The Great Debate

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own —

Ben Bernanke may minimize the role of monetary policy in the housing debacle, but he minimizes two key factors: the effect of low rates and the Fed’s policy of cleaning up after but not popping bubbles had on risk-taking.

In what amounts to a defense of his own and Alan Greenspan’s legacy, Bernanke maintains that low interest rates didn’t cause the bubble, which he says required a regulatory rather than monetary solution.

“Borrowers chose, and were extended, mortgages that they could not be expected to service in the longer term. They were provided these loans on the expectation that accumulating home equity would soon allow refinancing into more sustainable mortgages,” Bernanke said in Atlanta over the weekend.

And where, I wonder, did borrowers get the idea that these new-fangled mortgages were good for them and that double-digit house price increases would continue? Greenspan famously sang the praises of mortgage innovation and floating rates for house buyers, while both he and Bernanke missed the bubble and downplayed its potential impact almost all the way to the bottom.

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

Auditing the Federal Reserve may or may not be a good idea, but one thing seems pretty sure: just discussing it seriously will tend to drive the price of gold higher.

The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee last week voted to approve an amendment that would bring about an audit of the Fed, its monetary policy and lending programs, since when gold has gone its merry way higher, hitting an all-time high of $1,174 per ounce on Monday.

The amendment, a provision to a broader financial services reform bill that is still under consideration, was co-sponsored by Republican Representative Ron Paul, author of the book “End the Fed,” and the man least likely to be found chairing a panel at Jackson Hole or Davos.

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

New studies from the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank show that, whatever else, a recovery in the economy is not being supported by a resumption in bank lending, raising concerns about how exactly growth will become self-sustaining when official stimulus ebbs.

The ECB last week released its loan survey showing banks tightened credit yet again for businesses and consumers, though at a less severe rate than in the previous quarter. Much was made of the fact that banks said they expected to ease terms to businesses, but not individuals, slightly in the last three months of the year.

Days later the Fed was out with its own survey, and again the news is getting worse more slowly, which must mean it is time to pop open the tap water. Banks are tightening terms and conditions to large firms, though fewer are doing so than before. Of course we should be thankful for small mercies, but the fact remains that this is a relative rather than an absolute survey, which means that even if fewer are being tougher the vast majority are being just as tight with money as they were three months ago when things were very tight indeed.

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

Don’t expect the year-long rally in risky assets to be undermined any time soon by the Federal Reserve becoming concerned about inflation.

The old metaphor — that the Fed’s job is to take away the punchbowl just when the party starts getting good — just doesn’t apply in the current circumstances. That’s not to say inflation isn’t a threat in the medium term — it is virtually a promise.

But punchbowl thinking dates from a time when firstly the Fed was presumed to have a degree of control over events we now know is not true and secondly to an era when asset prices were the caboose rather than the engine of the economic train.

- James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Even putting aside the spectacular but hard-to-measure risks of a financing crisis or the loss of its special status, the dollar faces really serious headwinds from boring old fundamentals.

The dollar has been weak for months and markets have been fretting over a host of big picture worries.

Perhaps the world’s oil exporters will stop using the dollar as the medium for petroleum trade. Or maybe the so-far patient and docile buyers of Treasuries will finally turn jittery. Either could be a disaster for the dollar, but you don’t need conspiracies or crises to be bearish on a currency from a country which on some measures has run the largest-ever deficit between what it imports and what it sells abroad.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman William McChesney Martin joked that it was his job to "take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going." But Alan Greenspan never did, choosing instead to spike it every time the party slowed down. The results were more than a little unfortunate.

Now, faced with years of economic stagnation, most economists conclude interest rates will stay low indefinitely. The Fed is doing little to disabuse them, though an opinion article from Fed Governor Kevin Warsh in today's Wall Street Journal tries to warn us not to get complacent.

Warsh says, a bit technically: "'Whatever it takes'... cannot be an asymmetric mantra, trotted out only during times of deep economic and financial distress, and discarded when the cycle turns." In other words, if the Fed only intervenes during downturns, it risks its credibility as protector of the dollar.

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

There is a long list of outfits which have done well out of the banking bailout, but the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are not among them.

According to calculations made for the New York Times, the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has reaped profits of about $4 billion, or 15 percent annualized, as eight of the largest banks to participate have fully repaid what they owe.

Meanwhile unnamed Federal Reserve officials told the Financial Times that the central bank’s liquidity facilities have generated a “gain” of $14 billion since August of 2007.

It's time for someone in the Obama administration to read the riot act to Robert Benmosche, American International Group's new $7 million chief executive.

Since getting the job, Benmosche has spent more time at his lavish Croatian villa on the Adriatic coast than at the troubled insurer's corporate offices in New York.

And in the short term, Benmosche's vacation strategy appears to be paying dividends.

For most policymakers, deflation is the stuff of nightmares -- scarier even than bank failures and stock market collapses. As the economy stumbled, deflation became Lords Voldemort and Sauron rolled into one.

In recent months, however, this economic supervillain seems to have lost its power to intimidate.

With growth reviving, many economists now believe that deflation is highly unlikely to materialize.

John M. Berry is a guest columnist who has covered the economy for four decades for the Washington Post and other publications.

By John M. Berry

Financial crises and the policies to deal with them top the agenda at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole conference. But what is actually going to be on everyone's mind at the august gathering is the uncertain future of the Federal Reserve itself.

Many members of Congress want to clip the Fed's wings for failing to prevent the crisis and for its actions since the meltdown began two years ago. In particular, most are angry about government bailouts, starting with the $29 billion in Fed backing for the purchase of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase.