A Simpler Plan

I missed a chance to be on CNN again (gosh darn it!) in order to do an hour long show on NPR Oregon with economist Brad DeLong. The show got me thinking about a simpler way to fix the current problem than doing reverse auctions of toxic assets. Simpler economically and politically.

Here it is:

Any American with a mortgage can trade it in for a government one for the same principal amount, at a fixed 7 percent interest per annum, for any term up to 50 years. In return, the government will pay off the existing mortgage with a Treasury bond with the same market value and maturity as the mortgage it is replacing. The lender can then hold the bond on its balance sheet until maturity, sell it in the market, use it as collateral for a loan, strip and sell the coupons, etc.

Because the government can at present borrow at far less than 7 percent, and because it can easily garnish wages using existing (tax) infrastructure, this will not be a bailout but rather a source of revenue which can be applied to pay down the national debt. (See my blog entry below about the colonial loan offices, which prove that governments can and have profited by providing mortgages to citizens.) The two keys are extending the term of the mortgage to the point that homeowners can afford to make the payment and making sure that borrowers don't default simply because they are "in the bucket" (have negative equity) by using the coercive power of the state. Anyone who prefers to default rather than take the government loan may do so, at which point the lienholders (new owners) may, if they wish, mortgage the property to the government for the amount they are owed. (Or they can resell or rent it, as they prefer.)

The plan is also much more palatable politically than the current administration plan, for several reasons:

a) as noted above, it is not a bailout, but rather the entry of a new lending competitor that can win borrowers away from current mortgage lenders due to its long time horizon and low cost of funds. This is a major point because NOBODY wants a bailout if one can be avoided;
b) it does not require the creation of a new government bureaucracy (like the Homeowners Loan Corporation of the Great Depression) because existing agencies and workers can handle the minimal work involved, so fiscal responsibility types (who I admire) can support it without hypocrisy;
c) helping financial services firms by eliminating their root problem (defaulted mortgages) is much more popular than directly bailing out "Wall Street fat cats," which is especially important in an election year;
d) since any American with a mortgage automatically qualifies, this proposal does not directely discriminate against fiscally careful Americans nor does it unduly reward the fiscally profligate.

Of course most of those who will take the government mortgages will be subprime borrowers paying greater than 7%, those who got caught with teaser rates, ARMs, etc., and those about to be foreclosed upon.

This is a half hour's work, so I reserve the right to modify details if I have erred conceptually.

Finally, if done just right this is an example of a Pareto improving policy, a concept I urged politicians earlier this month to consider more carefully before going for the partisan jugular.

Your Humble and Obedient Servant ...

I received this email several times today ...

and I think it might be spam:

REQUEST FOR AN URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON 

An Easy Analogy

I first used a version of this analogy in Richmond on CBS 6's "Virginia This Morning," on 4 September 2008. It seemed to work well and some people seem flummoxed by the recent market disturbances so I thought I'd share it here.

The national debt is like a guy sitting in a boat called The Economy. When the national debt is small, the guy is skinny and there is plenty of distance between the boat and the waterline. If a wave (a crisis or shock) comes along, the boat may rock but it will stay afloat.

When the national debt is big, by contrast, picture a big dude -- South Park's Eric Cartman in the Kathy Lee Gifford episode, Marlon Brando near the end, or Jared before he found Subway sandwiches. Barely afloat on calm seas, the first big wave that comes along may swamp the poor little boat.

Now, because the boat is an analogy for the economy, we have to allow it to change size. Until recently, the boat was growing, albeit more slowly than the guy (debt). That gave advocates of the debt (of which there are too many, imho) reason for hope. But consider this: the boat has stopped growing and may actually shrink and at precisely the same time the guy is scarfing greasy donuts and washing them down with beer, and not even the light stuff.

Add on top of this the fact that a big wave may come along, perhaps a manmade one at that, and you can see why everyone is spooked.

