Why Another Financial Crash is Certain

Mehr erbauliches zum Thema "Schattenbanken" und was ich hier mit "Schmetterlingsflügelschlag" gemeint habe:
Why Another Financial Crash is Certain

Im Artikel wird ein PIMCO-Manager zitiert:

"If you have to pick a day for the Minsky Moment, it was August 9. And, actually, it didn’t happen here in the United States. It happened in France, when Paribas Bank (BNP) said that it could not value the toxic mortgage assets in three of its off-balance sheet vehicles, and that, therefore, the liability holders, who thought they could get out at any time, were frozen. I remember the day like my son’s birthday. And that happens every year. Because the unraveling started on that day. In fact, it was later that month that I actually coined the term “Shadow Banking System” at the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole.

“It was only my second year there. And I was in awe, and mainly listened for most of the three days. At the end....I stood up and (paraphrasing) said, ‘What’s going on is really simple. We’re having a run on the Shadow Banking System and the only question is how intensely it will self-feed as its assets and liabilities are put back onto the balance sheet of the conventional banking system.’”

Etwas mehr Licht ins Schattenbankensystem...

Ich sammle hier, anknüpfend an meinen letzten Beitrag zum Thema "Schattenbankensystem", ein paar Anmerkungen und Links, die ich bei der weiteren Recherche gefunden habe. Mir geht es dabei zunächst nicht darum Vorwürfe á la "böse böse Schattenbanken" zu erheben (zumal es eigentlich garkeine "Schattenbanken" gibt), sondern zu beleuchten, was wirklich vorging und vorgeht, da mir ein Verständnis der Mechanismen dieses Systems wesentlich erscheint, um begreifen zu können, was in 2007-2008 passiert ist. Oder um den US-Ökonomen Randall Wright zu zitieren, der im November 2010 über die Arbeit von Gary Gorton sagte:

"I have no idea what Gary said just now, but I know it’s really, really important, so I’m going to sit down and study this until I get it.

—Professor Randall Wright
University of Wisconsin
Nov. 5, 2010"

Die Ratlosigkeit der Wissenschaftler und Regulierer, die aus den Quellen herauszulesen ist, ließ mich immer wieder an Goethes Zauberlehrling denken. "Haircut" wäre wohl das Zauberwort gewesen, um die wassertragenden Besen zu stoppen, nur daß das das Weltfinanzsystem - bildlich gesprochen - vom Regen in die Dürre geraten ließ.

Offenbar ist die Bedeutung des sogenannten "Schattenbankensystems" bis vor kurzem weitgehend unbeobachtet gewesen:

"The possible role of rehypothecation in the Financial crisis of 2007–2010 and in the shadow banking system was largely overlooked by mainstream financial press and commentators, until Dr. Gillian Tett of the Financial Times drew attention in August 2010 [6] to a paper from Manmohan Singh and James Aitken of the International Monetary Fund that examined the issues Manmohan Singh and James Aitken.[5]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothecation#Rehypothecation

In dem erwähnten Arbeitspapier stellt der IWF bspw. im Sommer 2010 folgendes fest:

"We show that the shadow banking system was at least 50 percent bigger than documented so far. "

Den besten mir bislang bekannten Einstieg in die Materie bietet der Bericht von Gary Gorton, den er im Februar 2010 vor dem US-Untersuchungsausschuß zur Finanzkrise vorgelegt hat:

Questions and Answers about the Financial Crisis*
Prepared for the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

To be continued...

Fractional Reserve Shadowbanking

Naked Capitalism hat einen langen Artikel gepostet, der sich kritisch mit einem hochinteressanten Interview außeinandersetzt:

JP Morgan Markets Its Latest Doomsday Machine (or Why Repo May Blow Up the Financial System Again)

Das kritisierte Interview mit Gary Gorton ist hier:

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=4596

Gorton ist Professor in Yale und gilt offenbar als Koryphäe auf dem (weiten) Gebiet des Geldsystems.
Bei Wikipedia kann man das hier lesen:

"AIG's financial products division employed Gorton's models in calculating insurance rates for credit default swaps on residential mortgage-based collaterized debt obligations. [3] Gorton assured AIG managers that the models were sufficiently "robust" to maintain accurate CDS insurance rates even in adverse economic situations.[4] AIG's reliance upon his predictions contributed to the company's multi-billion dollar losses in the subprime mortgage crisis."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gorton

Nun kann man unken, daß der Kerl offenbar nix taugt oder aber besonders genau zuhören, weil er vielleicht besonders viel aus dieser katastrophalen Fehleinschätzung gelernt hat (mit anderen Worten: sich entweder sehr deutsch oder sehr amerikanisch an den Herrn herantasten).

