They Really Can't Get Out Of Town Fast Enough

The short answer about where the economy is headed is that the only economic activity that seems to be booming are yard sales and gun sales. The longer answer is that the way this bailout is being handled is incredibly dangerous and threatens turning this slowdown into the D-word that nobody wants to talk about.

The banks are starting to get their money in return for an equity stake by the Treasury Department, but they aren't using it to make loans, which is after all the core function of a bank. They seem to be hoarding it so they can - buy up smaller banks.

Given the way, that is, that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had decided to use the first installment of the $700 billion bailout money to recapitalize banks instead of buying up their toxic securities, which he had then sold to Congress and the American people as the best and fastest way to get the banks to start making loans again, and help prevent this recession from getting much, much worse.

In point of fact, the dirty little secret of the banking industry is that it has no intention of using the money to make new loans. But this executive was the first insider who’s been indiscreet enough to say it within earshot of a journalist.

(He didn’t mean to, of course, but I obtained the call-in number and listened to a recording.)

“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”

Read that answer as many times as you want — you are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy. On the contrary: at another point in the conference call, the same executive (who I’m not naming because he didn’t know I would be listening in) explained that “loan dollars are down significantly.” He added, “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.” In other words JPMorgan has no intention of turning on the lending spigot.

In other words, they are taking what they consider to be free money and running, and acting more like a venture capitalist than a lender. And while the banks were reticent to take the capitalization money before, now they're competing for it with all kinds of other firms, like foreign banks, auto companies (GM and Chrysler are looking for cash to grease the skids of a merger), and most particularly insurers, an industry that does look to have caught the attention of Treasury.

The Treasury Department is dramatically expanding the scope of its bailout of the financial system with a plan to take ownership stakes in the nation's insurance companies, signaling new concerns about a sector of the economy whose troubles until now have been overshadowed by the banking industry, government and industry sources said.

Insurers, including The Hartford, Prudential and MetLife, have pushed the Bush administration to include them in the plan. Many firms have taken losses from mortgage-related securities and other investments and are struggling to replenish their coffers.

Government officials worry that the collapse of a major insurer could further destabilize the financial system because of the crucial role the companies play in backstopping a wide range of financial transactions, although the direct impact on holders of car, life and other insurance policies would be modest, industry officials said.

We are all corporate socialists now. Although the auto company bailout might actually keep 2 million factory jobs in the country, so the Washington Post can't have it. Major bailouts for me, but not for thee.

Just look at these numbers for what banks in similar situations have needed to survive, and then consider that they're not the only industries with their hands out.

Japan’s bank bailout in 1998 was more than $500 billion, in an economy whose dollar GDP was only about 1/4 that of the United States today. Do the math. And the just-announced IMF loan to Iceland is $2.1 billion — that’s for a country with only 300,000 people. Both of these numbers seem to suggest that an eventual outlay of $2 trillion is in the realm of possibility.

And the real problem here is the currency crisis that has gone global, tracking the financial crisis.

The really shocking thing, however, is the way the crisis is spreading to emerging markets -- countries like Russia, Korea and Brazil.

These countries were at the core of the last global financial crisis, in the late 1990s (which seemed like a big deal at the time, but was a day at the beach compared with what we're going through now). They responded to that experience by building up huge war chests of dollars and euros, which were supposed to protect them in the event of any future emergency. And not long ago everyone was talking about "decoupling," the supposed ability of emerging market economies to keep growing even if the United States fell into recession. "Decoupling is no myth," The Economist assured its readers back in March. "Indeed, it may yet save the world economy."

That was then. Now the emerging markets are in big trouble. In fact, says Stephen Jen, the chief currency economist at Morgan Stanley, the "hard landing" in emerging markets may become the "second epicenter" of the global crisis. (U.S. financial markets were the first.) [...]

Needless to say, the existing troubles in the banking system, plus the new troubles at hedge funds and in emerging markets, are all mutually reinforcing. Bad news begets bad news, and the circle of pain just keeps getting wider."

Very, very scary. The dollar and the yen appear to be presumed safe by the international community, and everything else is falling off a cliff. This sounds almost capricious. We cough and the world gets sick, or however that saying goes.

And the job market is for crap.

Other than that, everything is ducky. Thanks still-President Bush!