 16. A report on the meeting was prepared by Professor James K. Galbraith and was published by The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. The paper, entitled Financial and Monetary Issues as the Crisis Unfolds, is available here. At 16 pages, the document goes into great detail about what has been going wrong and how to address it, in terms that are understandable to the layperson. Here’s how the report was summarized in the Preface:

Despite some success in averting a catastrophic collapse of liquidity and a decline in output, the group was pessimistic that there would be sustained economic recovery and a return of high employment. There was general consensus among the group that the pre-crisis financial system should not be restored, that reviving the financial sector first was not the way to revive the economy, and that governments should not pursue exit strategies that permit a return to the status quo. Rather, the crisis exposes the need for profound reform to meet a range of physical and social objectives.

As to the question of where we are now, at the current stage of the economic crisis, Professor Galbraith recalled one panel member’s analogy to the eye of a hurricane:

The first wall of the storm has passed over us: the collapse of the banking system, which engendered panic and a massive public sector rescue effort. At rest in the eye, we face the second: the bankruptcy of states, provinces, cities, and even some national governments, from California, USA, to Belgium. Since this is a slower process involving weaker players, complicated questions of politics, fairness, and solidarity, and more diffused system risk, there is no assurance that the response by capable actors at the national or transnational level will be either timely or sufficient, either in the United States or in Europe.

There is plenty to quote from in this document, especially in light of the fact that it provides a good deal of sound, constructive criticism of our government’s response to the crisis. Additionally, the panel offered solutions you’re not likely to hear from politicians, most of whom are in the habit of repeating talking points, written by lobbyists.

Focusing on the situation here in the United States, the report gave us some refreshing criticism, especially in the current climate where commentators are stumbling over each other to congratulate Ben Bernanke on his nomination to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman:

American participants were almost equally skeptical of the effectiveness of the U.S.approach to date. As one put it, “Diabetes is a metabolic disease.” Elements of a metabolic disease can be treated (here, “stimulus” plays the role of insulin), but the key to success is to deal with the underlying metabolic problem. In the economic sphere, that problem lies essentially with the transfer of resources and power to the top and the dismantling of effective taxing power over those at the top of the system. (The speaker noted that the effective corporate tax rate for the top 20 firms in the United States is under 2 percent.) The effect of this is to create a “trained professional class of retainers” who devote themselves to preserving the existing (unstable) system. Further, there were massive frauds in the origination of mortgages, in the ratings processes that led to securitization, and in the credit default swaps that were supposed to insure against loss. In the policy approach so far, there is a consistent failure to address, analyze, remedy, and prosecute these frauds.

* * *

Meanwhile, major legislation from health care to bank reform continues to be written in consultation with the lobbies; as one speaker noted, legislation on credit default swaps was being prepared by “Jamie Dimon and his lobbyists.”

One of the gravest dangers to economic recovery, finally, lies precisely in the crisis-fatigue of the political classes, in their lack of patience with a deep and intractable problem, and with their inflexible commitment to the preceding economic order. This feeds denial of the problem, a deep desire to move back to familiar rhetorical and political ground, and the urge to declare victory, groundlessly and prematurely. As one speaker argued, the U.S.discussion of “green shoots” amounts to little more than politically inspired wishful thinking — a substitute for action, at least so far as hopes for the recovery of employment are concerned.

Lest I go on, quoting the whole damned thing, I’ll simply urge you to take a look at it. At the conclusion of the paper was the unpleasant point that some of the damage from this crisis has been irreversible. There was an admonition that before undertaking reconstruction of the damage, some careful planning should be done, inclusive of the necessary safeguards to make it possible to move forward.

Whether or not anyone in Washington will pay serious attention to these findings is another issue altogether. Our system of legalized graft in the form of lobbying and campaign contributions, guarantees an uphill battle for anyone attempting to change the status quo.

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The SEC Is Out To Lunch

August 27th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 27 2009

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August 27, 2009

Back on January 5, I wrote a piece entitled: “Clean-Up Time On Wall Street” in which I pondered whether our new President-elect and his administration would really “crack down on the unregulated activities on Wall Street that helped bring about the current economic crisis”. I quoted from a December 15 article by Stephen Labaton of The New York Times, examining the failures of the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the environment at the SEC that facilitated such breakdowns. Some of the highlights from the Times piece included these points:

. . . H. David Kotz, the commission’s new inspector general, has documented several major botched investigations. He has told lawmakers of one case in which the commission’s enforcement chief improperly tipped off a private lawyer about an insider-trading inquiry.

* * *

There are other difficulties plaguing the agency. A recent report to Congress by Mr. Kotz is a catalog of major and minor problems, including an investigation into accusations that several S.E.C. employees have engaged in illegal insider trading and falsified financial disclosure forms.

I then questioned the wisdom of Barack Obama’s appointment of Mary Schapiro as the new Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, quoting from an article by Randall Smith and Kara Scannell of The Wall Street Journal concerning Schapiro’s track record as chair of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA):

Robert Banks, a director of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, an industry group for plaintiff lawyers . . . said that under Ms. Schapiro, “Finra has not put much of a dent in fraud,” and the entire system needs an overhaul. “The government needs to treat regulation seriously, and for the past eight years we have not had real securities regulation in this country,” Mr. Banks said.

* * *

In 2001 she appointed Mark Madoff, son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, to the board of the National Adjudicatory Council, the national committee that reviews initial decisions rendered in Finra disciplinary and membership proceedings.

I also quoted from a two-part op-ed piece for the January 3 New York Times, written by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, and David Einhorn. Here’s what they had to say about the SEC:

Created to protect investors from financial predators, the commission has somehow evolved into a mechanism for protecting financial predators with political clout from investors. (The task it has performed most diligently during this crisis has been to question, intimidate and impose rules on short-sellers — the only market players who have a financial incentive to expose fraud and abuse.)

Keeping all of this in mind, let’s have a look at the current lawsuit brought by the SEC against Bank of America, pending before Judge Jed S. Rakoff of The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The matter was succinctly described by Louise Story of The New York Times:

The case centers on $3.6 billion bonuses that were paid out by Merrill Lynch late last year, just before that firm was merged with Bank of America. Neither company disclosed the bonuses to shareholders, and the S.E.C. has charged that the companies’ proxy statement about the merger were misleading in their description of the bonuses.

