Deleveraging: A fate worse than debt

Economist ^ | 09/25/08

[tcostell]

Be careful what you wish for.

[screaminsunshine]

I wish I was wrong. But I am not. The PONZI scheme of the Federal Government is being exposed. Only the government itself is willing to invest our money to keep it going. Would you put your own money in to a house worth half of what they are selling it for. If so I have a gret deal on some swampland down here in Florida.

[AndyJackson]

desperate to repair the damage inflicted on their balance-sheets by mortgage-related securities, sell assets. In doing so, they exacerbate the problem. Forced sales push down the prices of assets, worsening the balance-sheets of other investors, forcing more asset sales, and so on. In the end, the government is the only entity left in the game with a balance-sheet strong enough to keep buying.

This is just the mechanics of the old rules, you cannot get a free lunch and the higher the rise the harder the fall.

The damage is to national balance sheets because of the flagrant profligate ways of the lenders. When easy credit is available, prices rise, and use of credit to purchase goods and services becomes mandatory for the marginal person, to that point debt free. The bankers have undermined the nation, not the other way around.

The premise that governments have the ability to bail out the banks is also wrong. The Federal balance sheet is even worse than private balance sheets. What the governments can do is print money and give it to the banks, but that merely transfers calls on productive output from consumers to banks. At the end of the day that cannot fix the problem since bubbles burst when income cannot cover interest payments on debt without causing other economic dislocations.

Too much interest earning debt is like too many mice eating the seed corn. There isn't enough corn for all the mice, and what is left to plant will sustain even fewer mice and fewer farmers next season.

The wonder is not that this bubble finally burst, but that the magic of Greenspan and Bernanke and the skullduggery of our financial lords and masters managed to keep it going so long.

[RipSawyer]

you want a recession a few weeks before an election. obama is the biggest socialist around. you know he’ll take advantage of it.
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Didn’t you hear his acceptance speech? If he is elected he is going to defeat poverty, disease, even climate change and make us energy independent in ten years. Oh, we’ll all be drinkin’ that free Bubble Up and eatin’ that Rainbow Stew by the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings at the big rock candy mountain, Obama, Obama, Obama. I forgot to mention the buzzin’ of the bees in the cigarette trees by the soda water fountain. Obama, Obama, Obama.

[dennisw]

Too much interest earning debt is like too many mice eating the seed corn. There isn't enough corn for all the mice, and what is left to plant will sustain even fewer mice and fewer farmers next season. The wonder is not that this bubble finally burst, but that the magic of Greenspan and Bernanke and the skullduggery of our financial lords and masters managed to keep it going so long.

"You can't borrow your way to prosperity"

Also notice how the trade deficit still goes unmentioned. This kills us putting us in hock to foreigners for the oil and Chinese crap we buy