Ich finde den Artikel deswegen lesenswert, weil Gorton u.a. recht freimütig offenbart, wie wenig die Koryphäen wissen. Masterpläne von FED-Verantwortlichen, die den Crash von 2007-2008 geplant haben sollen, erscheinen mir in diesem Licht recht unwahrscheinlich, was aber nicht heißt, daß ich konspiratives Hinarbeiten auf einen Crash unter Wall Street Big Boys ausschließe (scio nescio).

Der Aspekt, der mir aber "am neusten" ist, ist die Ähnlichkeit des Repo-"Systems" mit "Fractional Reserve Banking". Mir war z.B. unbekannt, daß der Gläubiger eines Repo-Deals die Kreditsicherheit (Collateral) seinerseits als Collateral in Fällen, wo er der Schuldner ist, weiterverwenden kann. Ein- und dieselbe Anleihe kann also offenbar mehrere Repo-Agreements besichern:

"Region: Just to be clear, they don’t deposit those funds in a checking account because …

Gorton: Right, because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation limit is too low, just $250,000, and these deposits are in the tens or hundreds of millions.

There are competitors for repo that these firms consider and use, but again we don’t know the relative sizes of these. I think now we have a good idea of what repo was just before the crisis.

But repo—the transaction I just described—has other similarities to the checking account story. If you put a dollar in your checking account and the bank has to keep 10 percent of it on reserve, they lend out 90 cents. Somebody deposits that 90 cents, the bank can lend out 81 cents (because of the 10 percent reserve requirement) and so on. So you end up creating $10 of checking accounts for $1 of demand deposits, assuming there’s a demand for loans. Now, that money multiplier process is very important because it means that the amount of endogenously created private bank money in checking accounts is 10 times the size of the collateral, so to speak, of $1 of government money. So, in a traditional banking panic, if everybody wants their $10 back, there’s only $1. And that’s the problem.
Region: That’s “rehypothecation” right? One of my favorite new words.

Gorton: Yes, it’s become very popular lately [laughs]. So, if shadow banking refers to the growth of this type of money—and it’s not controversial to say it’s money; it was counted in M3M1, M2 and M3 are (or were) measures of the nation’s money supply reported by the Federal Reserve System. M1 includes currency and demand deposits at commercial banks. M2 is a broader measure that incorporates M1 but also includes assets such as commercial bank savings deposits, deposits at credit unions and noninstitutional money market funds, among other components. M3 was broader still, but publication of M3 figures ceased in March 2006 when the Fed determined that M3 no longer conveyed “any additional information about economic activity … not already embodied in M2.” The Fed also ceased publishing one of M3’s components, repurchase agreements.—but in order for this to grow, you have to have the collateral, and collateral, of course, like in the pre-Civil War era, can turn out to be risky bonds.



Region: The Jimmy Stewart problem.

Gorton: Right, the Jimmy Stewart problem. And that can happen in repo as well because if you’re Lehman and I’m the depositor, and you give me a bond as collateral, I can use that bond somewhere else. So there is a similar money multiplier process."

Seine Ausführungen zum Free-Banking kapiere ich nicht so ganz (außer, daß er dagegen ist...). "Private Money" scheint bei ihm synonym mit "Kreditgeld" zu sein.

PS: "Jimmy Stewart Problem" bezieht sich auf den Film "Ist das Leben nicht schön?" und meint die Gefahr eines Bankruns, siehe auch http://bavaria-for-ron-paul.blogspot.com/2009/12/move-your-money.html.

Max Keiser über das Shadow Banking System

Pimco-Manager über das Schattenbankensystem

"The birth of the Shadow Banking System required that capitalists be able to come up with an asset – which actually for shadow bankers is a liability – that was perceived by the public as just as good as a bank deposit. Remember, the public has an ex-ante demand for something that trades on demand at par. Therefore, shadow bankers had to be able to persuade the public that its asset – which is actually the shadow banker’s liability – was just as good as the real thing. If they could do that, then they could have one whale of a good time.

That asset – which, again, is the bank’s liability – needed, in Gary Gorton’s terms, to be characterized by “informational insensitivity,” meaning that the holder didn’t need to do any due diligence, just taking it on faith that this asset could be converted at par on demand. And, in fact, money market mutual fund shares achieved that status. With one small exception prior to the Reserve Primary Fund breaking the buck, they always traded at par. And if there was any danger they wouldn’t trade at par, the sponsor would step in and buy out any dodgy asset at par. So, essentially, the money market mutual fund industry was at the very core of the growth of the Shadow Banking System".

Vollständige extrem lesenswerte Rede:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/learning-from-the-bank-of-dad/