To make a long story short, Bank of America agreed to settle the case for a mere $33 million, despite its insistence that it properly disclosed to its shareholders, the bonuses it authorized for Merrill Lynch & Co employees. The mis-handling of this case by the SEC was best described by Rolfe Winkler of Reuters. The moral outrage over this entire matter was best expressed by Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker. Denninger’s bottom line was this:

It is time for the damn gloves to come off. Our economy cannot recover until the scam street games are stopped, the fraudsters are removed from the executive suites (and if necessary from Washington) and the underlying frauds – particularly including the games played with the so-called “value” of assets on the balance sheets of various firms are all flushed out.

On a similarly disappointing note, there is the not-so-small matter of: “Where did all the TARP money go?” You may have read about Elizabeth Warren and you may have seen her on television, discussing her role as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, tasked with scrutinizing the TARP bank bailouts. Neil Barofsky was appointed Special Investigator General of TARP (SIGTARP). Why did all of this become necessary? Let’s take another look back to last January. At that time, a number of Democratic Senators, including: Russ Feingold (Wisconsin), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), Evan Bayh (Indiana) and Maria Cantwell (Washington) voted to oppose the immediate distribution of the second $350 billion in TARP funds. The vote actually concerned a “resolution of disapproval” to block distribution of the TARP money, so that those voting in favor of the resolution were actually voting against releasing the funds. Barack Obama had threatened to veto this resolution if it passed. The resolution was defeated with 52 votes (contrasted with 42 votes in favor of it). At that time, Obama was engaged in a game of “trust me”, assuring those in doubt that the second $350 billion would not be squandered in the same undocumented manner as the first $350 billion. As Jeremy Pelofsky reported for Reuters on January 15:

To win approval, Obama and his team made extensive promises to Democrats and Republicans that the funds would be used to better address the deepening mortgage foreclosure crisis and that tighter accounting standards would be enforced.

“My pledge is to change the way this plan is implemented and keep faith with the American taxpayer by placing strict conditions on CEO pay and providing more loans to small businesses,” Obama said in a statement, adding there would be more transparency and “more sensible regulations.”

Although it was a nice-sounding pledge, the new President never lived up to it. Worse yet, we now have to rely on Congress, to insist on getting to the bottom of where all the money went. Although Elizabeth Warren was able to pressure “Turbo” Tim Geithner into providing some measure of disclosure, there are still lots of questions that remain unanswered. I’m sure many people, including Turbo Tim, are uncomfortable with the fact that Neil Barofsky is doing “too good” of a job as SIGTARP. This is probably why Congress has now thrown a “human monkey wrench” into the works, with its addition of former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins to the Congressional Oversight Panel. Expressing his disgust over this development, David Reilly wrote a piece for Bloomberg News, entitled: “Wall Street Fox Beds Down in Taxpayer Henhouse”. He discussed the cynical appointment of Atkins with this explanation:

Atkins was named last week to be one of two Republicans on the five-member TARP panel headed by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren. He replaces former Senator John Sununu, who stepped down in July.

* * *

And while a power-broker within the commission, Atkins was also seen as the sharp tip of the deregulatory spear during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Atkins didn’t waver from his hands-off position, even as the credit crunch intensified. Speaking less than two months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Atkins in one of his last speeches at the SEC warned against calls for a “new regulatory order.”

He added, “We must not immediately jump to the conclusion that failures of firms in the marketplace or the unavailability of credit in the marketplace is caused by market failure, or indeed regulatory failure.”

When I spoke with him yesterday, Atkins hadn’t changed his tune. “If the takeaway by some people is that deregulation is the thing that led to problems in the marketplace, that’s completely wrong,” he said. “The problems happened in the most heavily regulated areas of the financial-services industry.”

Regulated by whom?

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Invoking Thomas Paine

August 24th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 24 2009

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August 24, 2009

In January of 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a 48-page pamphlet, entitled: Common Sense, in which he argued the case that the American colonies should be independent from Britain. He published the pamphlet anonymously, providing only a hint of authorship with the statement: “Written by an Englishman”. This aspect of Paine’s pamphlet brings to mind the debate over the issue of anonymity in the blogosphere, which became quite heated-up this past weekend. As it turned out, a writer for one of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, who uses the surname “Whitehouse”, targeted the Zero Hedge website, accusing its publisher (who uses the pseudonym: Tyler Durden — i.e. Brad Pitt’s character from the movie Fight Club) of being a fellow who was “banned from the securities industry” for making $780 on an “insider” trade. For whatever reason, Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith (whose real name is Susan Webber) saw fit to write a posting (now removed from the site) critical of the “messianic zeal and strident tone” of the material at Zero Hedge, despite the fact that Tyler Durden has written many guest posts for her own Naked Capitalism site. She also criticized the use of pseudonyms by bloggers, particularly at financial sites — because the practice “raises questions about credibility”. She differentiated her own situation with the explanation that her true identity could be ascertained with only “a modicum of digging”. Making a point more supportive of Zero Hedge, she shared her suspicion about the motive behind the attempt to identify Tyler Durden as a disgraced trader:

. . . this story is appearing now precisely because Durden is getting to close to some even more damaging stories than he has provided thus far.

Ms. Smith (or Webber) believes that “Tyler Durden” is actually a pseudonym used by a number of writers at Zero Hedge.

As a result of that posting, Naked Capitalism lost one of its best contributors: Leo Kolivakis of Pension Pulse, whose final contribution to Naked Capitalism can be found here. Mr. Kolivakis then immediately joined the team at Zero Hedge, providing this explanation. When reading his posting, be sure to read the comments, which are always entertaining at Zero Hedge.

I enjoy both Naked Capitalism and Zero Hedge and I will continue to keep them both on my blogroll, despite this dust-up. In response to the intrigue concerning the identity of Tyler Durden, his cohort, Marla Singer submitted this proposed op-ed piece to The New York Times, reminding readers of the anonymous writings by Thomas Paine.

This past weekend brought us another invocation of Thomas Paine, with the publication of a piece entitled: “Common Sense 2009”, which appeared in The Huffington Post. The author did not conceal his identity, since he has made a point of generating controversy about himself throughout his life. He was none other than Larry Flynt. Flynt began with the explanation that last fall’s financial crisis was caused by the fact that “the financial elite had bribed our legislators to roll back the protections enacted after the Stock Market Crash of 1929”. He rightfully criticized President Obama for attempting to lay part of the blame for this disaster on “Main Street”. Beyond that, he noted how Obama continues to facilitate the same bad behavior that started this mess:

To date, no serious legislation has been offered by the Obama administration to correct these problems.

