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Institutions must be allowed to fail

by Morgan on September 1, 2008

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Some common sense from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig. Talking about economic calamity and the economy’s ability to recover Hoenig said allowing institutions to collapse is an important part of the process. It’s nice to hear some common sense once in a while. Take the time to celebrate it.

From Bloomberg:

Economies must “find a balance between financial stability and a stable price environment and in doing so must be able to allow individual institutions to fail,” Hoenig said in a speech today in Buenos Aires.

Turmoil in financial markets has persisted, even after the Fed started and expanded emergency programs to lend to commercial and investment banks. Changes in financial markets combined with the subprime-mortgage crisis have “raised anew questions about the role of central banks in maintaining financial stability,” he said.

“Financial crises will occur despite our best efforts to prevent them,” Hoenig said in prepared remarks at an event hosted by Argentina’s central bank. “The `Too Big to Fail’ issue will only grow in importance as the consolidation of the financial industry grows in both size and scope in future decades.”

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  • Fielding Mellish
    Fannie & Freddie should also be considered "not too big to fail" at least insofar as their stock value & prior mortgage bonds are considered. Paulson should not have effectively agreed to guarantee the agencies' existing mortgage debt (on account of the ol' "implicit" guarantee). He should only have guaranteed newly-issued mortgage-backed agency debt (from mid-2008 on). That would have preserved the future stability of US mortgage securitization, while forcing the old boldholders to take a "haircut". Admittedly, it would have been risky to let foreign creditors show such a loss.
  • I agree with Bloomberg, markets should be allowed to fail. Not so much for the "too big to fail reasons" but because of the "learned behavior" reasons. As long as industries/shareholders/bankers can behave recklessly and still escape relatively unscathed to the rest of the population, you leave the door open to more events driven by greed and short term gain
  • This week is going to be our final installment of the “How To Find The Right Loan Officer” series. Over the past 4 weeks, I have talked about 4 different things that you can do to help you find the best loan officer for your situation.

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