The operations were a complete success. No inflation resulted. The currency did not weaken. Despite massive non-performing assets wiping out the solvency and equity of the banking sector, the banks' health was quickly restored. In the UK and Japanese case, bank credit started to recover quickly, so that there was virtually no recession at all as a result.
The Moral Hazard Question
One objection to this approach is the risk of "moral hazard": lenders who know they will be rescued from their bad loans will recklessly make even more. That is the argument, but an analysis of data in China, where NPLs are now a significant problem, has relieved those concerns. China's NPLs are largely being left on the banks' books without writing them down. The concern is that shrinking the banks' balance sheets in an economy that is already slowing will reduce their ability to create credit, further slowing growth and triggering a downward economic spiral. As for the moral hazard problem, when researchers analyzed the data, they found that the level of Chinese NPLs did not affect loan creation, in small or large banks.
But if Puerto Rico got relief from the Fed, wouldn't cities and states struggling with their own debt burdens want it too? Perhaps, but that bar could be set in bankruptcy court. Few cities or states can match the devastation of Puerto Rico, which was already in bankruptcy court when struck by hurricanes that left virtually no tree unscathed and literally flattened the territory.
Arguably, the Fed should be making nearly-interest-free loans to cities and states, allowing them to rebuild their crumbling infrastructure at reasonable cost. That argument was made in an October 2012 editorial in The New York Times titled "Getting More Bang for the Fed's Buck". It was also suggested by Martin Hutchinson in Reuters in October 2010:
An alternative mechanism could be an extension of the Fed's [QE] asset purchases to include state and municipal bonds. Currently the central bank does not have the power to do this for maturities of more than six months. But an approving Congress could remove that hurdle at a stroke . . . .
The Fed lent $29 trillion to Wall Street banks virtually interest-free. It could do the same for local governments.
Where There's a Will
When central banks want to save bankrupt institutions without cost to the government or the people, they obviously know how to do it. It is a matter of boldness and political will, something that may be lacking in our central bankers but has been amply demonstrated in our president.
If the Fed resists the QE alternative, here is another possibility: Congress can audit the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Defense, and retrieve some of the $21 trillion gone missing from their accountings. This massive black money hole, tracked by Dr. Mark Skidmore and Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of HUD, is buried on the agencies' books as "undocumented adjustments" -- entries inserted without receipts or other documentary support just to balance the books. It represents money that rightfully belongs to the American people.
If our legislators and central bankers can find trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street banks, while overlooking trillions more lost to the DoD and HUD in "undocumented adjustments," they can find the money to help an American territory suffering the worst humanitarian crisis in its history.
____________________
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