Instead, Obama wants to increase the oversight power of the Federal Reserve. Never mind that it already had significant oversight power before our most recent economic meltdown, yet failed to take action. Never mind that the Fed is not a government agency but a cartel of private bankers that cannot be held accountable by Washington. Whatever the Fed does with these supposed new oversight powers will be behind closed doors.

Obama’s failure to act sends one message loud and clear: He cannot stand up to the powerful Wall Street interests that supplied the bulk of his campaign money for the 2008 election. Nor, for that matter, can Congress, for much the same reason.

Larry Flynt then offered a bold solution to break the hold of the plutocracy that has been controlling our country for too long:

I’m calling for a national strike, one designed to close the country down for a day. The intent? Real campaign-finance reform and strong restrictions on lobbying. Because nothing will change until we take corporate money out of politics. Nothing will improve until our politicians are once again answerable to their constituents, not the rich and powerful.

Let’s set a date. No one goes to work. No one buys anything. And if that isn’t effective — if the politicians ignore us — we do it again. And again. And again.

This initiative is a much more effective and constructive use of populist rage than what saw at recent “town hall” meetings and “teabagging” events. Besides: If anyone knows what can and cannot be accomplished by “teabagging” – it’s Larry Flint.

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Searching For A Port In A Storm Of Bad Behavior

August 20th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 20 2009

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August 20, 2009

Since I began complaining about manipulation of the stock markets back on December 18, I’ve been comforted by the fact that a number of bloggers have voiced similar concerns. At such websites as Naked Capitalism, Zero Hedge, The Market Ticker and others too numerous to mention — a common theme keeps popping up: some portion of the extraordinary amounts of money disseminated by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve is obviously being used to manipulate the equities markets. One paper, released by Precision Capital Management, analyzed the correlation between those days when the Federal Reserve bought back Treasury securities from investment banks and “tape painting” during the final minutes of those trading days on the stock markets.

Eliot “Socks” Spitzer recently wrote a piece for Slate, warning the “small investor” about a “rigged” system, as well as the additional hazards encountered due to routine breaches of the fiduciary duties owed by investment firms to their clients:

Recent rebounds notwithstanding, most people now are asking whether the system is fundamentally rigged. It’s not just that they have an understandable aversion to losing their life savings when the market crashes; it’s that each of the scandals and crises has a common pattern: The small investor was taken advantage of by the piranhas that hide in the rapidly moving currents. And underlying this pattern is a simple theme: conflicts of interest that violated the duty the market players had to their supposed clients.

The natural reaction of the retail investor to these hazards and scandals often involves seeking refuge in professionally-managed mutual funds. Nevertheless, as Spitzer pointed out, the mutual fund alternative has dangers of its own:

Mutual funds charge exorbitant fees that investors have to absorb — fees that dramatically reduce any possibility of outperforming the market and that are set by captive boards of captive management companies, not one of which has been replaced for inadequate performance, violating their duty to guard the interests of the fund investors for whom they supposedly work.

Worse yet, is the fact that mutual funds are now increasing their fees and, in effect, punishing their customers for the poor performance of those funds during the past year. Financial planner Allan Roth, had this to say at CBS MoneyWatch.com:

After one of the most awful years in the history of the mutual fund industry, when the average U.S. stock fund and international fund fell by 39 percent and 46 percent respectively, you might expect fund companies would give investors a break and lower their fees. But just the opposite is true.

An exclusive analysis for MoneyWatch.com by investment research firm Morningstar shows that over the past year, fund fees have risen in nearly every category. For stock funds, the fees shot up by roughly 5 percent.

* * *

Every penny you pay in fees, of course, lowers your return. In fact, my research indicates that each additional 0.25 percent in annual fees pushes back your financial independence goal by a year.

What’s more, the only factor that is predictive of a fund’s relative performance against similar funds is fees. A low-cost domestic stock fund is likely to outperform an equivalent high-cost fund, just as a low-cost bond fund is likely to outperform an equivalent high-cost fund. . . . As fund fees increase, performance decreases. In fact, fees explained nearly 60 percent of the U.S. stock fund family performance ratings given by Morningstar. Numerous studies done to predict mutual fund performance indicate that neither the Morningstar rating nor the track record of the fund manager were indicative of future performance.

Another questionable practice in the mutual fund industry — the hiring of “rookies” to manage the funds — was recently placed under the spotlight by Ken Kam for the MSN TopStocks blog:

In this market, it’s going to take skill to make back last year’s losses. After a 40% loss, it takes a 67% gain just to get back to even. You would think that mutual funds would put their most experienced managers and analysts to work right now. But according to Morningstar, the managers of 28 out of 48 unique healthcare funds, almost 60%, (see data) have less than five years with their fund. I think you need to see at least a five-year track record before you can even begin to judge a manager’s worth.

I’m willing to pay for good management that will do something to protect me if the market crashes again. But I want to see some evidence that I am getting a good manager before I trust them with my money. I want to see at least a five-year track record. If I paid for good management and I got a rookie manager with no track record instead, I would be more than a little upset.

Beyond that, John Authers of Morningstar recently wrote an article for the Financial Times, explaining that investors will obtain better results investing in a stock index fund, rather than an “actively managed” equity mutual fund, whether or not that manager is a rookie:

For decades, retail savers have invested in stocks via mutual funds that are actively managed to try to beat an index. The funds hold about 100 stocks, and can raise or lower their cash holdings, but cannot bet on stocks to go down by selling them short.

This model has, it appears, been savaged by a flock of sheep.

Index investing, which cuts costs by replicating an index rather than trying to beat it, has been gaining in popularity.

Active managers argued that they could raise cash, or move to defensive stocks, in a downturn. Passive funds would track their index over the edge of the cliff.

But active managers, in aggregate, failed to do better than their indices in 2008.

So … if you have become too frustrated to continue investing in stocks, be mindful of the fact that equity-based mutual funds have problems of their own.

As for other alternatives: Ian Wyatt recently wrote a favorable piece about the advantages of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for SmallCapInvestor.com. Nevertheless, if the stocks comprising those ETFs (and the ETFs themselves) are being traded in a “rigged” market, you’re back to square one. Happy investing!

