– Louis E. Lataif, a former president of Ford Motors of Europe, is dean of the Boston University School of Management. The views expressed are his own. —

Government ownership of General Motors (60% U.S. and 12% Canada) will be fraught with difficulties.

Given the large taxpayer stake in the company, it will be impossible for elected officials to stay out of the fray. Congress inevitably will interject itself in business decisions affecting employment, the kind of vehicles the company builds, or the company’s position on nationalizing health care – just as it is now asserting itself on the question of dealership closures.

Imagine the new General Motors (i.e., the government) attempting collective bargaining with the United Auto Workers’ union (on whose behalf the government stepped into the fray in the first place).

Consider the company lobbying Washington on an issue favored by the government (e.g., tax policy or the elimination of secret ballots for workers) but ill-suited for the company. And there there’s the matter of types of vehicles to be built.

With a strong environmental agenda, the government will understandably favor alternative fuel vehicles. Yet, there is no company in the world making any real money on such vehicles, given the current economics of alternative propulsion methods.

The government points to Toyota as a car company that has been responsive to the need for small, fuel-efficient cars, but Toyota reported a first quarter loss much worse than that of General Motors. That’s because the vehicles that keep these businesses viable — larger cars, SUV’s and trucks — are not selling in sufficient volume during this consumer credit crunch.

If GM’s new owner find that the company’s products are not selling well (while competitor vehicles are selling better) it may decide to institute expensive purchase-incentive programs. When those programs are matched by the competition (which is what happens in normal competitive marketing), thereby eroding the profitability of the healthier competitors, where do those stronger companies go to complain about predatory pricing practices by their government-owned competitor?

I think the current approach to “saving General Motors” will prove untenable.

If the government truly believed that America needed to save its domestic auto industry, it would have been far wiser if the U.S. Treasury served simply as a lender of last resort. It then could have granted the ailing automakers interest-bearing bridge loans with restrictive covenants requiring sacrifices from management, the union, the bond-holders, and suppliers — and then let professional managers run the private businesses.

Then when the demand for automobiles rebounds (as it always does following a recession), the taxpayers would be the first to be repaid.

But by becoming an owner, a role for which government is singularly ill-suited, the federal government has taken us into difficult, uncharted economic waters — a market-damaging move I suspect we will regret. Hopefully, the Treasury realizes this and will work to find a swift way out of its ownership position.

-- Neil Collins is a Reuters columnist. Christopher Fildes is a guest columnist. The opinions expressed are their own --

