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Une newsletter à laquelle je suis abonné, qui date du 28 septembre 2005 ( DEUX MILLE CINQ).
Greenspan Says, 'Get Me Rewrite!'
As threatened, today I'll endeavor to set the record straight, after the world's biggest serial bubble blower -- and most incompetent, irresponsible Fed chairman of all time -- attempted to rewrite history in a speech that, to repeat yesterday's description, could only be titled "Damn, I'm Good." (Its official title, "Economic Flexibility," shares DNA with Al's "new-era productivity.")
At least he was nice enough to organize his speech so that the majority of objectionable material fell into seven or eight consecutive paragraphs, as he tried to rewrite history and set up Ben Bernanke (his likely successor) to be the fall guy for all of the problems that he and the rest of the yes-men at the Fed precipitated.
Speech Pathology
I'll turn first to his brief synopsis of the 1990s, in which he claimed: "Yet the significant monetary tightening of 1994 did not prboxscoreevent what must by then have been the beginnings of the bubble of the 1990s. And equity prices continued to rise during the tightening of policy between mid-1999 and May 2000."
His observation of when the mania really took hold and mine are exactly the same. It did start in late 1994. Of course, as with everything, he recognizes the end result but has absolutely no clue as to its cause. The reason for the continued rise in equity prices was that the Fed panicked in mid-1995, and reversed its tightening course after Orange County (and other leveraged entities) blew up. Next, the Fed bailed out the Asian crisis in 1997, Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, and the Year 2000 in late 1999.
Continuing on, he notes: "Indeed, the equity market's ability to withstand periods of tightening arguably reinforced the bull market's momentum." No, it was his endless bailouts, which caused folks to believe in the notion of a "Greenspan put." Purely and simply, it was his practice of bailouts and market-cheerleading (which reached fevered pitch at the peak) that turned the boom to bubble.
Next, he follows up with this incredible statement: " The FOMC knew that [my emphasis] tools were available to choke off the stock market boom, but those tools would only have been effective if they undermined market participants' confidence in future stability." To which I say: Correct, that is the idea. From time to time, you have to take away the punchbowl. But just remember that term "tools," because we'll see some examples shortly.
On to his summation of the aforementioned statements: "Market participants, however, read the resilience of the economy and stock prices in the face of monetary tightening as an indication of undiscounted market strength." That's his lame excuse for why the market went up. Wrong.
Tarring and Feathering Technology
He then next turns to the dilemma the poor Fed was in: "By the late 1990s, it appeared to us that very aggressive action [my emphasis] would have been required to counteract the euphoria that developed in the wake of . . . . " Finish that phrase. Resorting to the cheerleading that he used at the height of the mania, he laid it at the foot of ". . . extraordinary gains in productivity growth spawned by technological change," rather than his own bubble-blowing. As I read that, I am laughing because it's just remarkable how he's still trying to insinuate that we were in a "new era," and that's what drove up stock prices, as opposed to his incompetence."
Highly Allergic to Accountability
His next comment: "In short, we would have needed to risk precipitating a significant recession, with unknown consequences. The alternative was to wait for the eventual exhaustion of the forces of boom." That's right: "The alternative was to wait for the eventual exhaustion of the forces of boom." Got that? It was these unknown forces of boom, not the Fed, that precipitated the bubble -- which he followed up by saying: "We concluded that the latter course was by far the safer." What he means: We realized it was a bubble but we didn't care, because we assumed we could fix it.
So, the Fed understood the reality of the bubble while it was going on (though the Fed claimed not to at the time, a subject I discussed in my March 7 Rap). Nevertheless, Al said: "Relying on policymakers to perceive when speculative asset bubbles have developed and then to implement timely policies to address successfully these misalignments in asset prices is simply not realistic."
You read that right. It can't be done. It's impossible. Now, of course, it wasn't impossible. I wrote about it until I was blue in the face. Most people with an ounce of common sense knew there was a bubble under way. And, by what I've already shown, the Fed too knew. And yet, Greenspan is still trying to say that it would be unrealistic to attempt to identify bubbles.
In addition, he's ready to hide behind another excuse, that being: "It is difficult to suppress growing market exuberance when the economic environment is perceived as more stable. . . . " See? It's just too hard, and as he already said: "We would have needed to risk precipitating a significant recession, with unknown consequences."
G: Meet Reg. T (and X)
Even if any of his protestations were true (which I don't believe), and the Fed was afraid of damaging the economy, it has been granted specific tools to deal with periods of speculation. Among them: Regulation T, whereby margin requirements can be raised to try to change market psychology.) While raising margin requirements to 100% would or wouldn't have been sufficient to break the stock bubble, the Fed could have at least tried. If that failed, the Fed could then have tightened.) However, for Greenspan to pretend that all he could have done was to raise rates shows that either he doesn't know what the Fed's tools are (i.e., he's clueless), or he's not being truthful.
