Roubini: US & global financial crisis becoming much more severe.. risk of total systemic meltdown

[RedEarth]

Nouriel Roubini | Sep 29, 2008
It is obvious that the current financial crisis is becoming more severe in spite of the Treasury rescue plan (or maybe because of it as this plan it totally flawed). The severe strains in financial markets (money markets, credit markets, stock markets, CDS and derivative markets) are becoming more severe rather than less severe in spite of the nuclear option (after the Fannie and Freddie $200 billion bazooka bailout failed to restore confidence) of a $700 billion package: interbank spreads are widening (TED spread, swap spreads, Libo-OIS spread) and are at level never seen before; credit spreads (such as junk bond yield spreads relative to Treasuries are widening to new peaks; short-term Treasury yields are going back to near zero levels as there is flight to safety; CDS spread for financial institutions are rising to extreme levels (Morgan Stanley ones at 1200 last week) as the ban on shorting of financial stock has moved the pressures on financial firms to the CDS market; and stock markets around the world have reacted very negatively to this rescue package (US market are down about 3% this morning at their opening).


Let me explain now in more detail why we are now back to the risk of a total systemic financial meltdown…



It is no surprise as financial institutions in the US and around advanced economies are going bust: in the US the latest victims were WaMu (the largest US S&L) and today Wachovia (the sixth largest US bank); in the UK after Northern Rock and the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB you now have the bust and rescue of B&B; in Belgium you had Fortis going bust and being rescued over the weekend; in German HRE, a major financial institution is also near bust and in need of a government rescue. So this is not just a US financial crisis; it is a global financial crisis hitting institutions in the US, UK, Eurozone and other advanced economies (Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.).


And the strains in financial markets – especially short term interbank markets - are becoming more severe in spite of the Fed and other central banks having literally injected about $300 billion of liquidity in the financial system last week alone including massive liquidity lending to Morgan and Goldman. In a solvency crisis and credit crisis that goes well beyond illiquidity no one is lending to counterparties as no one trusts any counterparty (even the safest ones) and everyone is hoarding the liquidity that is injected by central banks. And since this liquidity goes only to banks and major broker dealers the rest of the shadow banking system has not access to this liquidity as the credit transmission mechanisms is blocked.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/253801/the_us_and_global_financial_crisis_is_becoming_much_more_severe_in_spite_of_the_treasury_rescue_plan_the_risk_of_a_total_systemic_meltdown_is_now_as_high_as_ever

[Skink]

1. Congress could buy the bad debt. That does not however solve the liquidity crisis.

[RedEarth]

3. That's why Roubini is in favor of a HOLC program

"The Treasury plan also does not explicitly include an HOLC-style program to reduce across the board the debt burden of the distressed household sector; without such a component the debt overhang of the household sector will continue to depress consumption spending and will exacerbate the current economic recession."

........

We need a new HOLC - more than a new RTC or RFC- to provide massive debt relief to the household sector. We need to create the HOME (Home Owners’ Mortgage Enterprise)

Nouriel Roubini | Sep 19, 2008
In the last two weeks financial markets reached near panic conditions with almost every day another major financial institution on the verge of collapse (first Fannie and Freddie, then Lehman, then Merrill, then AIG and now Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, WaMu, Wachovia and other banks under pressure), money markets seizing up and interbank spreads spiking like never before, Treasury bills yields plummeting as investors were seeking the safety of near cash instruments, credit spreads surging and stock markets tumbling on Monday and Wednesday. Even the Washington policy makers finally realized that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and that their ad hoc step-by-step and unsystematic approach to resolving this crisis was not working and the effect of ad hoc and band-aid policies in boosting market confidence was fizzling out. Indeed , after the March bailout of Bear Stearns markets rallied for two months; after the July announcement that Fannie and Freddie may be rescued markets rallied for three weeks; after the announcement of the actual bailout of Fannie and Freddie last week markets rallied for only one day on Monday and went into a tailspin starting on Tuesday with the worries about Lehman and other broker dealers; and after the bailout of AIG stock markets did not even rally: actually they tumbled almost 5% on Wednesday while money markets and credit markets went into a total seizure.

So by Wednesday this week as markets were in total panic (stock prices collapsing, interbank spread surging to levels never seen before, credit spreads reaching new highs and Treasury bill rates practically down to zero as investors rushed to safety) the policy authorities decided that something more radical – that many of us had advocated for a long time – needed to be done. The most important policy action is not the decision of extending the swap lines between central banks (so as to provide dollar liquidity to non-US banks abroad); it is not the re-imposition of limits to short sales (a policy action that is itself a naked attempt to manipulate upward stock prices); it is rather the realization that a generalized debt and solvency problem required a solution that leads to significant debt reduction.





http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253653/we_need_a_new_holc_-_more_than_a_new_rtc_or_rfc-_to_provide_massive_debt_relief_to_the_household_sector_we_need_to_create_the_home_home_owners_mortgage_enterprise

[Waiting For Everyman]

7. Exactly right. There is no changing a mortgage w/o refinancing it.

It. can't. be. done. It needs to be available to all in default and FAST, with a moratorium on foreclosures for a while.

We need to ban mortgage backed securities from now on.

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Joanne98]

4. He says meltdown on Wednesday or Thursday morning.

When investors don’t trust any more even venerable institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs you know that the financial crisis is as severe as ever and the fear of collapse of counterparties does not spare anyone. When a nuclear option of a monster $700 billion rescue plan is not even able to rally stock markets (as they are all in free fall today) you know this is a global crisis of confidence in the financial system. We were literally close to a total meltdown of the system on Wednesday (and Thursday morning) two weeks ago when the $85 b bailout of AIG led to a 5% fall in US stock markets (instead of a rally). Then the US authorities went for the nuclear option of the $700 billion plan as a way to avoid the meltdown together with bans on short sales, a guarantee of money market funds and an injection of over $300 billion in the financial system. Now the prospect of this plan passing (but there is some lingering deal risk the votes in the House are not certain) -as well as the other massive policy actions taken to stop short selling “speculation” and support interbank markets and money market funds - is not sufficient to make the markets rally as there is a generalized loss of confidence in financial markets and in financial institutions that no policy action seem to be able to control.

[Astrad]

6. He was speaking of the 'almost' meltdown two weeks ago.

[girl gone mad]

5. This crisis has been completely mishandled,

start to finish.