LONDON, April 22 (Reuters) - The Treasury is the UK government's finance ministry. There are many other government departments, but in the years since 1997, all have been turned into subsidiaries of the Treasury, the power base of Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he was chancellor.
His ambition was to micro-manage in every one of them. Today we saw the true cost of this disastrous experiment. All major countries have serious problems with their government deficits, but the most entrenched of Britain's are home-made.
Britain's public finances, which had been deteriorating for years, are wrecked. Even on his successor's rose-tinted projections, they will not return to a balanced Budget for at least the next nine years.
Given that no Treasury projection for more than three or four years out bears any resemblance to reality, and given the there will have been at least two elections between now and then, this is a post-dated cheque drawn on the Bank of Fantasy.
Alistair Darling has learned at the feet of the master of obfuscation, double counting and footling detail. So we heard all about the green recovery, from a government that sees no contradiction between raising the cost of fuel and granting tax concessions to North Sea explorers. There may be more oil there, but for the state, this is now a dry well.
The Chancellor did not dare say what he and his advisers really think about the green-tinted scheme wished on them by Peter Mandelson, the Trade Secretary, to scrap your old banger for 2,000 pounds towards a new one.
At least they managed to limit the damage to a single year. If your car is not 10 years old by next March, it will be junked in the ordinary way.
Junk is what the last Treasury forecast has now become. It's barely five months since Darling's last emergency package. It looked like a work of fiction then, and now there's no doubt. In his Budget a year ago, he was expecting to borrow 43 billion pounds in 2008/09, crowing that the previous peak was much higher, at 7.8 percent of gross national product. The sum would come down after that.
By November, there was no crowing. The projected borrowing requirement was 78 billion pounds, and was going up, to 118 billion in the following year, not down. Even those horrible figures have now been left far behind. Last year he needed 90 billion pounds, and in 2009/10, he says, it will be 175 billion pounds, or 12.4 percent of GNP.
The forecast is then for a fall, although not by much. In 2010/11 he - or his successor - will still be 173 billion pounds short of balancing the books.
So in three years the government will have borrowed 5,600 pounds for every man, woman and child in the country. That's over 20,000 pounds for what the prime minister routinely calls the average hard-working family.
In any business, from a corner shop to a multi-national, this arithmetic would be immediately fatal to those who had put it forward. Their credit would be ruined, and the business's credit could not be restored while they were still in charge.
Britain's credit is ultimately expressed in the external value of sterling, as Brown himself has said. The pound has already been devalued informally by a greater amount than the two previous formal devaluations in 1967 and 1992.
The short-term effects have been mostly benign, but the possibility of a flight from the currency is always there. This Budget makes it a little more likely.
In this context, everything else is detail. The biggest detail is the attack on what Darling describes as "those who gained the most". This is a sop to his fractious party in parliament.
From next April anyone earning over 150,000 pounds a year will be paying 51.5 percent on every extra pound earned, the highest rate in Britain for 21 years. They will also lose their tax-free allowances and half the tax relief on their pension contributions.
The small print betrays that the government is relying on these measures to bring in 7 billion a year, sometime in the middle distance. This looks as unconvincing a forecast as any in Darling's portfolio. Well-paid labour is highly mobile nowadays, and will go where the prospects are high and the taxes low.
Nothing else in the 250 pages of the Budget Report is worth a row of green beans. Even the Treasury can't put a price on the measure to reduce VAT on children's car seat bases.
Despite its name, "enhanced capital allowances" will actually raise more money -- 10 million pounds, or enough to run the government machine for about eight minutes.
Thrashing around for something cheerful to say, Darling kept telling us how much worse off other people were. To assert that "we and other countries have been battling against a succession of shocks which have hit the world economy" suggests that our luckless planet had crossed orbits with a large economic meteorite.
The former chancellor, now prime minister, assumed the sun would shine forever, and that he had somehow managed to suspend the usual rules of economics -- or as he himself put it, "no more boom and bust." In recent years, he produced growth by borrowing, pouring the money into the public services for ever-decreasing returns.
Each time he borrowed more than he had forecast. Now the bill has arrived, and it's plain that neither he nor his successor has the slightest idea of what to do. Marc Ostwald of Monument Securities summed it up within minutes: "a Budget of tinkering with the public sector financial sector meltdown, with no substance or obvious strategy whatsoever."
One day the Treasury will remember how to mind its own business, under a chancellor who grasps that until the public finances are put in order, nothing else will go right. The longer the wait, the worse will be the reckoning.

– Jonathan Ford is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Goldman Sachs wants to do its duty by the American people and give them their TARP money back. Some spoilsports have urged the government simply to say no because allowing the investment bank to repay the cash would make other banks look bad.

But this seems rather un-American. Why shouldn’t taxpayers get their money back if Goldman really doesn’t need it? The point to insist upon is that they get all of it back — and on commercial terms.

To be clear, that means not just the $10 billion of TARP-related preference shares the government subscribed for last autumn, but also the rest of the Federal assistance Goldman has received.

That includes the $29 billion of FDIC backed bonds that Goldman has issued at low coupons, without which — as Jon Unia observes in a snappy letter to the Financial Times on April 22 — it might have posted a first-quarter loss rather than a profit. Goldman has, as it points out, issued bonds without a guarantee since last autumn, so it’s not impossible. The full $29 billion would need to be refinanced on commercial terms. After all, either you’re a private sector player or you’re not.

Unia also observes that if Goldman wants to prepay the prefs, it should be charged by the taxpayer for the temporary loan of the Federal balance sheet. This, after all, is what a commercial lender like Goldman would do if the boot was on the other foot.

There is even a mechanism for it to happen. As part of any pref repayment, Goldman could be obliged to buy out the warrants it issued to the Treasury at the same time as the prefs at a price negotiated between the two. This payment could be the prepayment premium.

My suggestion would be that in any such negotiation Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner should select a Rottweiler of an adviser to act on the taxpayers’ behalf — one who could not be accused of being in Goldman’s pocket. Who could fill that role? How about Dick Fuld?

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

Treasury Secretary Geithner is all but admitting that U.S. banks are suffering not from market failure but self-inflicted collateral damage.

The U.S. Treasury on Monday detailed an up to $1 trillion plan to buy up assets from banks in partnership with private investors, using financing bankrolled by the government, financing that is only secured by the value of the doubtful assets the fund buys.

One portion will be dedicated to buying complex securities from banks employing capital contributed by private investors and the government topped up with funds borrowed from the Federal Reserve. A second portion will buy older securities that are, or were, rated AAA, using, you guessed it, more non-recourse funding.

But most interesting of all is a plan to buy whole loans, dubbed “legacy loans”, from banks but this time the private-public subsidized vehicle will get its leverage courtesy of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-guaranteed debt.

