One reason that Australian banks are not first in line in this banking panic ... though they certainly are losing quite big chunks of shareholder equity right now ... is that the Australian regulator has been working on cleaning up balance sheets basically since the US bubble burst, while the Fed was looking for ever more ways to provide liquidity until "the return of normalcy". Obviously that was aided by the fact that Oz was still in a commodity boom at the time ... its easier to clean up balance sheets when there is new business coming in.
Also, if the total share of structured derivatives in the flow of mortgage creation was relatively small, then there would be much less pressure to create second or deeper layers ... and if the total number of mortgage pools issuing investment-rated and junk-rated tranches are smaller, on the one hand its harder to put together a diversified mix of junk CDO's from different pools, and on the other hand there's less pressure to do so, since there's less problem of overwhelming the market for the speculative junk offering the high returns. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Of course, in the US, with an undersized banking sector and oversized capital markets, just doing that for banks would not have sheltered the US from the current Panic, but it still would have reduced the exposure for banks as such. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
But the term itself ... my, goodness, what a solid sounding thing. "Structure" ... who can be against structure? You want a chaotic vehicle instead? And "Investment" ... much, much better than speculation.
In choosing between "Ramshackle System-Risk Amplifying Vehicle (RSRAV)" and "Structured Investment Vehicle (SIV)", the second sounds much, much better. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
And of course that invention was only a re-invention of something invented countless times before. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
http://www.soitu.es/soitu/2008/10/09/actualidad/1223568245_318730.html
I do not know if you read spanish.. I hope... it basically says tat cedulas are not SIV (they were forbidden) nor CDS nor CDO... they were bonds given by the bank insttuion to pay with the guaratee of the insitution, the mortgage and the building (whcih belogns to the bank if its nt paid) plus the 20-30% amount of direct cash payment.
If there is a massive mortgage default, banks will have to deleverage by caliming debt or selling houses, to pay for the interest rates to te costumers that bought it... so if there is a meltdown they could end up having to sell hundreds of houses to pay and rebuy the cedulas... that would be crazy during a recesion.
With this buy, the government will take a risk up to a certain level.. if defaults are contained the treasury will earn a lot of money if there is a meltdown, the banks will have no meltdown and teh treasury willr aise debt 4 pints over the GDP.
Another completely different issue are the private comapanie debt that banks have now...
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
And, no, I do not read Spanish well enough to read that in the original, but I read Spanish well enough to follow it in the Babelfish translation.
The systemic risk is that broad-based default of the mortgages would lead to solvency problems at the institutions that guarantees the bond. The difference between an unstructured CDO on the same pool of mortgages is that with an instructured CDO, the holders would pay for the haircut if there was a spike in foreclosures, while with the mortgage-bonds, its the bank pays for the haircut.
And, no, there is none of the concentration of systemic risks that comes with structured CDO's. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
but as you I ahve said pre cisely, the bank debt and credit on companies can look very much a structured vehicle created and bought byt the treasury...
so your point about asking for guarantees in equities makes a lot of sense.
