Soros on the failure of markets to self-regulate

George Soros decided to respond to my previous post by penning an editorial in today's FT. He is rather sanguine calling the credo that stable equilibrium is a given a "False Ideology at the heart of the financial crisis".

From the FT:

The innovations remained unregulated because authorities believe markets are self-correcting.

Regulators ought to have known better because it was their intervention that prevented the financial system from unravelling on several occasions. Their success has reinforced the misconception that markets are self-correcting. That in turn allowed a bubble of excessive credit to develop, which extended through the entire financial system. When the subprime mortgage crisis erupted it revealed all the weak points.


Soros then rings two alarms: 1/CDS markets 2/jingle mail.


Instead of reshuffling regulatory agencies, the authorities ought to prepare for the next shoes to drop. I shall mention only two. There is an esoteric financial instrument called credit default swaps. The notional amount of CDS contracts outstanding is roughly $45,000bn. To put it into perspective, that is about equal to half the total US household wealth and about five times the national debt. The market is totally unregulated and those who hold the contracts do not know whether their counterparties have adequately protected themselves. If and when defaults occur, some of the counterparties are likely to prove unable to fulfil their obligations. This prospect hangs over the financial markets like a sword of Damocles that is bound to fall, but only after some defaults have occurred. That must have played a role in the Fed’s decision not to allow Bear Stearns to fail. One possible solution is to establish a clearing house or exchange with a sound capital structure and strict margin requirements to which all existing and future contracts would have to be submitted. That would do more good in clearing the air than a grand regulatory reorganisation.


What he is basically calling for is an exchange for these CDS. Transparency is what these markets really need first and foremost and therefore a clearing market would expose this "shadow banking" system. My brother deals in them in Europe, I will have to ask him what he thinks of this type of regulation :) Let there be light!


The other issue is rising foreclosures. About 40 per cent of the 6m subprime loans outstanding will default in the next two years. The defaults of option-adjustable-rate mortgages and other mortgages subject to rate reset will be of the same order of magnitude but occur over a longer period. With single family home sales running at an annual rate of 600,000, foreclosures will overwhelm the market and cause prices to overshoot on the downside. This will swell the number of homeowners with negative equity who may be tempted to turn in their keys. The fall in house prices will become practically bottomless until the government intervenes. Cutting foreclosures should be a priority but the measures so far are public relations exercises.


He is calling for the govt intervention to stabilize housing prices and preventing them from collapsing further. The natural collapse as the market readjust is sure to continue wrecking havoc on the banking system. It is already under tremendous stress, if not insolvent as is, without further deterioration of the housing market.

He then indulges in bashing the Bush administration for its ideological goofiness:

The Bush administration has resisted using taxpayers’ money because of its market fundamentalist ideology. Apart from a bipartisan fiscal stimulus, it has left the conduct of policy largely to the Fed.


The Bush administration has NOT resisted using taxpayers' money. It has SPLURGED on it. The fact that the FED are committing 30B in Bear, swapping half its balance sheet ($400B) for dead-mice collateral and the tax-relief all are "using taxpayers money". I like it when there is political and ideological grand standing around questions of money. It doesn't mean anything, it is ideological, the rules are set, nothing that is said is relevant and only the money counts but you listen to the politicos :)

In fact one of the surest ways to know you are discussing ideology is when the debates get heated. Since there is no right or wrong, a debate degenerates into passionate defense of your favorite color. In questions of money, there is usually a right way, for example right now the modus operandi is "SAVE THE SYSTEM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY", and because that way is so clear, nobody REALLY discusses it. It is much more fun to discuss the IMAGE we have of ourselves that of big boys on horses, wild free and afraid of nothing while sucking at the tit of the Fed any time there is a rumbling in the distance.

Comments

pcleddy said…
"the rules are set"

Me thinks, the second define doth suit the moment. Yo.

Main Entry: rig
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): rigged; rig·ging
Etymology: rig, noun, a swindle
Date: 1851

1 : to manipulate or control usually by deceptive or dishonest means [rig an election]
2 : to fix in advance for a desired result [rig the contest]
adt43wt342 said…
Funny, always this obsession with words. I did toy with the word "rig" when I wrote that part, but I thought it would imply too much. Truth be told even after reading stuff like "The Creature from Jekyll Island" (Can't remember if it was you that recommended it), I have a tough time throwing the conspiracy flag. Clearly it benefits the banks and the people in charge of them but it also benefits the "system". In other words it is rigged to the extent that saving the banks is saving the system. I may be naive, but I still do believe that some people in govt (non-elected mostly) do try the best they can. Describing the head of the FED as nothing more than a puppet at the hand the Great Fabian Conspiracy for World Domination is a little spooky.

When I think about it, the conspiracy says "socialization of capitalism by debasing of the currency and FIAT money", which... well we are well on our way to realize.
adt43wt342 said…
Conspiracy in Govt?

DO NOT ASSUME MALICE WHERE INCOMPETENCE WILL DO
Roy Russo said…
Soros?

Limousine liberal.

I'm out!

;-)
Anonymous said…
Soros is right about the jingle mail. It will be mindboggling (is already in FLA and the IE of CA, Mich, Ohio, Ind, and parts of Ga (south Atlanta), speading in the south and NE, etc...).

It is not a bottomless pit, however, except where copious amounts of gasoline are required to get around. There the prices could go to near zero over time. 80x monthly rent is a possible overshoot at the bottom. 120-130x monthly rent is normal income valuation. A premium over that should be justified by scarcity/location/something.


At 80x monthly rent we will see 20 million foreclosures between now and 2012-14.

Unless the Govt / Banks lower the principal balance so the house has around 5% equity, people will walk.

That means there are a lot of $500K mortgages that will need to be reduced to $200K-$250K.

OR... forgive the debt and erase the credit blemish for all primary home foreclosures over the next 5 years to enable people to get back in the game (at a much lower price point) to fill up the empty houses with owners.

BTW, incompetence coupled with greed (the financial industry, REIC, and many of the people buying multiple houses or too much house or HELOCing for the boob job, Hummer, vacation) explain most of our problem with this housing/credit situation. No one could possibly dream up a conspiracy and control it on this scale!
adt43wt342 said…
Hey Roy,

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Oh, come on! I was counting on you for humorous grand-standing with one line political cliches...
adt43wt342 said…
The mortgage reset wave is probably in its way. Purchasing the MBS securities and going back to "hold" them is probably a good way to set the floor on the downgrades.

Do not assume smarts and malice where incompetence and greed will do-- Army NoVa's take on a old classic.
Roy Russo said…
I can't leave this blog. It'd just be you, Pierre, and some random Frenchmen arguing with no clear direction. This blog needs an aenima!

Remember I was fired 300 times at JBoss... I never left.
Anonymous said…
En effet!

:P
Anonymous said…
Roy, I'm not arguing with Marc!

Soros isn't my biggest hero by a long shot....but he "gets it". Probably remembers Southern Calif or the NE in the early 1990s, as I do Austin wrt real estate.

As one of the Rothchilds said as Napolean was on the march, "buy when there is blood in the street".

Any blood running down your street yet? :-) ...

I told one of my best friends who lives in Orlando and made a fortune on real estate over the past 25 years - "When you tell me real estate is a terrible investment, I'm retiring from Red Hat and we'll go buy houses/commercial/whatever in FLA!".

He laughed in Jan 2007...in 2008, well he was in a much more somber mood (though he sold a bunch of stuff before the bust).
Roy Russo said…
When real estate tanks, banks go under, and people get kicked out of houses they can't afford, its called a correction.

What am I missing? Looks to me like the markets really do self-regulate.
Tango Juliet said…
A really interesting point of view based on this original article about foreclosures.
adt43wt342 said…
Roy
If every time there is a market correction the banking system needs to be bailed out do you call that SELF correction?
Roy Russo said…
Marc,

Self-correction is when we don't bail them out. Then what happens? Shallow or deep recession? Depression? Bank-run? We'll never know, since the government won't let the markets self-correct.

The real question should be: Is the present/future cost of this bailout, less than the present/future cost of letting this self-correct?
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