Also in its arsenal is Regulation X, which allows the Fed to set minimum requirements on mortgage downpayments, as well as maximum repayment periods. (Regulations W and X (the former having to do with installment payments) were legislated in 1950.) Of course, when Greenspan wails about not wanting to hurt the economy with rate hikes, none of his lapdogs in the press ever seem to question why the Fed hasn't used the tools at its disposal.
In any case, part of my reason for re-titling Greenspan's speech is due to the following comment: "After the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000, unlike previous periods following large financial shocks, no major financial institution defaulted, and the economy held up far better than many had anticipated [and we all lived happily everafter]."
Crowing Belied by Cutting
What I'd like to know is: If this was all so benign, why did he and helicopter copilot Ben Bernanke panic -- to the tune of 13 rate cuts, all the way down to 1% -- about the possibility of deflation in 2001 as the stock bubble unwound? Were it not for the even bigger, more dangerous housing bubble that Greenspan has in turn precipitated, which has only postponed the inevitable, the fallout would have been commensurate with the size of the boom.
He is right about no major financial institutions having defaulted -- though we did happen to lose Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Andersen in the process. But it was largely an equity-induced mania. And, as I've said many times, it did not leave behind a wave of bad debts. But the housing bust will do just that.
Culpability, Thy Name Is Greenspan
So, the fallout from the housing boom, the unfinished business from the stock boom, and all the derivatives he's championed for his beloved deregulated financial system will combine to hit with full force somewhere down the road. By then, of course, Greenspan will be long gone. He, as well as everyone else who's incapable of understanding what really happened (think: the Larry Kudlows of the world) will be blaming our problems on the next Fed chairman. I will have no sympathy for Ben Bernanke, but we must remember the real story and not let this arrogant buffoon get away with his attempt to rewrite history.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the last I'll have to say about Alan Greenspan, once and for all -- until he makes me really mad.
The Continuing Saga of Sagging Fannie
Turning to the stock market, today's action was just amazing. Ex a brief dip at midday, we went out not far from where we opened, flattish on the day, with the market able to ignore the fact that, according to the American Bankers Association, credit-card delinquencies rose in Q2 (well before the hurricanes) to the highest level ever. (I believe the data have been kept for about 30 years.) The market was also able to ignore the explosion in refined-product prices (more about that in a second), as well as the new revelations about Fannie Mae. To quote Bloomberg's version of a Dow Jones story:
"Fannie Mae executives embellished earnings by overvaluing assets, underreporting credit losses, and misusing tax credits. . . . Evidence indicates that Fannie Mae purchased so-called finite insurance policies to hide earnings losses after they were incurred." (Enquiring minds would like to know who wrote those policies.) All of these allegations are in addition to previous disclosures. I can't think of a stock with further-reaching consequences than Fannie Mae. The stock dropped about 12%, though given that slide, the modest weakness in housing and some financials was not as great as you might have expected.
Sometimes, catalysts for market dislocations come out of the blue. Sometimes, they're precipitated by problems we have known about for a long time. If it turns out that Fannie Mae precipitates a market dislocation, this will be a perfect example of trouble "hiding" in plain sight that didn't matter until it did. I'm not saying this will occur, just that it could.
Glad Tidings a la David and Goliath
Lastly, in the small-victories department, the price of AMD today rallied past that of Intel, with AMD closing north of $24 and Intel closing under $24. It's one step along the road to their market caps ultimately crossing.
Away from stocks, the metals were up about 1%, the dollar was flattish, and fixed income was slightly higher. The energy complex was extremely strong, with gasoline up about 4%, natural gas up 15%, and oil up about 3%. It looks like the folks who decided Friday that Rita would be a nonevent were incorrect after all. The energy ramifications of the two hurricanes are liable to be with the entire country for quite some time. Just another negative fact that the market has thus far been able to shrug off.
Positions in stocks mentioned: Short Fannie Mae and long Fannie Mae puts. Short Intel and long Intel puts. Long AMD.
ça c'était y'a 3 ans. A l'époque où on entendait parler de rien, ou soi disant tout allait pour le mieux.
ça devrait quand même vous interpeller.
Bon et des exemples de ce type j'en ai des dizaines, tous datés de longtemps dans le passé. Quand tu lis à l'avance ce genre de trucs et que tu vois qu'ensuite ça arrive et que tous les "génies" de la finance n'ont rien vu venir, ben tu te dis qu'en fait les mecs aux commandes comprennent peut-être pas si bien que ça ce qu'ils font.
Puisqu'on en est à citer des bouquins, pour un autre avis sur l'oeuvre de Greenspan que celui de Greenspan lui-même :
http://www.amazon.com/Greenspans-Bub...1640744&sr=8-1
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