DISCLAIMER: NOTHING CONTAINED ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE CONSTITUTES ANY INVESTING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION. ANY PURCHASES OR SALES OF SECURITIES OR OTHER INVESTMENTS ARE SOLELY AT THE DISCRETION OF THE READER.

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Ron Paul Struts His Stuff

August 17th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 17 2009

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August 17, 2009

Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has become quite a popular guy, lately. Back on February 26, he sponsored his own bill, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, (HR 1207) which would give the Government Accountability Office authority to audit the Federal Reserve and its member components, requiring a report to Congress by the end of 2010. On July 29, a Rasmussen poll revealed that 75 percent of those surveyed were in favor of auditing the Federal Reserve, with only 9 percent opposed to such a measure. Lew Rockwell’s website recently featured an article by Anthony Gregory, discussing the Rasmussen poll results and the popularity of Ron Paul’s proposed legislation:

While much of the hostility toward Obama’s domestic policy might be seen in partisan terms, distrust of the Fed completely transcends typical ideological or partisan lines. While all Congressional Republicans support Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed, so do more than a hundred Democrats, demonstrating the impact of the wide public outrage over the Washington-Wall Street shenanigans since the financial downturn.

The Federal Reserve, a centerpiece in the bipartisan establishment, an essential component in both war finance and economic management, is now the least trusted government agency. More than two thirds of Americans do not believe the Fed is doing a good job. Two years ago, virtually no one even talked about the Fed; it was an obscure institution assumed to be necessary, wise and uninteresting. Anyone who brought it up was accused of being outside the sphere of respectable opinion. Now its champions are on the defensive, and they are desperately scrambling to restore public awe for the central bank behind the curtain.

But the opposition to Obama’s economic policies, both on the right and on the anti-corporate left who view his ties to the banking industry with suspicion, along with a growing disappointment on the left as it concerns civil liberties and war, may eventually constrain Obama.

The mistrust of the Fed, discussed by Mr. Gregory, was based on a Gallup Poll, also conducted during July, which revealed that the Federal Reserve is now “the least trusted” of all government-related entities.

Despite protests from the academic world and an unsupportive editorial from The Washington Post, support for Ron Paul’s bill continues to gain momentum. Howard Rich, Chairman of Americans for Limited Government, wrote a favorable commentary on this proposal, pointing out that he initially thought it was a rather strange idea. He eventually looked at the situation with this rationale:

From its founding in 1913, the Fed has existed as an island of almost total independence — setting interest rates, managing inflation and regulating banks according to the will of its Chairman and seven-member Board of Directors.

It cannot be audited. Its ledger is not disclosed. Its meetings are private. Its decisions are not up for debate.

Of course, this ongoing shroud of secrecy ignores the fact that the Fed — as it exists today — is a completely different animal than it was even two years ago.

No longer merely a “regulatory” agency, the Fed has used the current economic crisis as an excuse to dramatically expand its role. With zero transparency, accountability and effectiveness, it has printed and loaned trillions of dollars since mid-2007 in a costly and unsuccessful effort to mitigate fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The question of where those trillions of dollars went is exactly what is on the minds of most people demanding more accountability from the Fed. Was any favoritism involved in determining what banks received how much money? Dean Baker wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian, arguing against the re-appointment of Ben Bernanke for another term as the Fed chairman. The subject of favoritism in the Fed’s response to last fall’s financial meltdown was apparently a matter of concern to Mr. Baker:

By this measure, Bernanke’s performance is very poor. He has refused to provide the public, or even the relevant congressional committees, with information on the trillions of dollars in loans that were made through the Fed’s special lending facilities. While anyone can go to the Treasury’s website and see how much each bank received through Tarp and under what terms, Bernanke refuses to share any information on the loans that banks and other institutions received from the Fed.

Where we do have information, it is not encouraging. At the peak of the financial crisis in October, Goldman Sachs converted itself from an investment bank into a bank holding company, in part so that it could tap an FDIC loan guarantee programme. Remarkably, Bernanke allowed Goldman to continue to act as an investment bank, taking highly speculative positions even after it had borrowed $28bn with the FDIC’s guarantee.

The idea that the Federal Reserve could loan trillions of dollars to unidentified beneficiaries on secret terms has resulted in outrage from across the political spectrum. In his rebuttal to The Washington Post‘s editorial criticizing Ron Paul’s Fed transparency initiative, Independent (and self-avowed socialist) Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had this to say:

This legislation wouldn’t undermine the Fed’s independence, and it wouldn’t put Congress in charge of monetary policy. An audit is simply an examination of records or financial accounts to check their accuracy.

We must not equate “independence” with secrecy. No matter how intelligent or well-intentioned the Fed chairman and his staff may be, it isn’t appropriate to give a handful of people the power to lend an unlimited supply of money to anyone it wants without sufficient oversight.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The American people have a right to know what is being done with their hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This money does not belong to the Fed; it belongs to the American people.

The tremendous upsurge in support for the Federal Reserve Transparency Act was obviously what motivated Ron Paul to write an essay on the matter for Sunday’s edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer. With such a strong wind at his back, he confidently trashed the arguments of his opponents and began the piece with this assertion:

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented intervention into the U.S. economy has inflamed more Americans than almost any other issue in recent memory.

Congressman Paul then proceeded to pound away at the criticism of his bill, reminding me of a boxer, who sees blood flowing down into his opponent’s eyes:

The most conservative estimates place the potential cost of the Federal Reserve’s bailouts and guarantees at about $9 trillion. That is equivalent to more than 60 percent of the U.S.economy, all undertaken by one organization, and almost all of those transactions are exempt from congressional oversight and public scrutiny.

The Fed and its apologists are using bogeymen to deflect criticism. If the Fed were audited, they argue, monetary policy would be compromised as Congress tries to direct the Fed’s actions, and the Fed’s record of economic stability and low inflation would come to an end. Nothing could be further from the truth.

* * *

The Fed’s mismanagement created the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970s, and now our current economic crisis. Over the nearly100 years of the Fed’s existence, the dollar has lost nearly 95 percent of its purchasing power. A “mild” rate of inflation of 2 percent per year means that a baby born today will see the dollar’s purchasing power erode by a further 75 percent over his lifetime. If this boondoggle is the Fed’s definition of stability and sound management of the dollar, I would hate to see what instability looks like.