Notice that the ground has shifted subtly and the government is now talking not just about “toxic” assets but “legacy” ones. A legacy asset is, more or less, everything real estate related now on bank balance sheets.

These loans are not marked to market they are held to maturity, so no blaming the market here. They are nothing more than doubtful loans in the process of going bad as the economy implodes and the real estate they are collateralized with drops in value.

There is an almighty bust in the U.S. real estate market and it is blowing holes in bank balance sheets having nothing to do with securitizations.

It rather undercuts the argument that was advanced about earlier subsidy plans, that there was a “market failure” leading to hard-to-value complex securities being priced by the market at too little, below their fair “held-to-maturity” value.

The only uncertainty around a whole loan is whether the debtor will pay back the loan and, if not, what the collateral is worth. So there is no more deception about liquidity, market failure or anything else, only a naked subsidy to the banking industry, using the private sector as a pricing mechanism and cutting them in on the deal in exchange.

DEFINITION OF PRIVILEGE
So, will it work, and if it does how will this step influence the way banking functions down the road? Depends on what you mean by work, but it will doubtless take a tranche of lousy assets off of banks.

But as for creating confidence, I can’t see it. Firstly, investors will twig to the idea that the balance sheet issues are deep, and secondly, now that we are talking whole loans I think it’s clear that the $1 trillion is only a down payment.

That means the administration will need Congress to play along and fund another wodge of subsidy. That may be a tough sell, especially considering that the administration has bent over backward to keep Congress out of the funding loop, using the Federal Reserve and FDIC as funding mechanisms and thereby effectively arrogating the funding powers Congress is supposed to hold.

The plan also hugely encourages moral hazard, as it leaves too big and too failed companies, boards and executives in place while providing them with a chance to climb out of the holes they have dug themselves. Not much of a lesson in accountability.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Secretary Geithner said the U.S. must strike a balance between promoting public trust and spending taxpayer cash to get the banking system functioning.

“This requires those in the private sector to remember that government assistance is a privilege, not a right. When financial institutions come to us for direct financial assistance, our government has a responsibility to ensure these funds are deployed to expand the flow of credit to the economy, not to enrich executives or shareholders,” he wrote.

It is just astounding that he even sees the need to remind us that free government money is not a right, and reveals much about the balance of power between him and those seeking handouts. And you simply can’t give a subsidy without enriching executives or shareholders, you can only hope not to do it too obviously.

Finally, don’t even begin to believe that concerns about government interference will leave the U.S. with few well qualified asset managers willing to commit their capital to the plan. New York and Connecticut are stuffed to the gills with asset managers who would crawl naked over hot coals to get access to cheap, non-recourse, long-term funding from the government.

That there are suggestions to the contrary is simply an attempt to try and influence the debate about government control over compensation at firms which accept taxpayer largess. A smokescreen within a smokescreen.

– At the time of publication James Saft did not own any direct investments in securities mentioned in this article. He may be an owner indirectly as an investor in a fund –

– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. —

Republicans and Democrats in Congress, along with President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner, have been raking AIG over the coals in hearings and speeches for paying employees bonuses totaling $165 million. But today’s Los Angeles Times reports that the Treasury Department specifically agreed to the bonuses in a 586-page agreement signed on November 25. The deal allows AIG to pay out bonuses for the 2009 year that equal bonuses paid for 2007.

It stands to reason that the contracts to pay bonuses would have been known to Treasury officials a half-year ago, when they reviewed AIG’s financial position before funneling $85 billion into the firm to prevent its collapse. Basic due-diligence scrutiny of the firm’s books would have revealed the contractual obligations to make bonus payments to retain talented staff. What is puzzling is why the administration pretends not to know.

According to documents from AIG, the bonuses are compensation owed to employees under Connecticut law. Under the Connecticut Wage Act, the company said, if the bonuses are not paid, AIG becomes liable for legal costs of employees who try to collect, as well as penalties that could equal twice the bonuses owed. AIG might also leave itself liable to shareholder suits.

Despite the show trial in Congress and the sense of public outrage, it would be unwise for the government to go back on the contracts and sue to recover the money, especially when they agreed to it in November. This could make America resemble Russia, where trumped-up charges are used to prosecute companies that fall out of favor with the ruling elite.

Members of Congress are also discussing emergency legislation to tax away part or all of the bonus. This would set a precedent—corrupting if not unlawful—of using the IRS and the tax code as weapons of the state to go after individuals whom the administration and Congress want to punish. Such sanctions might amount to ex post facto punishment, legislation that makes unlawful behavior that was lawful when it occurred. The Constitution prohibits such legislation. Even President Nixon, who had an enemies list, never dreamed of this.