Political Risk

In addition to the potential random and kick-em-when-they're-down shocks I discussed in yesterday's post, we also face tremendous political risk. 2008 is starting to look eerily similar to 1932 -- an unpopular Republican president in office, a pending election, and a financial crisis that won't go away. The threat before the election is that both parties will try to use the crisis to score political points. The threat after it, especially if the Democratic candidate wins as in 1932, is that the Republicans will sit on their hands while the minds of market participants race wondering what the incoming administration will do.

The good news is that the new president will be inaugurated in late January instead of early March. The bad news is that the world moves much faster now so late January is still a very long way away indeed. In early 1933, the payments system actually broke down just before FDR took office. You can't imagine what chaos that would cause today ... credit cards would stop working, ATMs would run dry, and Americans would learn the dirty little secret that their bank deposits are not convertible into Federal Reserve Notes on demand. Banks will exchange deposits for cash when it's convenient but they don't have to do it and in fact holding nothing close to enough vault cash to meet even a modest run. Let's hope it doesn't come to this but it would behoove policymakers to consider the possibility. We don't need a financial Katrina.

The Next Great Crisis

We're entering a dangerous period indeed. The government is currently planting the seeds of the next crisis. As I argued in One Nation Under Debt, we should never have allowed the debt to grow so large (2/3rds of GDP) in what was essentially peacetime. If the bailout doesn't go well and if the economy remains soft (and hence government receipts low), we could be looking at a national debt to GDP ratio of 100%. We could probably survive that, if nothing else bad happens. But guess what? The mere fact that we are down greatly increases the likelihood of getting whacked by additional negative shocks.

The probability of a natural catastrophe has not increased but our ability to respond effectively to one is impaired due to the difficulties at AIG (a major insurer) and in the capital markets more generally. At least two major recessions were exacerbated by natural catastrophes. The explosion of Mount Tambora in 1815 led to the "year without a summer" in 1816, disrupting agricultural markets in North America and Eurpe that culminated in the Panic of 1818/19. The Great San Francisco earthquake (1906) has been implicated in the Panic of 1907 because it created a massive flow of gold from British insurers to the West Coast, which induced the Bank of England to raise interest rates, which, in turn, burst an asset bubble.

Of course we don't know when or where the next major hurricane, earthquake, or volcanic eruption will occur. Nobody (I hope!) can cause one, and nobody can stop one, so such a shock will be random, dumb luck. Maybe one will hit us, maybe one won't. Such is not the case for manmade catastrophes. Terrorists must be salivating at the thought of hitting us hard while we are down. Hackers are undoubtedly gearing up to make attacks on technical network infrastructure that might fall into disarray during bankruptcies, quick forced mergers, and the like. And nation state enemies like North Korea and Russia are already beginning to behave badly. Another big shock might be all she wrote for the U.S. dollar.

I'm not being alarmist here, or if I am so is the Wall Street Journal which ran a short article yesterday (Septembe 20, 2008, B16) called "Stocks Gain -- So Does the National Debt." The article notes that the dollar could go either way at this point because "currency markets might see the fiscal cost [of the bailout] as a good trade-off against the bigger risk of letting the U.S. slip into a deep recession." That's right. But, as noted above, if the bailout does not go well, the national debt swells further, and we get whacked with another shock, the dollar could plummet again, to the point where the U.S. government may have to borrow in euro, sterling, yen, etc. At that point, we have to suffer very high interest rates and borrow only domestically or revert to emerging market status and borrow in other currencies, with all the attendant default risks.

Alexander Hamilton Was Wright

Yes, the Wall Street Journal correctly reported yesterday (September 20, A3 "Government Bailouts: A U.S. Tradition Dating to Hamilton") that I named one of my sons Alexander Hamilton Was Wright. I just couldn't resist the play on my last name, which sounds like "right" (correct) but actually means "maker" (as in wheelwright, cartwright, etc.) . So, yes, Hamilton was both correct and one of America's makers. For details, see Financial Founding Fathers (with David J. Cowen), The First Wall Street, and, of course, One Nation Under Debt. (Hamilton Unbound, by contrast, is actually a Hamiltonian interpretation of early U.S. history rather than a biography. It's a pun too.)