Yet that is exactly what we face today and in the near future with a federal government and a Federal Reserve working hand in hand to bail out favored Wall Street firms with sums of money that have quickly reached absurd proportions.

* * *

The fact that a single entity, the Federal Reserve, has dominated monetary policy for so long has been detrimental to the economy. As long as we try to keep up the fictions that the Federal Reserve works to benefit the American people, that attempting to fix interest rates will not distort the economy, and that the Fed can end a recession by injecting liquidity, we will never free ourselves from the boom and bust of the business cycle.

A necessary first step to restoring economic stability in this country is to audit the Fed, to find out the multitude of sectors in which it has involved itself, and, once the audit has been completed, to analyze the results and determine how the Fed should be reined in.

When one sees a former Republican Presidential primary contender enjoy this type of momentum, the inevitable question is whether Ron Paul might make another run for the White House. Justin Miller had this on his mind last month when he discussed this subject for The Atlantic:

Paul is just as plausible a candidate to run for the Republican nomination as are Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, or Mike Huckabee who were tested in polls this month. Like them, Paul’s run for the White House (twice) before and has said he isn’t opposed to doing it again, albeit he said it’s “unlikely.” What’s more likely, based on the circumstantial evidence, is that the Republican voters would receive Paul better than they did last year. Feature him in polls from now on and we can test this hypothesis.

As President Obama continues to alienate the liberal base of the Democratic Party, Ron Paul might be just the person the Republicans would want to nominate in 2012. He’ll be 77 years old at that point — just in time for a single term.

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An Ominous Drumbeat Gets Louder

August 13th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 13 2009

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August 13, 2009

Regular readers of this blog (all four of them) know that I have been very skeptical about the current “bear market rally” in the stock markets. Nevertheless, the rally has continued. However, we are now beginning to hear opinions from experts claiming that not only is this rally about to end — we could be headed for some real trouble.

Some commentators are currently discussing “The September Effect” and looking at how the stock market indices usually drop during the month of September. Brett Arends gave us a detailed history of the September Effect in Tuesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Throughout the summer rally, a number of analysts focused on the question of how this rally could be taken seriously with such thin trading volume. When the indices dropped on Monday, many blamed the decline on the fact that it was the lowest volume day for 2009. However, take a look at Kate Gibson’s discussion of this situation for MarketWatch:

One market technician believes trading volume in recent days on the S&P 500 is a sign that the broad market gauge will test last month’s lows, then likely fall under its March low either next month or in October.

The decline in volume started on Friday and suggests the S&P 500 will make a new low beneath its July 8 bottom of 869.32, probably next week, on the way to a test in September or October of its March 6 intraday low of 666.79, said Tony Cherniawski, chief investment officer at Practical Investor, a financial advisory firm.

“In a normal breakout, you get rising volume. In this case, we had rising volume for a while; then it really dropped off last week,” said Cherniawski, who ascribes the recent rise in equities to “a huge short-covering rally.”

The S&P has rallied more than 50 percent from its March lows, briefly slipping in late June and early July.

Friday’s rise on the S&P 500 to a new yearly high was not echoed on the Nasdaq Composite Index, bringing more fodder to the bearish side, Cherniawski said.

“Whenever you have tops not confirmed by another major index, that’s another sign something fishy is going on,” he said.

What impressed me about Mr. Cherniawski’s statement is that, unlike most prognosticators, he gave us a specific time frame of “next week” to observe a 137-point drop in the S&P 500 index, leading to a further decline “in September or October” to the Hadean low of 666.

At CNNMoney.com, the question was raised as to whether the stock market had become the latest bubble created by the Federal Reserve:

The Federal Reserve has spent the past year cleaning up after a housing bubble it helped create. But along the way it may have pumped up another bubble, this time in stocks.

* * *

But while most people take the rise in stocks as a hopeful sign for the economy, some see evidence that the Fed has been financing a speculative mania that could end in another damaging rout.

One important event that gave everyone a really good scare took place on Tuesday’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC. Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel (responsible for scrutiny of the TARP bailout program) discussed the fact that the “toxic assets” which had been the focus of last fall’s financial crisis, were still on the books of the banks. Worse yet, “Turbo” Tim Geithner’s PPIP (Public-Private Investment Program) designed to relieve the banks of those toxins, has now morphed into something that will help only the “big” banks (Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, et al.) holding “securitized” mortgages. The banks not considered “too big to fail”, holding non-securitized “whole” loans, will now be left to twist in the wind on Geithner’s watch. The complete interview can be seen here. This disclosure resulted in some criticism of the Obama administration, coming from sources usually supportive of the current administration. Here’s what The Huffington Post had to say:

Warren, who’s been leading the call of late to reconcile the shoddy assets weighing down the bank sector, warned of a looming commercial mortgage crisis. And even though Wall Street has steadied itself in recent weeks, smaller banks will likely need more aid, Warren said.

Roughly half of the $700 billion bailout, Warren added, was “don’t ask, don’t tell money. We didn’t ask how they were going to spend it, and they didn’t tell how they were going to spend it.”

She also took a passing shot at Tim Geithner – at one point, comparing Geithner’s handling of the bailout money to a certain style of casino gambling. Geithner, she said, was throwing smaller portions of bailout money at several economic pressure points.

“He’s doing the sort of $2 bets all over the table in Vegas,” Warren joked.

David Corn, a usually supportive member of the White House press corps, reacted with indignation over Warren’s disclosures in an article entitled: “An Economic Time Bomb Being Mishandled by the Obama Administration?” He pulled no punches:

What’s happened is that accounting changes have made it easier for banks to contend with these assets. But this bad stuff hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s literally been papered over. And it still has the potential to wreak havoc. As the report puts it:

If the economy worsens, especially if unemployment remains elevated or if the commercial real estate market collapses, then defaults will rise and the troubled assets will continue to deteriorate in value. Banks will incur further losses on their troubled assets. The financial system will remain vulnerable to the crisis conditions that TARP was meant to fix.

