Video: Banks Should Be Public Utilities

Video: Our Political and Economic Problems Are Fundamentally a Crisis in Virtue

Marcus Aurelius

George Friedman of STRATFOR gets to the heart of the current political and economic malaise in a brief and succinct video interview here.

He's spot on about the point that all the new regulation in the form of Dodd-Frank, Basel III, etc. do zero good without enforcement.

And why aren't both existing and new regulations being enforced? In Dr. Friedman's view, it comes down to a lack of virtue among our current elite.

The good news is that this is not an insolvable problem for two reasons: First, virtue, in my opinion, is unlike height, raw intelligence, or good looks, in the sense that it is not something that one is by-and-large born with. Virtue is both learned and cultivated over time.

But how much attention do we currently place on the development of virtue? The classics in the western world on this topic include the works by Marcus Aurelius, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, among others. To perhaps unfairly single out two disciplines, what room is made for those works in our current economics and business curriculum? From my personal observations, zip.

The idea of a renaissance education has been steadily pushed aside through the years in favor of the poly-technical practicalness of the 1-minute manager MBA and quant-PhDs. Today's economic and political conundrum is arguably a by-product of this de-prioritization of the study and development of virtue.

The second reason I am optimistic we can solve this problem is that when our leaders first fail society in such an epic fashion, and then next fail a second time by not fixing the root-cause of the problem, then those of us in representative democracies often make change.

Here's to hoping we get the change right this time.

Bailing Out Too Big to Fail: Here We Go Again

The sorry state of Bank of America's financial position, which is trading at less than half its book value, may necessitate yet another bailout.

From Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil:

Ask anyone what the most immediate threats to the global financial system are, and the obvious answers would be the European sovereign-debt crisis and the off chance that the U.S. won’t raise its debt ceiling in time to avoid a default. Here’s one to add to the list: the frightening plunge in Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s stock price. 

At $9.85 a share, down 26 percent this year, Bank of America finished yesterday with a market capitalization of $99.8 billion. That’s an astonishingly low 49 percent of the company’s $205.6 billion book value, or common shareholder equity, as of June 30. As far as the market is concerned, more than half of the company’s book value is bogus, due to overstated assets, understated liabilities, or some combination of the two.

But wasn't Dodd-Frank supposed to prevent us from having to bail out the megabanks again?

Until we embrace comprehensive financial reform, such as well thought through proposals like 'Limited Purpose Banking' outlined by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, we will continue to be faced with the prospect of bailing-out reckless and/or incompetent Too Big to Fail megabanks.

Video: Simon Johnson Rips Too Big to Fail at Bretton Woods

Graphic of the Day: The Financial Crisis of 2015

(click to enlarge)

Source: Oliver Wyman

The Buck Stops Here: Housing Price Trends and the Economic Outlook

Is the time finally right to get back into the residential real estate game? And what are the broader implications of trends in housing on the overall economy and financial markets? Let's take a look at the arguments and data.

The Case for Investing in Housing

Mortgage interest rates have come up some recently but are still near historic lows and appear attractive.

U.S. 30-Year Mortgage Interest Rates

Note: chart data only runs through early 2010; if updated through 2011
 the chart would show a recent increase in interest rates to around 5%.

We're also entering the comparatively slow home buying season and prices, after a post-bubble popping uptick, have been retreating recently.  There may be some sweet deals to be had over the next several months.

And perhaps most importantly are the following two considerations: a) the overall economy is showing increasing signs of life and b) the risk of deflation appears to be subsiding as commodity (e.g., oil) and food price inflation is taking off globally. Real estate has historically been considered one of the best ways to protect oneself against broad inflation.

Add it all up and it would appear that housing could in fact be a prudent investment right now. What would be reasons for holding off?

Continue reading the full article published on SeekingAlpha here.

Video: Famed Investor David Einhorn on CNBC

Great to see David speaking publicly recently (more recent Einhorn here). Wide ranging interview covering his expectations on the price of gold, and even some positive, upbeat thoughts from the legendary short seller.



The below video features David Einhorn (who was guest hosting on CNBC this morning) sparring with Fed insider Larry Meyer from Macroeconomic Advisors.

Video: Rare David Einhorn Interview on Shorting, Rating Agencies, Apple & Gold

I'm a big fan of David Einhorn's investment strategy, particularly his ability to identify accounting shenanigans at firms such as Lehman Brothers and Allied Capital, both of which he successfully shorted. (He wrote a well received book on his rather disturbing saga with Allied Capital.) He also rarely gives public interviews so the following video caught my attention.



The contribution of the credit rating agencies to the financial crisis have been well documented. Dodd-Frank financial 'reform' failed to make any material changes to rating agency model, which contains an inherent conflict of interest (bond issuers make payments to rating agencies, which incentivizes issuers to 'shop' for better ratings). To address this problem Einhorn simply advocates that credit rating agencies, such as Moody's (which he is short), should be abolished. Of note, famed investor Warren Buffet has been steadily reducing his large Moody's holdings.

Einhorn also discusses how a value investor like himself can be long Apple, which many have argued is in a bubble, as well as his current gold holdings (the largest position in his hedge fund). For more from Einhorn on his rationale for owning gold see this NY Times op-ed.

Common Ground in Krugman vs. Ferguson

Paul Krugman & Niall Ferguson

Hard as it may seem to believe in today's world, there was a time when not all bankers were reviled.

Equally shocking, perhaps, is that prior to the 1980s the U.S. financial system really didn't experience a major financial crisis for the previous half century. This also was an era of significant economic progress for America as a whole.

For several months now Professors Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson have been squaring off on camera and in print over whether the U.S. needs a second government stimulus to kickstart the economy. You can check out videos of their their respective arguments on CNN here and here.

While there is a large gap on where they stand in the fiscal debate, there is a topic where they appear to share common ground, and that is the need to fix banking.

Post Dodd-Frank: The Future of U.S. Banking and Financial Regulatory Reform

Interesting article over at Seeking Alpha from David Warsh on this topic. You can read it here, and below are my thoughts:

David,

Great article and I completely agree with you that Dodd-Frank doesn't go far enough in putting our banking regulation back on sound footing. Also, great to see SA Editors putting this topic in the Editor's Choice spotlight.

And if Soss is the next Volcker, then it would be wonderful if his name was put forward. But if he is what you say then I imagine the political timing won't work, especially given the dithering over Elizabeth Warren that we've seen of late. The Republicans might be willing to accept a Volcker-inflation slaying clone, but only if Warren (and perhaps the new Consumer Protection bureau) were sacrificed in exchange. Would that be a good trade?

Michael Lewis on Hiding Banned Proprietary Trading at 'Too Big To Fail' Firms

An update from author Michael Lewis on how the Too Big To Fail firms (e.g., Goldman Sachs) are maneuvering around what clearly appears to be an ineffective ban on proprietary trading. Lewis:

"A few weeks ago we asked a simple question: Why are the same Wall Street banks that lobbied so hard to dilute the passages in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill banning proprietary trading now jettisoning their proprietary trading groups, without so much as a whimper? The law directs regulators to study the prop trading ban for another 15 months before deciding how to enforce it: why is Wall Street caving now?

The many answers offered by Wall Street insiders in response boil down to a simple sentence: The banks have no intention of ceasing their prop trading. They are merely disguising the activity, by giving it some other name."

I highly recommend Lewis' recent book The Big Short which I wrote previously about here.