I’ve wanted to do a post on credit for a while, but I’ve just had too many things to think about. Well, here goes:
1) From the “We Keep Him in a Bubble” file there is James Glassman with his prediction that Spring 2008 would bring the end of the housing troubles. Why does this guy still get air time? Why wasn’t Dow 36,000 enough? There are too many vacant homes to reconcile, there is no way for Spring 2008 to be it….
2) For an excellent summary of where we are in housing, Calculated Risk has this review piece.
3) Not all defaults are subprime. They are happening with Option ARMs, and even prime loans where they had to get Private Mortgage Insurance.
4) Is the subprime mortgage bust bigger or smaller, or similar to the size of the the S&L crisis? I’ll go with bigger. I don’t buy DeKaser’s smaller argument because securitization has provided more credit to small and medium sized businesses. I do think Portfolio.com is on the right track by looking at the amount of the housing price rise that has happened.
5) Personally, I find it delicious that the banks get stuck footing the bill in particularly bad foreclosure situations. So much for structural complexity in lending.
6) Americans are the most overhoused people in the world. No one else gets as much space, or stores as much stuff, broadly speaking. This book review of “House Lust,” will take you through the whole matter, in probably too much detail. (And yes, my house is large also, but I have ten people here… Americans can be unusual in other ways too; as a culture, we are more optimistic about children.)
7) From Calculated Risk, a tale of why lenders tend to forbear with marginal borrowers that are having difficulties with their current loans. One thing they don’t mention, the Residential MBS market does not have special servicers like the Commercial MBS does. When a loan gets into trouble, the CMBS special servicer gets paid adequately, but the ordinary RMBS servicer does not, particularly when lots of loans are in trouble. It is a weakness in the RMBS system.
8 ) As the TED spread declines, market players begin to relax about liquidity. But what of solvency? As losses are realized by banks, some will have to shore up their capital positions, and to do that, they will have to ratchet back lending.
9) How similar is the US today to Japan back in the early ’90s? There are some similarities, given the property bubbles in both places, and the interest rates that get lower and lower, but there are differences — a healthier banking system in the US, and a more market-oriented economy here as well. A depression is possible in the US, but I would not assume it at present.
10) Is the US consumer spent-up? Could be. Consider this article on auto loans as well. Personally, I am surprised at the degree to which lenders will make consumer loans with inadequate security, but that is just a normal aspect of American life today. For now.
11) What of corporate bonds? It certainly seems like junk bonds will be seeing more defaults in 2008. (Here also.) This shouldn’t surprise us, because the credit quality was low and the volume of high yield bond issues was high 2004-2006. It takes a little while for bad debt to season, and we should see the results in 2008.
12) When I did my “Fed model” I used BBB corporate yields as my comparison to earnings yields on equities. Given the backup in credit spreads, my Fed model is not nearly as favorable as those using Treasuries. But those looking only at credit spreads get the wrong result also. With Treasury yields so low, most high quality bonds are not attractive now.
13) On the bleak side, I tend to agree with Naked Capitalism and the FT that there is a transfer of power going on in the world, away from the US, and toward China and the Middle East. Power follows capital flows, and they are funding the US at present. They will own more and more of US businesses over time. They increasingly won’t be satisfied by owning our debts.
14) I found this piece from Credit Slips to be educational. There are certain types of income that can’t be garnished; nonetheless, garnishing happens. The only way to protect yourself is to fight back, and that article highlights how it is done.
15) Finally, credit at its most basic level. Credit is trust; trust that repayment plus interest will occur. Who do you trust? Personally, I found the discussion following Barry’s post to be depressing, because so many commenters were cynical. here was my comment:
Capitalism is based on trust. Without trust, capitalism will slowly cease to exist. Yes, there will be barter-type transactions, but any complex long-term transaction or relationship is based on trust. Any multi-party transaction requires trust, because multiple parties can gang up on the weak one.
Even representative government requires trust. Now, that trust is often abused, but who wants to get rid of representative government?
There is a lot more trust within our society than most of us imagine. Woe betide us if trust drops to a minimum level.
Estragon (thank you) agreed with me at the end, but it is fascinating to consider the implications of a society where trust is declining. Ultimately, it means that credit will be declining.
David,
Just to set the record straight on your point #1, as stated in the opening paragraph of the linked-to webpage:
…by James Glassman, economist at J.P. Morgan Chase. (no relation to James K. Glassman, co-author of ?Dow 36,000?).
So, you may still question why he gets airtime given his real estate forecast, but you can’t support your questioning with his stock forecasts LOL.
A stickler for accuracy at times,
Steve
Thanks, Steve. Big oops there, and I apologize to both Glassmans; they may disagree with each other respectively. I also apologize to my readers. I did read that, but I read it to get the gist, and missed an important early detail. 🙁
Your last sentence made me wonder. A couple of recent polls and studies have shown that societal trust breaks down when people live in diverse neighborhoods. Due to historically high levels of immigration, many Americans live in more diverse neighborhoods today and trust has declined. To the extent that this is the problem, there isn’t really a solution.
David
Great piece on credit — I had two questions about your comments:
1. You said that this crisis is bigger than the S&L crisis but in my mind its more dispersed because its securities vs. bank loans last time. I wonder if that makes a difference in terms of the system’s ability to recover — i.e. more dispersed means our system will be more resilient? Obviously it doesn’t appear that way yet and one issue I can already think of is the dispersion may make it harder for the system to recognize losses (price discovery is hard, lack of accountability in the structured area, etc.) but I was curious what your thoughts were?
2. Sounds like you believe credit will keep growing as it has for the last 25 years — I was at a dinner last night where David Tice (prudent bear funds) spoke and he argued that debt was at unsustainable levels (relative to GDP) and that credit growth has been the driver of GDP growth so if credit shrinks we must have a recession. He also argued that capital markets would retrench in the sense of much lower debt issuance and that banks were ill prepared to offset bonds to keep credit growing. He thought this would happen because structured products have removed trust from the system — no one wants to take the risk of owning a security when you can’t count on the rating or the insurance. I was wondering how strongly you believed credit would continue to grow and is that why you don’t see a depression that others appear to be predicting?
thanks
Kyle