Hussman "Why On Earth Would Congress Put The U.S. Public Behind The Bondholders? "

I think we all know why........ Too bad that this minor question won´t be raised in Congress...... Should be very good news for the $ and the long term treasury yields ...... Got Gold........ ? I have to apologize for my post title Quote / Joke Of The Day ..... from last week . Should have been titled "Joke Of The Century" from the get-go....... I also recommend to read this Open Letter To Congress On The $700 Billion Paulson Bailout Plan from Mish.

Denke das inzwischen selbst der Blindeste mitbekommen hat das es bei den ganzen Eingriffen alleine darum geht bereits faktisch insolvente Banken auf Kosten der Steuerzahler "rauszuhauen". Bin mir ziemlich sicher das solch unwichtigen Details wie die Haftung der Bondanleger im US Kongress nicht weiter thematisiert werden........ Immerhin dürfte es in nicht allzu langer Zeit dazu führen das der US $ den aktuelen Status als "der Reservewährung" verlieren wird und die Finanzierungskosten der USA dramatisch steigen werden. Evtl. lassen sich ja sogar die Ratingagentuern dazu hinreissen das AAA Rating von US Schulden herunterzustufen. Spaß beiseite......Vorher wird denen sicher die Lizenz entzogen...... Got Gold....... ? Möchte mich hier für meine Postingbezeichnung Quote / Joke Of The Day ..... von letzter Woche entschuldigen . Hätte es gleich "Zitat/Witz des Jahrhunderts" betiteln sollen...... Zudem empfehle ich noch einen Blick in diesen extrem treffenden Open Letter To Congress On The $700 Billion Paulson Bailout Plan von Mish zu werfen.

Hussman In 2006, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis noted “Everyone knows that a policy of bailouts will increase their number.” This week, Congress is being asked to hastily consider a monstrous bailout plan on a scale nearly equivalent to the existing balance sheet of the Federal Reserve.

As an economist and investment manager, I am concerned that the plan advocated by Treasury is essentially a plan to bail out the bondholders of financial institutions that made bad lending decisions, with little help to homeowners that are actually in financial distress. It is difficult to believe that the U.S. government is contemplating taking on the bad assets of these institutions at probable taxpayer loss and effectively immunizing the bondholders (and shareholders) of these companies.

While it is certainly in the public interest to avoid the dislocations that would result from a disorderly failure of highly interconnected financial institutions, there are better ways for public funds to accomplish this, other than by protecting corporate bondholders while homeowners remain in distress. .......

These institutions are not failing because 95% of the assets have gone bad. They are failing because 5% of the assets have gone bad and they over-stretched their capital. At the heart of the problem is “gross leverage” – the ratio of total assets taken on by the company to its shareholder equity. The sequence of failures we've observed in recent months, starting with Bear Stearns, has followed almost exactly in order of their gross leverage multiples. After Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac went into crisis, Lehman and Merrill Lynch followed. Morgan Stanley, and Hank Paulson's former employer, Goldman Sachs, remain the most leveraged companies on Wall Street, with gross leverage multiples above 20.

Look at the insolvent balance sheet again. The appropriate solution is not for the government to replace the bad assets with public money, but rather for the government to execute a receivership of the failed institution and immediately conduct a “whole bank” sale – selling the bank's assets and liabilities as a package, but ex the debt to bondholders, which preserves the ongoing business without loss to customers and counterparties, wipes out shareholder equity, and gives bondholders partial (perhaps even nearly complete) recovery with the proceeds.

The key is to recognize that for nearly all of the institutions currently at risk of failure, there exists a cushion of bondholder capital sufficient to absorb all probable losses, without any need for the public to bear the cost.

For example, consider Morgan Stanley's balance sheet as of 8/31/08. Total assets were $988.8 billion, with shareholder equity (including junior subordinated debt) of $42.1 billion, for a gross leverage ratio of 23.5. However, the company also has approximately $200 billion in long-term debt to its bondholders, primarily consisting of senior debt with an average maturity of about 6 years. Why on earth would Congress put the U.S. public behind these bondholders?

The stockholders and bondholders of the company itself should be the first to bear losses, not the public. That is the essence of what a free and fair market, and a responsible government would enforce. The investors in the companies that produced the losses should be accountable for them, and the customers and counterparties should be protected.

The case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was special in that government had already provided an implicit guarantee to their bondholders, so that bailout couldn't have been done otherwise without harming the good faith and credit of the government, but it's absurd to tell Wall Street “send us your poor and your tired assets, and we will tend to them.” The gains in financial stocks we have observed in the past two days reflects money that those firms expect to be taken out of the public pocket. .....

In summary, the Treasury proposal to address current financial difficulties places corporate bondholders ahead of the public, rewards irresponsible risk-taking, and sets a precedent for future bailouts. Moreover, we know from a long history of economic experience across countries that a major expansion of government liabilities is invariably followed by multi-year periods of extremely high inflation, particularly when it is not matched by a similar expansion of economic production. Such inflation would initially be modest because of the current weakness in the economy, but could pose unusual challenges to the United States in the coming years.

Congress can benefit the American public by maintaining a focus on responsibly assisting homeowners in distress rather than defending the stockholders and bondholders of overleveraged financial companies. It is essential to recognize that the failure of these companies need not result in “financial meltdown” provided that the “good bank” representing the vast majority of assets and liabilities is cut away, protecting customers and counterparties, so that the losses are properly borne out of the capital base of the companies that incurred them.

Again, everyone knows that a policy of bailouts will increase their number. By choosing who bears the losses for irresponsible decisions at these companies, Congress will also choose the scope of the bailouts that follow.