The wave of public sentiment against the AIG bonuses presents the government with a choice. It can try to run companies that receive bailout funding in a way calculated to win public approval, micromanaging every detail. This is impossible, because the government cannot even manage its own federal agencies efficiently, with episodes of wasted resources surfacing regularly.

Better, the government should get out of the business of rescuing ailing companies. The bailouts have won little support among Americans. In a CBS poll published on March 16, 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the government giving money to banks and financial institutions even as a way to help the economy and only 37 percent approve.

When TARP began in early October, it was supposed to resolve the problems of the financial sector and avert an economic slump. In late September, President Bush warned that if a bailout bill did not pass: “More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. “

Even though TARP passed, 28 more banks have failed, the stock market has dropped by almost one-third, and median home prices have declined by 9 percent. It’s natural that Americans have become disillusioned.

The attack on AIG is being used by the administration and Congress to bolster sinking approval ratings and hide the failures to date of the $700 billion TARP and the $787 billion stimulus package, as well as their lavish future spending plans: the $275 billion housing bailout plan, the $634 billion health fund, and higher individual and carbon tax increases. The outrage would be put to better use abandoning bailouts altogether.

– Peter Morici is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission. The views expressed are his own. —

For every new president, campaign promises and inaugural idealism must give way to the hard choices that measure the mettle of their leadership.

Now Barack Obama must act pragmatically to fix the banks or the economy will sink under their weight.

Banks continue to suffer losses on bonds backed by failing mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, and questionable corporate debt. To assist, the Treasury has used TARP funds to purchase capital in healthy and deeply troubled banks alike; however, no one can calibrate how high bank losses will go, because no one knows how far housing prices will drop and how many loans will ultimately fail.

The Obama Treasury could put a floor under bank losses, through government guarantees on their bonds, or by creating an aggregator bank that purchases those securities from banks altogether.

Guarantees would give the banks profits on bonds whose underlying loans are mostly repaid, and shift to taxpayers losses from those bonds whose loans are mostly not repaid. That would require additional large subsidies from taxpayer to the banks.

An aggregator bank, however, could turn a profit. It could purchase all the commercial banks’ potentially questionable securities, at their current mark to market values, with its own common stock and funds provided by the TARP. Then the aggregator bank could balance profits on those securities whose loans pan out against losses on securities whose loans fail.

An aggregator bank could perform triage on mortgages. It could work out those whose homes can be saved with some adjustments in their loan balances, interest rates and repayment periods; foreclose on mortgages for homeowners who could not meet payments with reasonably concessions; and leave other loans alone.

Commercial banks acting alone cannot accomplish triage as effectively, because individually they can have little effect on how much housing values will fall. In contrast an aggregator bank, holding so many mortgages and working in cooperation with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, could have a salutary impact on housing values. It could put some breaks on falling home prices.

Beyond toxic securities, policymakers need to fix what got banks into this mess. The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall permitted the creation of financial supermarkets, like Citigroup, that combined commercial banks with investment banks, brokerages, and the bizarre universe of hedge and private equity funds.

Those nonbank financial firms are run by salesmen and financial engineers that don’t understand long-term commitments as bankers to borrowers with solid incomes and sound business plans.

Investment bankers, securities dealers and fund managers, essentially, get paid commissions on sales and for betting other peoples’ money on arbitrage opportunities. They put together people that have money with those that need money, and those people that can’t bear risk with those that can.

In contrast, commercial bankers, historically, had skin in the game—bank capital and a fiduciary responsibility to depositors. They were paid salaries, not commissions on the volume of loans they wrote or bought from mortgage brokers to package into bonds. They expected to be fired if their loans prove imprudent.

To investment bankers and securities dealers, it does not matter how risky a loan is, because they can always bundle it into a bond to sell it off or insure it with a swap. That’s nonsense, as we have learned. Adopting that thinking commercial banks got stuck with too many loan-backed bonds and buying swaps that were not backed by adequate assets.

Commercial banks need to be separate and more highly regulated. The ongoing process of breaking up Citigroup and placing its banking activities into a separate entity should be replicated at other Wall Street and large regional banks.

Freed from toxic assets and the complications of affiliations with financial institutions having other agendas, commercial banks could raise new private capital and make new prudent loans as President Obama’s stimulus package lifts consumer spending and business prospects.

Such approaches would disappoint those who champion unbridled free markets but Wall Street’s financiers have abused the opportunities offered them by deregulation to the peril of the nation.

President Obama needs to craft solutions that address the world as he finds it not as intellectuals tell him it should be.