Rolfe Winkler

Tishman gives up Stuyvesant Town (Wei/Spector, WSJ) Way underwater was this deal: the price tag was $5.4 billion, but the property is thought to be worth only $1.8 billion now. Tishman put up only $112 million of equity. Lenders and investors get wiped out. Good. By the way, if underwater investors can walk away, there’s little reason underwater homeowners should feel a moral obligation to keep paying their own overpriced mortgages….

SEC mulled national security status for AIG details (Goldstein, Reuters) “U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve’s bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security…”

Avatar to surpass Titanic as top box office draw of all time (Box Office Mojo) Inflation in the price of movie tickets plus the fact that many are paying $16 to watch Avatar in 3D, mean the comparison isn’t totally fair. But whatever. James Cameron has directed the two best grossing movies of all time. And Avatar is poised to go well over $2 billion…in less than two months!

BOJ open to extending loans, bond buying (Hidaka/Otsuma, Bloomberg) The Japanese central bank has engaged in various rounds of quantitative easing since the late ’90s I believe. Yet they’re still unable to keep deflation at bay. There are those that say this is proof that QE doesn’t necessarily lead to inflation. The bet being made by guys like David Einhorn is that eventually the debt load overwhelms the Japanese economy causing the yen to collapse. Indeed, the inflation that people fear here in the U.S. isn’t so much the old wage-push variety. Rather it’s a sudden loss of confidence in the dollar when it becomes clear the U.S. can’t pay its bills.

Bernanke confirmation looks set (Gelsi, Marketwatch) When Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold pulled their support last Friday, it appeared Ben Bernanke might not get Senate confirmation for a second term. Now he look safe.

Fannie, Freddie should be eliminated, Frank says (Timiraos/Crittenden, WSJ) Unlikely this means Barney Frank will stop rolling the dice to subsidize housing with the public purse.

Leviathan stirs again (Economist) The return of big government the world over. This is not a good thing. Federal government is probably the least efficient allocator of resources in the economy. Not that we need smaller government overall, we just need smaller federal government. States and localities govern more efficiently. The federal government should be shrunk dramatically and the power/tax base of state and local gov’ts should expand.

Right-wing flame war (Dee, NYT) The story of Charles Johnson and his blog Little Green Footballs.

Newspapers are failing because their articles are too long (Kinsley, Atlantic) Shameless self-promotion: Reuters BreakingViews tells you what you need to know about financial news in 350 words or less!

2010: The year of the renter? (Toy, NYT) This story is NY specific. But I must say it’s good to live in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan. Some of the best deals on apts in NYC at the moment as there’s way too much inventory around here….

Will NY soda tax drive some to drink? (CityRoom) This is a pretty stupid argument from soda bottlers who are opposed to new taxes on their product. Beer and soda aren’t exactly perfect substitutes…

Cat vs. Bear

Tim Geithner covered up AIG’s payments to counterparties (DealBook) Timmy G. knew it looked bad for AIG to pay out 100¢ on the dollar to counterparties like Goldman. So he told AIG to shut up.

Obama buget will raise “carried interest” tax (Comstock, Business Insider) Awesome proposal from the Prez. Recall that hedge-funders and PE guys can treat their partnership income as capital gains. As a result they’re only taxed at 15% instead of normal income tax rates of 35%. Last time this came up, Chuck Schumer killed it. This time it’s likely to happen.

Obama OKs taxing high-end health plans (Werner, AP) Another good move. It’s Republicans who’ve argued that such health plans should be taxed so this will get bipartisan support if Dems get on board. Unions oppose it so this demonstrates some backbone from Obama.

New Japanese finance minister calls for more stimulus, weaker yen (Kajomoto/White, Reuters) Debt surpassing 200% of GDP doesn’t faze the new guy…

Redrado fight roils Argentina’s markets (Cowley, WSJ) Argentina’s president wants to fire the central bank chief for refusing to release reserves to pay down debt. He says he won’t go. He has the backing of Congress too. RBS says it’s an opportunity to buy Argie debt.

Banks favorite Dem set to replace Dodd (Grim, HuffPo) Tim Johnson is from SD, the home of credit card processors. He’s the only Dem who voted against credit card reform. He also opposes cramdowns and is a supporter of pay-day lenders…

Fed conflicted on MBS purchase program (Aversa, AP) The Fed has promised to stop printing money to buy mortgage-backed securities this March, after buying $1.25 trillion total. There are many who think the Fed is trapped and can’t step away. Not only will they never sell what they bought (effectively monetizing mortgage debt) but they’ll continue buying to support the housing market. Minutes from the latest Fed meeting suggest that some officials indeed think the program will have to keep going…

Schwarzenegger seeks U.S. funds (Woo/Carlton, WSJ) He says the nation’s taxpayers owe California money…

H&M says it will no longer destroy unworn garments (Dwyer, NYT) Jim put a good article in yesterday’s Times criticizing H&M for this practice. They responded quickly.

Lucky climbers (YouTube) Watch all 29 seconds…

Puppy glasses…

On Thursday, the Bank of England said that it would run its printing press a bit faster while the European Central Bank hinted that theirs might slow down sooner than expected.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve’s printing press is running low on ink, and Ben Bernanke has his own choice to make: Buy a new cartridge or shut the thing down. He should shut it down.

In particular, I’m referring to the Fed chairman’s commitment to print $300 billion to buy Treasury bonds by the end of September.

So far the Fed has purchased $243 billion since the program began in March. He’s on schedule to hit the $300 billion mark next month, right on schedule. The question is whether he should buy more.  (Click table to enlarge in new window)

With some signs pointing to a recovery, the conventional wisdom is that the Fed can let the program expire. That’s right, but for the wrong reasons.

The problem with quantitative easing, and with all programs fiscal and monetary intended to artificially support asset prices, is that they badly distort markets, preventing them from grappling with the underlying problem of leverage.

They also send false signals to market participants that it’s safe to take risk.

Leverage is still at record highs. To take just one measure, according to the Fed’s first quarter flow of funds report, total credit market debt to GDP stood at 376 percent. (Click chart to enlarge in new window, ht Comstock Partners)

We’ve run up more debt that we can possibly pay. As any overextended borrower can tell you, the way to deal with excessive debt is to pay it down, or declare bankruptcy.

But quantitative easing encourages people to take on more debt.

Take homes, for instance. Mortgage rates are tied to Treasury rates, which are held artificially low thanks to the Fed. Low mortgage rates lead to higher house prices and higher house prices provide collateral to take on more debt.

But when the Fed’s artificial support is removed, prices will continue their march downward and borrowers will find they can’t pay off their last loan.

Every time we hit a recession, the Fed’s solution is to hit the gas, encouraging folks to go deeper into debt. For a time, credit expansion provides the illusion of economic expansion. Until, that is, inflation fears force the Fed to hit the brakes.

We’re addicted to debt. But instead of trying to kick the habit, we invent ever more creative ways to find our next fix.

Once upon a time, low interest rates were enough. Not anymore. So the Fed devised a dangerous combination of zero interest rates and quantitative easing.

Before we were snorting the junk. Now we’re injecting it. And the high is causing market participants to take more dangerous risks than they should.

People jumping back into the housing market are in for a rude awakening as prices continue to fall and their equity evaporates. If house prices trend back up, it won’t be because people can pay more, it will be because credit markets have loosened up again and they can borrow more.

Then we’re back where we started, but with an even larger pile of unpayable debt.

The economy won’t be on a sound footing until debt levels fall, and that won’t happen as long as the Fed stands in the way. It should let its three quantitative easing programs expire on schedule, and make a firm commitment that they’re not coming back.