* * *

In a conference call with a few reporters (myself included), Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor heading the Congressional Oversight Panel, noted that the biggest toxic assets threat to the economy could come not from the behemoth banks but from the “just below big” banks. These institutions have not been the focus of Treasury efforts because their troubled assets are generally “whole loans” (that is, regular loans), not mortgage securities, and these less-than-big banks have been stuck with a lot of the commercial real estate loans likely to default in the next year or two. Given that the smaller institutions are disproportionately responsible for providing credit to small businesses, Warren said, “if they are at risk, that has implications for the stability of the entire banking system and for economic recovery.” Recalling that toxic assets were once the raison d’etre of TARP, she added, “Toxic assets posed a very real threat to our economy and have not yet been resolved.”

Yes, you’ve heard about various government efforts to deal with this mess. With much hype, Secretary Timothy Geithner in March unveiled a private-public plan to buy up this financial waste. But the program has hardly taken off, and it has ignored a big chunk of the problem (those”whole loans”).

* * *

The Congressional Oversight Panel warned that “troubled assets remain a substantial danger” and that this junk–which cannot be adequately valued–“can again become the trigger for instability.” Warren’s panel does propose several steps the Treasury Department can take to reduce the risks. But it’s frightening that Treasury needs to be prodded by Warren and her colleagues, who characterized troubled assets as “the most serious risk to the American financial system.”

On Wednesday morning’s CNBC program, Squawk Box, Nassim Taleb (author of the book, Black Swan — thus earning that moniker as his nickname) had plenty of harsh criticism for the way the financial and economic situations have been mishandled. You can see the interview with him and Nouriel Roubini here, along with CNBC’s discussion of his criticisms:

“It is a matter of risk and responsibility, and I think the risks that were there before, these problems are still there,” he said. “We still have a very high level of debt, we still have leadership that’s literally incompetent …”

“They did not see the problem, they don’t look at the core of problem. There’s an elephant in the room and they did not identify it.”

Pointing his finger directly at Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Obama, Taleb said policymakers need to begin converting debt into equity but instead are continuing the programs that created the financial crisis.

“I don’t think that structural changes have been addressed,” he said. “It doesn’t look like they’re fully aware of the problem, or they’re overlooking it because they don’t want to take hard medicine.”

With Bernanke’s term running out, Taleb said Obama would be making a mistake by reappointing the Fed chairman.

Just in case you aren’t scared yet, I’d like to direct your attention to Aaron Task’s interview with stock market prognosticator, Robert Prechter, on Aaron’s Tech Ticker internet TV show, which can be seen at the Yahoo Finance site. Here’s how some of Prechter’s discussion was summarized:

“The big question is whether the rally is over,” Prechter says, suggesting “countertrend moves can be tricky” to predict. But the veteran market watcher is “quite sure the next wave down is going to be larger than what we’ve already experienced,” and take major averages well below their March 2009 lows.

“Well below” the Hadean low of 666? Now that’s really scary!

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Jobs And Propaganda

August 10th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 10 2009

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August 10, 2009

On Friday, Wall Street celebrated a “less bad” Employment Situation Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although the consensus estimate for jobs lost during the month of July was 345,000 — the report from the BLS on Friday recited that non-farm payrolls decreased by 247,000. You may have heard the BLS referred to as the “Bureau of Lies and Statistics” by those who see BLS reports as “cooked data” for propaganda purposes. Criticism of the spin given to the report could be found at the Zero Hedge website, which featured an entry with the title: “The Truth Behind Today’s BLS Report” with quotes from such authorities as consulting economist John Williams and economist David Rosenberg. Mr. Rosenberg was quoted as providing this caveat:

It may be dangerous to extrapolate today’s report into a view that we are about to turn the corner on the job market front.

At The Atlantic Online, Daniel Indiviglio wrote a piece entitled: “Did the Unemployment Rate Really Go Down?” Among his points were these:

As a recession drags on for this long, and people are unable to find jobs, they begin leaving the workforce. They become discouraged regarding job prospects. BLS offers an unemployment rate that includes these discouraged workers. In June 2009, that was 10.1%. For July, it was 10.2%.

Given this change in unemployment including discouraged workers, I think it’s pretty clear that the 0.1% decrease in the reported unemployment rate can be misleading. In reality, those who would like a job but don’t have one increased by 0.1% up to10.2%.

* * *

I just think we need to be careful not to get too excited about today’s numbers. Although they appear to show a decrease in the unemployment rate, the deeper numbers show the contrary. We may see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’ve got a ways to go.

Claims of “good news” about the unemployment picture are regularly contradicted, if not by our own personal experiences, then by those of our relatives and friends. Beyond that, we see daily reports of middle-class families using food stamps for the first time in their lives and we read about escalating bankruptcy filings.

One article I found particularly interesting was written by Nancy Cook for Newsweek on August 7. It concerned the problems faced by teenagers this year, who sought summer jobs. They weren’t able to get those jobs because they found themselves “competing with unemployed adults who are now willing to take positions that were considered entry-level in prerecessionary times.” Ms. Cook discussed how the inability of teenagers to obtain summer jobs impairs their personal and professional development:

Where does that leave high-school- and college-age students, apart from spending their summers lying on the couch? It leaves them with little income and, worse, few job skills, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “It hurts their ability to get jobs in the future,” he says. Teens who work in high school and college on average earn salaries 16 percent higher than teens who don’t work, according to the center’s research.

* * *

Working summer jobs certainly translates into higher earning power in the long term, but more important, it gives teens “soft skills.” Those skills teach them to be punctual, write professional e-mails, and work well in teams. “There’s lots of evidence that shows that employers place a high premium on those skills,” Sum says. “If you don’t work, you develop cultural signals from other kids, from the streets, or from sitting at home in front of a computer, which is the worst way to learn how to get along with people.”

I find it difficult to believe that normal, human, retail investors would find so much encouragement from reading about the BLS report. The use of the BLS data to justify Friday’s market pop appears as just another excuse to explain the ongoing inflation of equities prices, caused by banks playing with TARP and other bailout money for their own benefit.

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Doubts Concerning The Stock Market Rally

August 6th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 06 2009

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August 6, 2009

As of today (Wednesday night) the current “bear market rally” continues to surprise people with its longevity. On the other hand, many news outlets, including The Washington Times and CNBC are declaring a “New Bull Market”. There seems to be no shortage of commentators proclaiming that the market indices will continue to climb forever.

Back on planet earth, there is a good deal of commentary about the suspicious activity behind this rally. In my last posting, I discussed the “Plunge Protection Team” or PPT. Rather than repeat all that, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the PPT, I will quote the handy definition at the Hamzei Analytics website:

Plunge Protection Team has been the “Working Group” established by law in 1988 to buy the markets should declines get out of control. It is suspected by many market watchers that PPT has become far more interventionist than was originally intended under the law. There are no minutes of meetings, no recorded phone conversations, no reports of activities, no announcements of intentions. It is a secret group including the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Head of the SEC, and their surrogates which include some of the large Wall Street firms. The original objective was to prevent disastrous market crashes. Lately it seems, they buy the markets when they decide the markets need to be bought, including the equity markets. Their main resource is the money the Fed prints. The money is injected into markets via the New York Fed’s Repo desk, which easily shows up in the M-3 numbers, warning intervention was near. As of April 2006, M-3 is longer reported.

Many of us have looked to the PPT as the driving force behind this rally. News sources have claimed that the rally is the result of money “coming into the markets from the sidelines” — implying that crisis-wary investors had finally thrown caution to the wind and jumped into the equities markets to partake in the orgy of newfound wealth. The cash accumulating in the investors’ money market accounts was supposedly being invested in stocks. This propaganda was quickly debunked by the folks at the Zero Hedge website, with the following revelation:

Most interesting is the correlation between Money Market totals and the listed stock value since the March lows: a $2.7 trillion move in equities was accompanied by a less than $400 billion reduction in Money Market accounts!

Where, may we ask, did the balance of $2.3 trillion in purchasing power come from? Why the Federal Reserve of course, which directly and indirectly subsidized U.S.banks (and foreign ones through liquidity swaps) for roughly that amount. Apparently these banks promptly went on a buying spree to raise the all important equity market, so that the U.S. consumer whose net equity was almost negative on March 31, could have some semblance of confidence back and would go ahead and max out his credit card.

Similar skepticism was voiced by Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker website:

So once again we have The Fed blowing bubbles, this time in the equity markets, with (another) wink and a nod from Congress. This explains why there has been no “great rush” for individual investors to “get back in”, and it explains why the money market accounts aren’t being drained by individuals “hopping on the bus”, despite the screeching of CNBC and others that you better “buy now or be priced out”, with Larry Kudlow’s “New Bull Market” claim being particularly offensive.

Unfortunately the banksters on Wall Street and the NY Fed did their job too well – by engineering a 50% rally off the bottom in March while revenues continue to tank, personal income is in the toilet and tax receipts are in freefall they have exposed the equity markets for what they have (unfortunately) turned into — a computer-trading rigged casino with the grand lever-meister being housed at the NY Fed.

* * *

No, real buying is just that – real buying from real retail investors who believe in the forward prospects for the economy and business, not funny-money Treasury and MBS buying by The Fed from “newly created bank reserves” funneled back into the market via high-speed computers. The latter is nothing more than a manufactured ramp job that will last only until “the boyz” get to the end of their rope (and yes,that rope does have an end) as the fractional creation machine does run just as well in reverse, and as such “the boyz” cannot allow the trade to run the wrong way lest it literally destroy them (10:1 or more leverage is a real bitch when its working against you!)

Is it coming to an end now? Nobody can be certain when, but what is certain is that over the last week or so there have been signs of heavy distribution – that is, the selling off of big blocks of stock into the market by these very same “boyz.” This is not proof that the floor is about to disappear, but it is an absolute certainty that these “players” are protecting themselves from the possibility and making sure that if there is to be a bagholder, it will be you.

Many commentators, including Joseph Saluzzi of Themis Trading, have explained how the practice of computer-driven “High-Frequency Trading” has added approximately 70 percent of “volume” to the equities markets. This is accomplished because the exchanges pay a quarter-of-a-penny rebate to High-Frequency Trading firms for each order they place, waiving all transaction fees. As a result, the “big boy” firms, such as J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, will make trades with their own money, buying and selling shares at the same price, simply for the rebates. Those pennies can add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

I recently came across a very interesting paper (just over eight pages in length) entitled: A Grand Unified Theory of Market Manipulation, published by Precision Capital Management. The paper describes a tug of war between Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke and the New York Fed, that is playing out in the equities and Treasury securities markets. The authors suggest that if Bernanke’s biggest threat is high long-term Treasury yields (interest rates), the easiest way to prevent or postpone a yield ramp would be to kill the stock market rally and create a “flight to safety in Treasuries” – situation that lowers long-term yields. The paper describes how the New York Fed facilitates “painting the tape” in the stock markets to keep the rally alive. For those of you who don’t know what that expression means, here’s a definition:

An illegal action by a group of market manipulators buying and/or selling a security among themselves to create artificial trading activity, which, when reported on the ticker tape, lures in unsuspecting investors as they perceive an unusual volume.

After causing a movement in the security, the manipulators hope to sell at a profit.

Instead of accusations that the PPT is the culprit doing the tape painting during the final minutes of the trading day, we again see a focus on the New York Fed as the facilitator of this practice. Here’s the explanation given in the paper by Precision Capital Management:

The theory for which we have the greatest supporting evidence of manipulation surrounds the fact that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRNY) began conducting permanent open market operations (POMO) on March 25, 2009 and has conducted 42 to date. Thanks to Thanassis Strathopoulos and Billy O’Nair for alerting us to the POMO Effect discovery and the development of associated trading edges. These auctions are conducted from about 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on pre-announced days. In such auctions, the FRNY permanently purchases Treasury securities from selected dealers, with the total purchase amount for a day ranging from about $1.5 B to $7.5 B. These days are highly correlated with strong paint-the-tape closes, with the theory being that the large institutions that receive the capital interjections are able to leverage this money by 100 to 500 times and then use it to ramp equities.

As for the all-important question of how the authors expect this to play out, they focus on what might happen at the market close on August 5:

And, while it is a bit early to favor one side or the other, we are currently leaning toward a nervous Bernanke and the need to ramp Treasuries at the expense of equities into August 9. Equities have had more than a nice run and can suffer a bit of a correction. Key will be watching the close on Wednesday. A failed POMO paint the tape close could signal that an equities correction of at least a few weeks has gotten underway.

