| Jim Rogers webcast: Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac should not have been bailed out. Jim Rogers is one of the most successful investors in the last 50 years. He and George Soros (together with the Quantum Fund) and then separately along with Warren Buffett have made the most as investors (that I know of – I could easily be wrong).
How you want to accept their opinions on the current crisis is up to you. I believe they are worth listening to – more than anyone else. That does not mean I believe they are totally right. To me the long term track record of each is very impressive. Especially Jim Rodgers and George Soros have been making big investment gains largely on macro economic predictions in the last 20 years. |
In The Dollar is Doomed (July 2008) Jim Rogers predicts the United States Federal Reserve is so badly run it will be gone in a decade or two. I disagree with that sentiment. He certainly has much more expertise than I do but in evaluating such a comment you need to look at what really matters to him. He doesn’t need the Federal Reserve to actually cease to exist to make profitable trades based on his prediction that the Federal Reserves policies are dooming the dollar.
Another thing to note with Rogers and Soros is they will make strong statements and take huge positions but will change their mind when conditions change (often quickly). So you can’t assume what they said awhile back is still their belief today.
Related: Jim Rogers: Why would anybody listen to Bernanke? – investment books – Rodgers on the US and Chinese Economies – A Bull on China
Cost of U.S. Crisis Action Grows, Along With Debt
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The 2009 budget deficit could be close to $2 trillion, or 12.5 percent of gross domestic product, more than twice the record of 6 percent set in 1983, according to David Greenlaw, Morgan Stanley’s chief economist. Two weeks ago, budget analysts said the measures might push deficit to as much as $1.5 trillion.
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The financial health and earnings prospects of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — seized by the government on Sept. 7 to prevent them from failing — worsened in the second and third quarters, the companies’ government regulator said this week.
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On top of all that, budget watchdogs say the sheer size of the interventions is making Washington more profligate than usual. To attract votes in Congress, leaders added several costly items to the $700 billion rescue, including extensions of some tax credits and tax breaks for makers of wooden arrows and stock- car racetrack owners.
Under normal circumstances, there would have been more resistance to such expenses, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan budget watchdog.
The news sure is not yet getting better. And our failure to act responsibly in good times now seriously increase risk. Just as someone that lived far beyond their means, with excessive debt, debt on multiple credit cards… we have continually elected politicians that had our government live beyond our means for decades. And that means we don’t have the resources to pay for the measures we are talking. For now the world markets are willing to give the USA government more credit cards to finance more spending. But at some point that stops.
At some point the loans have to be paid back. The only options are large reductions in spending, large increases in taxes or just printing more and more money people don’t want to pay off loans (which will cause massive inflation). There is also the possibility of growing our way out of the problems (the equivalent of yes, I have $40,000 in credit card debt but when I make $150,000 a year paying that off will be easy). To some extent this will happen (unless things get very very bad) but the level of economic growth needed is unlikely to fix the problem we make worse every year (as we fall further and further behind). We are now spending huge amounts to money we didn’t save in the good times. That means we are mortgaging even more of our future than we already had before this mess.
Related: Financial Market Meltdown – Warren Buffett Webcast on the Credit Crisis – FDIC Limit Raised to $250,000 – Financial Markets Continue Panicky Behavior – USA Federal Debt Now $516,348 Per Household
Plan Pushed for Government to Buy Bank Stocks
George Soros published his most recent book in May 2008 – The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. Yesterday Bill Moyers Interviewed George Soros:
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This current economic disaster is self-generated. It was generated by the market itself, by getting too cocky, using leverage too much, too much credit. And it got excessive.
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The financial system is teetering on the edge of disaster. Hopefully, it will not go over the brink because it very rarely does. It only did in the 1930s. Since then, whenever you had a financial crisis, you were able to resolve it.
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the sort of period where America could actually, for instance, run ever increasing current account deficits. We could consume, at the end, six and a half percent more than we are producing. That has come to an end.
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Right now you already have 10 million homes where you have negative equity. And before you are over, it will be more than 20 million.
Related: Soros Says Credit Crisis Will Worsen Before Improving (April 2008) – Warren Buffett Webcast on the Credit Crisis – Rodgers on the US and Chinese Economies – – Personal Investment Failures
Canada’s banking system kept high and dry by strict regulation: Flaherty
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Some of the fundamentals credited with keeping Canada’s banks in the safe zone were put in place nearly a decade ago by the Liberal government of Jean Chretien, including a refusal to approve any Canadian bank mergers.
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The finance minister said Canada is in a strong position to deal with the global crisis, with a strong banking system, a stable housing market and a federal budget surplus. “Other countries have been increasing their deposit standards, but they’re still for the most part below the high Canadian standard,” he said.
Related: Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make – Too Big to Fail – What Should You Do With Your Government “Stimulus” Check? – The Budget Deficit, the Current Account Deficit and the Saving Deficit – 2nd Largest Bank Failure in USA History
Warren Buffett quotes from the interview:
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- “AIG would be doing fine today if they never heard of derivatives… I said they were possibly financial weapons of mass destruction and they have been, I mean they destroyed AIG, they certainly contributed to the destruction of Bear Stearns and Lehman”
- The biggest single cause was that we had an incredible residential real estate bubble.
- [on consuming more than we are producing] I don’t think it is the most pressing problem at all. We are trading away a little bit of our country all the time for the excess consumption that we have, over what we produce. That is not good. I think it is terrible over time.
Related: Warren Buffett related posts – Credit Crisis Continues – Credit Crisis (August 2007)
The next shoe to drop in housing
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Fannie and Freddie are demanding higher credit scores and charging higher rates for those who don’t have them. Until recently, a borrower with a 620 score might pay the same as one with a 680 score, said Victoria Bingham, chief executive with Pacific Rim Mortgage in Tigard, Ore.
But now that person might have to pay a half percentage point more. With today’s rates, that translates into 6.75% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage instead of 6.25%, or $74 more a month on a $225,000 loan, typical for her client base.
Borrowers must also put more money down, especially if they don’t have stellar credit. For instance, those with down payments of less than 5% need a credit score of at least 680, said Steven Plaisance, executive vice president of Arvest Mortgage Co. in Tulsa, Ok. Previously, he could make loans to people without big down payments if they had other strong points, such as stable employment.
Related: Federal Funds Rate and 30 Year Fixed Mortgage Rate – Mortgage Payments by Credit Score (Aug 2007) – learn about mortgage terms – Beginning of the End of Housing Bubble? – How Not to Convert Equity
Well the credit crisis triggered by the fallout from lax mortgage lending is really making waves. It seems we are likely to have some real issues to deal with. The reduction of easy money can have serious consequences to an economy especially one so based on spending beyond what it is producing. I’m still not sure what the overall impact will be but the risks certainly seem to be worth watching.
The world savings glut has overwhelmed the excessive borrowing done by the federal government and private sector and kept interest rates lower than seemed reasonable. That may finally change – or may not, isn’t economics great :-/