The Great Debate

First exit for the Fed

Agnes Crane

Jun 23, 2009 07:59 EDT

– Agnes T. Crane is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are her own –

Call it a battle for beginnings and endings, and the Federal Reserve is smack in the middle.

As Fed policymakers convene for a two-day meeting starting on Tuesday, the lines are growing more defined between those who want the Fed to do more to stimulate a still fragile economy, and those who are calling for a defined exit strategy to prevent the global economy from going into an inflation-inducing overdrive.

There’s a way to placate both camps, at least in the near-term, and that’s for Ben Bernanke and his colleagues to retire some of the temporary short-term lending facilities put in place at the height of the financial meltdown last year.

It would show good faith that the U.S. is serious about exiting some of those emergency facilities, and it would give the central bank breathing room to keep its ultra-easy monetary policy in place until it’s ready to call the all clear.

Bernanke, as a scholar of the Depression, is all too aware of what can happen should the central bank move too quickly and forcefully in removing stimulus.

One program in particular is a ripe candidate – the Commercial Paper Funding Facility.

Writing history – the Panic of 2008

John Kemp

Jun 22, 2009 14:21 EDT

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Economic history is the only field of human endeavor where the past changes as much if not more than the present and the future. Policymakers and practitioners struggle to define and write a “narrative” of the past as a means to control how policy responds to current and future problems.

The debate now over financial reform is a case in point. Even though the banking system has only just emerged from the most severe shock since the 1930s, the battle over how to define the events of the last 18 months, and what they should mean for investors and regulators in future, is already well underway.

Contrasting speeches last week by Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King illustrate the two extremes around which the debate is polarizing:

* Warsh speech

* King speech PDF

The financial sector will exploit these differences to derail any fundamental overhaul of regulation.

BlackBerry’s biggest rival may be itself

– Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

Research in Motion officials do their best not to laugh when asked if they fear the rise of a BlackBerry-killer, some theoretical device that does everything its coveted e-mail phone does, only better.

But BlackBerry’s biggest threat may come from itself. As the company’s latest quarterly results suggest, there is a gulf between its pricey corporate phones and price-sensitive consumer models that are cutting into margins.

When a loyal Research in Motion (RIM) customer such as a corporate IT manager discovers he’s paying more than twice the price at work that his the 16-year-old daughter is paying at retail, he feels ripped off. That in a nutshell is the crisis RIM faces.

Of course, RIM’s crown jewel remain its corporate business. Its franchise there stems from the thousands of company network managers who rely exclusively on RIM’s e-mail management software to ensure corporate communications are securely delivered to their intended recipients. Companies pay a premium for this reliability. Those investments lock customers into BlackBerry services and prevent other competitors from breaking in. However, this is changing.

After years of failures, Microsoft and Nokia now have secure e-mail systems that offer credible alternatives. They give these away to corporate clients, putting longer-term pressure on BlackBerry’s corporate franchise.

The success RIM has achieved in consumer markets has defied all analyst predictions. But consumer success has come dearly in terms of profit margins and falling average selling prices. Eighty percent of its new users in the quarter ended in May were non-enterprise, retail customers rather than mainstay corporate clients. The key difference between corporate and consumer markets is that RIM lacks the customer control over consumers it has had in offices.

Starting a trade war with “Buy America”

–- Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed are her own. –-

When Congress inserted “Buy America” protectionist provisions that required some goods (such as steel, cement, and textiles) financed by the stimulus bill to be made in America, our government invited a trade war with important economic partners.  Now China and Canada are imposing their own protectionist regulations, potentially destroying well-paid American jobs in the export sector.  Other countries may follow suit.

This week China reported that the government now requires stimulus projects to use domestic suppliers when possible, even though in February it promised to treat foreign companies equally.  The Chinese $585 billion stimulus package has resulted in a World Bank growth forecast of 7.2% for China this year, far above other industrialized countries.

And on June 6 the delegates at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities passed a resolution calling on “local infrastructure projects, including environmental projects such as water and wastewater treatment projects, [to] procure goods and materials required for the projects only from companies whose countries of origin do not impose trade restrictions against goods and materials manufactured in Canada.”

The tragic losers of “Buy America” are free trade agreements and potential job growth in the American economy. Seductively, “Buy America” promises workers they can have it all — cheap goods from China, oil from Canada, as well as protection from global competition. But real life just doesn’t work that way.  In reality, “Buy America” is shorthand for fewer jobs as other countries retaliate.

Many markets no longer have national boundaries but global reaches. America sits at the center of global markets for technology, equipment manufacturing, finance, banking, fashion, and advertising — to name but a few. When international markets expand, America grows. When barriers are erected to trade, jobs — and also wages —shrink.

Regulation reform hints of “Old Europe”

– Robert R. Bench, a former Deputy Comptroller of the Currency in the Reagan administration, is a senior fellow at the Boston University School of Law’s Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law. The views expressed are his own. –

“Le laissey faire, c’est fini” – French President Nicolas Sarkozy

There indeed is a French flavor to the administration’s proposals for reforming the structure of regulation and supervision of financial institutions operating across the United States. In many ways the proposals resemble the “Commission Bancaire,” the French regime for financial oversight.

Perhaps the proposals reflect commitments the U.S. has been making at the meetings of the G20 countries, consisting of countries which finance much of U.S. government operations and American consumer credit.

If we want those countries to continue to be our banking lifeline, we need to engage in reforms to satisfy their expectations for financial discipline and integrity. We cannot restore confidence and trust in our financial institutions and markets until investors feel again that U.S. financial transactions are on the “up and up.”

The same goes for domestic investors and savers. Financial institutions made promises to U.S. pension funds, municipalities, and trusts. Those promises were broken, as losses of 20, 30, and 40 percent have been incurred. U.S. financial institutions sold “dreams” to American financial consumers: first house, vacation house, student loans, secure retirements, etc. For some, those dreams are totally broken. For many, the dreams have turned into nightmares.