What we saw on Wednesday afternoon was just that. At approximately 3 p.m. there was an effort to push the S&P 500 index into positive territory for the first time that day, which succeeded for just a few minutes. The index then dropped back down, closing .29 percent lower than the previous close. Does this mean that a market correction is underway? Time will tell. With the S&P 500 index at 1002 as I write this, many experts consider the market to be “overbought”. Fund manager Jeremy Grantham, who has been entrusted to invest over $89 billion of his customers’ hard-inherited money, is of the opinion that the current fair value for the S&P 500 should be just below 880. Thus, there is plenty of room for a correction. The answer to the question of whether that correction is now underway should be something we will learn rather quickly.

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More Windfalls For Wall Street

August 3rd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Aug, 03 2009

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August 3, 2009

At a time when states and municipalities are going broke, foreclosures are on the rise and bankruptcies are skyrocketing, it’s nice to know that the Federal Reserve keeps coming up with new and inventive ways to enrich the investment banks on Wall Street.

I’ve often discussed the involvement of the Federal Government in “propping up” (manipulating) the stock markets since the onset of the financial crisis, nearly one year ago. The so-called “Plunge Protection Team” or PPT was created during the Reagan administration to prevent stock market crashes after the October 19, 1987 event. Although the PPT has been called an “urban myth” by many skeptics, there is plenty of documentation as to its existence. Its formal name is the Working Group on Financial Markets. It was created by Executive Order 12631 on March 18, 1988, which appears at 53 FR 9421, 3 CFR 559, 1988 Comp. You can read the Executive Order here. Much has been written about the PPT over the years since 1988. Brett Fromson wrote an article about it for The Washington Post on February 23, 1997. Here is a paragraph from that informative piece:

In the event of a financial crisis, each federal agency with a seat at the table of the Working Group has a confidential plan. At the SEC, for example, the plan is called the “red book” because of the color of its cover. It is officially known as the Executive Directory for Market Contingencies. The major U.S.stock markets have copies of the commission’s plan as well as the CFTC’s.

In October of 2006, two years before the financial meltdown, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote an interesting piece about the PPT for the Telegraph. Here’s some of what he had to say:

The PPT was once the stuff of dark legends, its existence long denied. But ex-White House strategist George Stephanopoulos admits openly that it was used to support the markets in the Russia/LTCM crisis under Bill Clinton, and almost certainly again after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“They have an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem,” he said.

“In 1998, there was the Long Term Capital crisis, a global currency crisis. At the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together and propped up the currency markets. And they have plans in place to consider that if the stock markets start to fall,” he said.

Back on September 13, 2005, The Prudent Investor website featured a comprehensive report on the PPT. It referenced a paper by John Embry and Andrew Hepburn. Here is an interesting passage from that essay:

A thorough examination of published information strongly suggests that since the October 1987 crash, the U.S. government has periodically intervened to prevent another destabilizing stock market fall. And as official rhetoric continues to toe the free market line, manipulation has become increasingly apparent. Almost every floor trader on the NYSE, NYMEX, CBOT and CME will admit to having seen the PPT in action in one form or another over the years.

The conclusion reached in The Prudent Investor‘s article raises the issue of moral hazard, which continues to be a problem:

But a policy enacted in secret and knowingly withheld from the body politic has created a huge disconnect between those knowledgeable about such activities and the majority of the public who have no clue whatsoever. There can be no doubt that the firms responsible for implementing government interventions enjoy an enviable position unavailable to other investors. Whether they have been indemnified against potential losses or simply made privy to non-public government policy, the major Wall Street firms evidently responsible for preventing plunges no longer must compete on anywhere near a level playing field.

That point brings us to the situation revealed in a recent article by Henny Sender for the Financial Times on August 2. Although, the PPT’s involvement in the equities markets has been quite low-profiled, the involvement one PPT component (the Federal Reserve) in the current market for mortgage-backed securities has been quite the opposite. In fact, the Fed has invoked “transparency” (I thought the Fed was allergic to that) as its reason for tipping off banks on its decisions to buy such securities. As Mr. Sender explained:

The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party.

However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention to buy particular securities in advance. A former Fed official said this strategy enables banks to sell these securities to the Fed at an inflated price.

The resulting profits represent a relatively hidden form of support for banks, and Wall Street has geared up to take advantage. Barclay’s, for example, e-mails clients with news on the Fed’s balance sheet, detailing the share of the market in particular securities held by the Fed.

“You can make big money trading with the government,” said an executive at one leading investment management firm. “The government is a huge buyer and seller and Wall Street has all the pricing power.”

A former official of the US Treasury and the Fed said the situation had reached the point that “everyone games them. Their transparency hurts them. Everyone picks their pocket.”

* * *

Larry Fink, chief executive of money manager BlackRock, has described Wall Street’s trading profits as “luxurious”, reflecting the banks’ ability to take advantage of diminished competition.

So let’s get this straight: When Republican Congressman Ron Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (HR 1207) which would give the Government Accountability Office authority to audit the Federal Reserve and its member components for a report to Congress, there was widespread opposition to the idea of transparency for the Fed. However, when Wall Street banks are tipped off about the Fed’s plans to buy particular securities and the public objects to the opportunistic inflation of the pricing of those securities by the tipped-off banks, the Fed emphasizes a need for transparency.

Perhaps Ron Paul might have a little more luck with his bill if he could demonstrate that its enactment would be lucrative for the Wall Street banks. HR 1207 would find its way to Barack Obama’s desk before the next issue of the President’s Daily Brief.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, American capitalism, Andrew Hepburn, audit the Federal Reserve, bad publicity, bank bailout, banking crisis, Barack Obama, Barclays, Bill Clinton, Blackrock, blog, Brett Fromson, centrist, Commentary, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, Congressional oversight of the Fed, conservative, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dow Jones industrial average, economics, economists, equities markets, Executive Order 12631, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, Financial Stability Plan, Financial Times, George Stephanopoulos, Government Accountability Office, Henny Sender, HR 1207, investment banks, John Burke, John Embry, John T Burke Jr, Larry Fink, liberal, market manipulation, moral hazard, More Windfalls For Wall Street, NASDAQ 100 index, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, opacity, Opinion, Plunge Protection Team, Political, Politics, PPT, President of the United States, Republican, Republican Party, Ron Paul, S&P 500 index, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, self-dealing insiders, socialized loss and privatized gain, Standard and Poors 500, stock markets, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The Prudent Investor, the red book, the Telegraph, The Washington Post, The White House, thecenterlane, Treasury Department, Troubled Asset Relief Program, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street meltdown, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, Working Group on Financial Markets

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