Předběžný nástin příčin „velké finanční krize“

1. Předběžný nástin příčin „velké finanční krize“ Miroslav Zámečník 21.10.2008

2. Kořeny, aneb kdo za to může? • Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (za Cartera), následně Clinton a Kongres nátlakem na Fannie Mae a Freddie Mac (vládou sponzorované instituce na podporu dostupného vlastnického bydlení- odkupy hypoték a cenných papírů financujících hypotéky)- součást problému, nikoli hlavní příčina, protože úkolem kolem regulatorních orgánů bylo „to determine if the institution has met the credit needs of its entire community in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations“ tedy v souladů se zásadami obezřetného podnikání. • Lloyd Bentsen k CRA (první Clintonův ministr financí): "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live.“ • Verdikt Bernankeho k CRA (2007): „Managers of financial institutions found that these loan portfolios, if properly underwritten and managed, could be profitable" and that the loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default". • In a Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust."[56] • According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis.[62]

3. Jestliže ne CRA, tak Fannie Mae? • Assistant Professor of Law Alan M. White[64] notes that some abuses blamed on CRA actually occurred under the George W. Bush administration, because the Housing and Urban Development and Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their affordable housing goals – which are not technically part of the CRA – by buying subprime mortgage-backed securities.[65] • In 1997, First Union Capital Markets and Bear, Stearns & Co launched the first publicly available securitization of CRA loans, issuing $384.6 million of such securities.[18] These public offerings had so much appeal they were several times oversubscribed by money managers and insurance companies who were not buying them for CRA credit.[19] Between 2000 and 2002 the government sponsored enterprise the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, securitized $394 billion in CRA loans with $20 billion going to securitized mortgages."[20] In 2000, in order to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans.[21][22] In 2007 Ben Bernanke suggested further increasing the presence of Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation which increases secondary markets) in the affordable housing market to help banks fulfill their CRA obligations by providing them with more opportunities to securitize CRA-related loans.[23] • In 2003, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted that dramatic changes in the financial services landscape had weakened the CRA, and that [in 2003] less than 30 percent of all home purchase loans were subject to intensive review under the CRA.[33]

4. A co FED a regulátoři? • "[T]he degree of monetary tightening that would be required to contain or offset a bubble of any substantial dimension appears to be so great as to risk an unacceptable amount of collateral damage to the wider economy," former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in 2002. • Part of the problem was that the Fed applied the lessons of the dot-com bubble to housing and credit, says Harvard University economist Jeremy Stein. When Internet stock prices collapsed in 2000, the economic fallout was contained, because the use of leverage -- borrowing money to magnify bets -- was limited. The housing market is far more dependent on credit, and therefore leverage. As the issuance of mortgages expanded, and investors plunged money into complex securities based on those loans, matters got dangerously out of hand. • "Monetary policy, for which we in the Federal Reserve are responsible, is a blunt instrument with economy-wide effects," said Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern. "We should not pretend that actions taken to rein in those asset-price increases, which seemingly outstrip economic fundamentals, won't in the short run curtail to some extent economic growth and employment.„ • In 2000, derivatives were exempted from all regulatory, supervisory or reserve requirements by the Commodity Futures Modernisation Act. • From 2002-07, the Alan Greenspan Federal Reserve chose not to supervise new mortgage-lending firms. • In 2004, the SEC granted net capitalisations exemptions to five firms. This exemption allowed banks to ignore traditional debt-to-net capital ratio – previously a modest 12-to-1 ratio. After the 2004 exemption, firms levered up as much as 40-to-1. It’s not surprising that the five brokers that received this exemption – Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley – are no longer in existence; they either failed, merged or changed into depository banks. • The Greenspan decision not to supervise mortgage lenders led directly to the new lending standard . During that five-year period (2002-07), the basis for making mortgages was NOT the borrower’s ability to repay – rather, it was the lender's ability to sell mortgages to a third party who securitised and resold them.

5. Regulatorní arbitráž a její důsledky • Competitivemarkets are ruthlesslyefficientatfindingthe most cost-effectiveway to generatethehighestreturns. Themortgageoriginationsthatwereleastlikely to default in 90 dayswerethenownotorious 2/28 ARMs. These loans had cheapteaserratesthatlastedfor 24 months, andthen reset to a higher, market-basedrate. By monthseven, theoriginator had zeroconcern as to whetherthemortgagedefaultedor not. • Disciplinující funkce trhu se bohužel projevila až tím, že většina tohoto typu poskytovatelů hypoték, asi 300, podala návrh na prohlášení konkursu. Závěr: takto vládou manipulovaný (CRA, FannieMae, Freddie Mac a spol), regulovaný-neregulovaný (provokující regulatorní arbitráže), perverzními stimuly nasycený, díky finančním inovacím vysoce komplexní (sekuritizace, CDO, CDS etc.) a masívně napákovaný trh se zhroutil.