U.S. customers of U.S. financial institutions rage at those institutions’ lack of performance and executives’ performance bonuses. U.S. financial leaders sit on the beach while American taxpayers are stuck on a treacherous fiscal sandbar.

Learning to love falling house prices

Christopher Swann

Jun 18, 2009 07:37 EDT

– Christopher Swann is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Optimism has been all but extinguished from the U.S. housing market.

The number of Americans lining up for new home loans is shrinking again, according to Wednesday’s release from the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the best that can be said of homebuilding is that it has stabilized at almost 80 percent below its peak.

With no end in sight to falling prices, perhaps we should look on the bright side. Indeed, there are three good reasons why sliding prices are not such a bad thing.

Falling house prices are usually seen as wealth destruction. But they can also be seen as wealth transfer. The next generation of homebuyers will benefit from our loss. Those young homebuyers who have been able to cling onto their jobs are already reaping the advantage. The American dream of home ownership can now be achieved at bargain basement prices.

Take San Francisco. If you earned the median wage in San Francisco at the peak of the housing market in 2006, you would have needed to devote 75 percent of your income to meet mortgage payments on the average home. Now people will pay just 35 percent of their income, according to Ian Morris, chief U.S. economist at HSBC.

It would no longer be any surprise if prices remained stagnant for a decade – spreading the benefit of cheap housing for at least 13 million new households.

Bet on small firms to lead China global foray

–Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own–

Chairman Mao used to say the truth is always kept by the minority.

A little-known private Chinese machinery company’s bid for a GM marque has been sneered at by even the patriotic Chinese media, but the deal could succeed where mightier plays like Chinalco’s for Rio Tinto have failed.

Dell’s retail detour starts to look smart

– Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own – Dell Inc’s move into retail sales might seem poorly-timed, discretionary spending being what it is. In fact, the world’s No. 2 personal computer maker looks like it’s making the right choices that can get its long-struggling consumer business rolling again.

Dell is gearing up to feature several refreshed lines of consumer PCs in 30,000 stores around the globe. The company’s consumer retail chief Michael Tatelman has set aggressive growth targets for the business.

These targets come despite predictions by market research firm Gartner Inc that the PC industry this year will suffer a nearly 12 percent decline, its biggest-ever unit sales drop.

But Dell appears to have learned the right lessons from its historic build-to-order approach to making PCs and is well positioned to take advantage of some of the few positive trends at work in a PC industry facing relentless commodity pressure.

Dell’s ambitious retail strategy can be traced to Tatelman’s background as president of Motorola Inc’s mobile handset business. As PCs shrink into handheld devices with built-in mobile connections, there are fewer differences to phones.

And its latest products stand out from other PC boxes by their brightly colored designs from prominent graphic artists. What’s impressive about the new line-up is Dell’s ability to translate the thinness and sleekness of its top-of-the-line Adamo into its more affordable Inspiron notebook line. Dell’s strategy could help it win some fanatical followers and even steal back some of the elusive “cool factor” of Apple Inc’s ultra-thin Macbook.

Turning computers into lifestyle accessories makes sense. Dell looks smart to be acting like a cellphone marketer with hundreds of custom design options rather than a stodgy PC seller living on old glories with only a handful of models to offer.

Ahmadinejad won. Get over it

– Flynt Leverett directs The New America Foundation’s Iran Project and teaches international affairs at Pennsylvania State university. Hillary Mann Leverett is CEO of STRATEGA, a political risk consultancy. Both worked for many years on Middle East issues for the U.S. government, including as members of the National Security Council staff. The views expressed are their own. —

This article originally appeared on Politico.com.

Without any evidence, many U.S. politicians and “Iran experts” have dismissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection Friday, with 62.6 percent of the vote, as fraud.

They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent of the vote in this year’s election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election, when he trounced former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The shock of the “Iran experts” over Friday’s results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking.

Although Iran’s elections are not free by Western standards, the Islamic Republic has a 30-year history of highly contested and competitive elections at the presidential, parliamentary and local levels. Manipulation has always been there, as it is in many other countries. But upsets occur — as, most notably, with Mohammed Khatami’s surprise victory in the 1997 presidential election. Moreover, “blowouts” also occur — as in Khatami’s reelection in 2001, Ahmadinejad’s first victory in 2005 and, we would argue, this year.

Like much of the Western media, most American “Iran experts” overstated Mirhossein Mousavi’s “surge” over the campaign’s final weeks. More important, they were oblivious — as in 2005 — to Ahmadinejad’s effectiveness as a populist politician and campaigner. American “Iran experts” missed how Ahmadinejad was perceived by most Iranians as having won the nationally televised debates with his three opponents — especially his debate with Mousavi.

The Fed needs to get its wallet out

Christopher Swann

Jun 12, 2009 13:11 EDT

– Christopher Swann is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

The Federal Reserve is putting on a brave face about the rise in Treasury yields.

At the moment, the Fed can afford to put off bringing out the big cannons for a little while. If market optimism is overdone, a few weak economic releases would soon send interest rates plunging again. If the market is right, then higher rates are justified and the economy will cope.

But Fed policymakers, who next meet in two weeks, should be getting the artillery ready. They have already promised to buy as much as $300 billion of Treasuries before September.

Unless rates come down swiftly, this limit should be increased substantially.

So far, the Fed has managed to confound the skeptics of their unconventional monetary policy.

Fed intervention breathed life back into the commercial paper market and the program appears to be winding down. The purchase of mortgage securities has driven the spread between 30-year mortgages and Treasury yields down to pre-Lehman levels. The result was a spurt of mortgage refinancing.