• 525 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 526 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 527 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 927 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 932 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 934 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 937 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 937 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 938 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 940 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 940 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 944 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 944 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 945 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 947 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 948 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 951 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 952 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 952 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 954 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Fools Despise a Correction

Can Wall Street and Washington combine forces to avert the inevitable liquidity crisis?

Hank Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, is working with Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America -- and any other big player Paulson can cajole -- to set up a $100B fund in hope of preventing about $380B of holdings from being dumped on the market. This fund, known as the Master-Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (M-LEC), is designed to buy assets from structured investments vehicles that cannot sell commercial paper to anyone with a rational fear of sub-prime exposure.

Simple question.

Why is the U.S. Treasury involved?

The financial news media abounds with the "market failure" meme. After all, who other than the government could get these big competitors to play together? A senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative think tank, mind you -- has even said, "Nothing in free-market theology says markets always work properly. If there's something that can be done of a temporary nature to help markets, then that seems perfectly appropriate."

Huh? Isn't Paulson insisting this is a private-sector initiative? Hasn't he assured us no government funds are on the table? The market is doing what it is supposed to do: discipline bad investments. This effort between the US Treasury and three big Wall Street players with a lot of exposure to sub-prime mortgages hardly qualifies as a necessary intervention into a failed market.

The Treasury's involvement in this deal is bad news. It means both Wall Street and Washington are worried. Politicians don't advance their careers by embracing sound economic principles. Bankers don't like to be object lessons. Both Wall Street and Washington have much to lose if the liquidity market dries up. It's not just the housing market that's going to tank.

M-LEC is an attempt to delay the inevitable. It's either a bet that more time might buy a soft landing for some or it's a preemptive move to distribute the blame when the economy crash lands.

Neither Wall Street nor Washington is willing to confront the real commitment of risk. Risk marries the hope of profit with the threat of loss. Profit increases our wealth. Loss increases our wisdom. A bailout is a lost opportunity to learn. It encourages market players to go on repeating their errors and making the situation worse than it was before.

Unfortunately for us, the preceding generations decided they didn't want to learn the lessons of taking risks. Government economists convinced us that they could prevent severe contractions like that one from the 1930s. The actual result has been even greater potential consequences and we're running out of options to pass them on to the next generation.

Get ready to learn something.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment