Emac's Stock Watch | Fox Business
  • September 17, 2008 09:12 AM EDT by Elizabeth MacDonald

    What the Fed's Rescue of AIG Really Means

    If the $85 bn lifeline the Federal Reserve tossed to American International Group, an extraordinary expansion of its powers, feels ad hoc to you, it should. Because it is.

    With the government's rescue of damaged financial behemoths, US taxpayers now own equity in AIG (AIG), Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). The Federal Reserve is now trying to unload $29 bn in rotten Bear Stearns assets it took on its balance sheet in its orchestrated shotgun wedding between Bear and JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

    But the Fed's move should not only make you wonder if AIG is going to get yanked from the Dow Jones Industrial Average list of 30 stocks, and get replaced by Apple, Google--or The Federal Reserve (why is General Motors still in the Dow?)

    There remain a host of consequences taxpayers must consider in this rescue.

    Who is next on the Fed's watch list. Whether more banks will fail (see below). What happens to the money fund market.

    Was the Fed Preparing for an AIG Failure?

    The questions also go beyond the fact that, given that AIG can borrow up to $85 bn from the credit facility using its own stock as collateral, the Fed was likely looking beyond Lehman Brothers and preparing itself for AIG's collapse.

    That's because, in the past few days the Fed opened the door to let all sorts of collateral be used to borrow at its discount window, including a company's own stock (and that collateral also can now include the mortgage-backed securities Wall Street mints on its own).

    Who else sits on its watch list? And with a regulatory meltdown so apparent, we know regulatory loopholes can kill us.

    But With the Fed's Move, Do Loopholes Save Us?

    First, here's what the Fed did in its AIG bailout, according to its press release:

    The Federal Reserve will now "lend up to $85 bn to the American International Group (AIG) under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. The secured loan has terms and conditions designed to protect the interests of the U.S. government and taxpayers."

    The credit facility lasts two years and has an interest rate of three-month LIBOR plus 850 basis points, or a high rate of 11.3%.

    The Fed's release adds: "The Board determined that, in current circumstances, a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth, and materially weaker economic performance."

    The Fed's move buys AIG time to unload assets "with the least possible disruption to the overall economy."

    "...The loan is collateralized by all the assets of AIG, and of its primary non-regulated subsidiaries. These assets include the stock of substantially all of the regulated subsidiaries. The loan is expected to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of the firm's assets."

    In return, "the U.S. government will receive a 79.9 % equity interest in AIG and has the right to veto the payment of dividends to common and preferred shareholders."

    The Fed's Siren Call

    The government wants to make clear it is not doing a Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac move here, where it is guaranteeing a company's debt.

    Instead, the message the Fed wants to send to taxpayers is that it is not guaranteeing anything else at AIG for that matter.

    The message loud and clear here is that the Fed wants taxpayers to believe it will profit off the AIG rescue.

    AIG gets a two-year loan at a nosebleed interest rate, 11.3%, with a $19 bn interest payment due at the end of its term, as the Fed has exercised, within its purview, a loophole in the law that lets it lend to non-banks in "exigent" circumstances. And with the credit facility comes a nearly 80% equity stake in AIG, now owned by US taxpayers.

    AIG is Too Big to Fail

    AIG insures cars, homes, skyscrapers, factories, families, other insurers. Its guarantees sit behind mutual funds and money funds, pension funds owned by government workers, 401 (k) holdings, and annuities.  

    Despite the Fed's intervention, already a flight out of money funds to US treasurys is underway, driving yields down to record lows, due to the loss of confidence and upon news that the money fund Reserve Primary saw its net asset value drop below $1. The three-month t-bill has plunged to rate levels not seen since 1954, to as low as 0.23%.

    AIG's Biggest Minefield for Investors--and Banks

    What has become terrifyingly apparent now, AIG is a huge player in the $62 tn credit default swaps market, and a bankruptcy would have ignited massive writedowns around the globe.

    Banks around the country have counted these swaps as part of their regulatory capital cushions they are required to hold to support their businesses. If the swaps go down in value, banks could face more writedowns and have to raise more capital, if, in the form of equity raises, diluting existing shares.

    CDSs are basically insurance against defaults on derivatives. A swap is essentially debt insurance companies buy on their credit derivatives, whereby AIG would have to pony up money if the assets underlying the derivatives belly flopped.

    Swaps are basically AIG's promise that it would make good on any losses to holders of asset-backed bond securities, including mortgage-backed and commercial real estate-backed bonds. With the housing and credit bubble bursting, one estimate of AIG's exposure here reached half a trillion dollars. Caveat emptor: No one really knows the exact dollar amount.

    Just look at the swaps swirling around Fannie and Freddie alone.

    The Fannie and Freddie Factor

    As economist Edward Yardeni points out: "Dealers in the CDS market are now working to settle billions of dollars of such contracts" now amounting to as much as $500 bn on the $1.6 trillion of Fannie and Freddie debt.

    Yardeni adds that, "although the debt is regarded as safe after the US government effectively nationalized the two gigantic mortgage companies, their move into ‘conservatorship' counts as the equivalent of a bankruptcy in the credit derivatives market." That remains to be seen.

    Yardeni points out that, in the 9/11 edition of the Financial Times, Aline van Duyn, one of the smartest business columnists in the world, reported that the recovery value of the Fannie and Freddie CDS is currently expected to be about 95 cents on the dollar, leading to a potential 5% loss for insurance companies or banks who offered protection against a default.

    If their CDS contracts total $200 bn to $500 bn, as some have estimated, the losses would come to $10 bn to $25 bn.

    Read Between the Fed's Lines

    So note how, as CreditSights, a research firm points out in a special report, the Fed's press statement and dictums governing the AIG rescue do not use the words "default, receivership, conservatorship."

    Those words would let counterparties break trades involving AIG credit defaults swaps around the globe. That would create even more writedowns around the world.

    As the housing and credit bubble burst, AIG already has seen massive defaults on these derivatives as well as dramatic plunges in values of other securities it owned, triggering more than $40 bn in writedowns and record losses.

    How Loopholes Hurt Us

    Again, loopholes kill us, but with the Fed's move, do loopholes save us? Loopholes let Enron shove all sorts of bad behavior in off-balance sheet assets, loopholes let Congress set up the biggest off-balance sheet vehicle of all to the US economy, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, loopholes let Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae push off their balance sheets some $3.3 tn in hedges.

    Loopholes let Citigroup and all sorts of banks squirrel away in off balance sheet structured investment vehicles hundreds of billions of dollars in housing bubble assets.

    Loopholes let Congress shove off budget the cost of Social Security and Medicare, now fast approaching $99 tn according to research out of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. Ad infinitum, institutionalized juvenilia.

    Inflation Comes Barreling Down

    And now, presto change-o, section 13(3) "means that the money supply has just been expanded by $85 bn," says David Rosenberg, a top economist at Merrill Lynch. "With this move the Fed and Treasury have blinked in the face of market pressure once again."

    Rosenberg adds: "They continue to react to situations rather than getting in front of them and now they have created uncertainty about what firms qualify for bailouts and which do not. Until that goes away, markets will continue to test their limits and that is not good news for markets going forward."

    And it spells more inflation, as the government needs to print money to solve these problems, sending the dollar lower.

    Yardeni adds: "Bernanke & Co. has slashed Treasury securities held outright by our central bank from $754.6 bn at the end of last year to $479.8 bn now."

    He notes: "What did they do with the $274.8 bn in those still-AAA securities? They exchanged them on a term basis with financial institutions stuck with illiquid dodgy securities."

    After-the fact refereeing is extremely costly to taxpayers. Is the free market now a regulatory free-for-all too?

EILEEN n.y.

WHY DON'T YOU LET THE BIG OIL COMPANIES BAIL OUT WALL STREET AND LEAVE THE TAX PAYERS OUT OF IT? THEY RAKED IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN PROFFITS, THEY CAN AFFORD IT. WE , THE TAX PAYERS ARE ALWAYS TAKING THE 'HIT' FOR THE 'MISTAKES' OF THE 'BIG WIGS'. IT'S TIME FOR THEM TO CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES.

September 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm

andy sessa

I would like to express my true appreciation of FBN, in broadcasting during this extortion of taxpayer dollars, Main street’s side of the story and telling the truth that is never told by other media…....thanks Andy

September 29, 2008 at 1:38 am

Tom Logie

Apparently there is still no final deal. In the short term, how are we going to tax financials that are already reeling and in some cases are at the brink of disappearance? In 5 years, who knows? What about financials who did not contribute to the problem and who do not have toxic paper? Blue-collar workers realize that in today's interrelated economy that they have a stake as depositors and as retirement fund beneficiaries in the health of banks and other financials.

September 28, 2008 at 3:56 pm

Lynda Lee

Why is it SO necessary to decide to fund a bailout so quickly? Reminds me of the Weapons of Mass Destruction-- Bush HAD to prememptively strike before the Weapons inspectors could finish their job. How do we know that the credit market and the flow of funds will dry up? Why cant we sit tight and wait and then if things do shut down, THEN we can bail out the sectors that need it! Lynda

September 24, 2008 at 8:29 pm

Old Ben Franklin

Short selling is NOT the problem. Short sellers are NOT the problem. They are just the latest choice of scapegoat... There is (and has long been...) a great villain in all this, dealing in clever lies and treachery behind a mask of respectability. That villain must somehow be completely exposed, before the honest working folks of this nation can be spared further ruin and destitution. That great villain is the Federal Reserve Bank, the FED and its boss, the U.S. Congress who approves its activities. They are solely responsible for all of these financial convulsions, in the first place! The U.S. Congress and that den of clever liars, the FED, are the root cause of the collapse of Wall Street, and the ever increasing price of gasoline and food. Bailing out these Wall Street firms with more fiat money (devaluation) is only going to worsen the problem in the future, the near future. The scoundrels at the FED know this! Most members of Congress know this! But they will say anything and do anything to avoid blame for the financial ruin of the working people. Yet they are solely to blame! Their lunatic decision now is to prop up temporarily their buddies on Wall Street... But, this is done at the expense, and to the further ruin of the working classes! The FED and Congress know this too! They will say, "better the people's livelihoods ruined, then we greater men in the government". Parasites on the decent working people! Soon the prices (gas prices, grocery prices and the price of everything else that is so vital to the working peoples' very existence) will start to go higher, and higher! Higher than ever before -- directly as a result of this latest round of devaluations of the U.S. dollar, $500 billion more dumped on the people's markets! Each time this happens your dollars lose purchasing power. The men at the FED know this! Cold-blooded scroundrels! Each time this happens, it takes more and more dollars to buy food and gasoline. Yet the price of gasoline when purchased in gold coins is the same as it was 50 years ago! They know this too! Yet they will resort to any trick of words and ideas to mislead the honest working people. Callous devils! When are the people of this country going to see through this great villain? When? When a plain loaf of bread costs $40.00 USD? That's coming too! That's down the road just a little farther...

September 19, 2008 at 10:00 pm

jeff saturday

GOOD MORNING COMRADS I am off to work to make sure the $30,000 a year income earners can stay in their $400,000 homes and Angelo Mozzilo and the like can live their opulent life style on the money they stole or were given from the tax payers.No need to worry about the renters or the people who pay there bills and live within their means. We will just keep going to work paying our bills and our taxes so the greedy get rich quick "victims" who can`t pay the mortgages they never could afford and were given by mortgage brokers who didn`t care that were bundled by Wall Street who lined their pockets who sold them to investors looking for a better yield. WE GOT YOUR TRILLION DOLLAR BACK!!!!!! SIGNED ANGRY TAXPAYER FROM WHAT I THOUGHT WAS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

September 19, 2008 at 8:20 am

Bruce Tate

I'm glad my Faith is in God not man.

September 19, 2008 at 3:35 am

Dan Spooner

Allen, very well said! Would you mind being a write-in candidate?

September 18, 2008 at 10:37 pm

Mark

US taxpayers now own equity in AIG , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac No They don't. The Federal Reserve is not a government company, it is a private company

September 18, 2008 at 12:40 pm

Allen

Come on, now. Why all the surprized looks? This all started more than 30 years ago and surprizing as it may seem is NOT the fault of GWB or the Rep. philosophy but is simply what we all asked for. Do you remember when PG&E was a $10 stock and paid a $1 annual dividend? Do you even remember what dividends are? Do you remember when members of Congress held public meetings in their districts when they were not in D.C.? If you remember those things and were old enough to participate, did you? Do you remember when a short-term business play was ONE YEAR? There was a shift in Wall Street emphasis on "real" capital, "real" profitability as seen by regular dividends (CASH dividends)and controlled debt to non-ownership (leasing, not buying, assets), Mergers and acquisitions fueled by uncontrolled debt, and expensing things that used to be "investments". It may have seemed like a good idea at the time but that is not sustainable forever and sooner or later the piper had to be paid. It used to be that executives worked their way up through the firm and knew how it worked by the time they "arrived" - now they come from outside, blow things up, sell them off, and escape with the profits. The worst part of that is that WE APPLAUD THEM for doing this!! If you want to change things, there is only one way to do it - the American way - PARTICIPATE!! If our "representatives" are not representing US, replace them with ones who will. When they asked us what we thought/wanted/needed we ignored them because we were doing well enough and didn't want to spend the time. Now we are paying the price. It took decades to get here, it will likely take decades to get out, but if we don't start NOW it will take FOREVER!!

September 18, 2008 at 8:19 am

Dana Swan

Elizabeth, have you stopped to realize that the bail out of A.I.G. means that the Federal Reserve (a private corporation) now owns 79.95 of another private corporation, by giving A.I.G. an 11% loan or 24 months using government dollars ?????

September 18, 2008 at 1:24 am

Ricky

There are a lot of people that are worried about a 'total meltdown' of the financial markets. I am one of those people. I don't have much $ to invest but supposedly this whole meltdown thing is gonna affect everyone and everything. What does 'total meltdown' really look like!? Is it inevitable? And one more thing - Toyota is now more of an 'American' company than GM is. Why not subsidize Toyota for R&D so we get real electric vehicles!?

September 17, 2008 at 8:22 pm

Scott Anderson

It’s the Morality Stupid Watching the financial news networks and reading most of the popular publications has brought me to the conclusion that most if not all of them are missing the point. The big government liberals want to blame our woes on “corporate greed” and the Bush administration for the onslaught of financial losses. It's not just "corporate greed" that is to blame. Immorality has permeated our entire country. Adams warned that "our form of government was intended for a moral people" and that it is entirely "inadequate for the government of any other." Self government doesn't work for a people incapable of governing themselves. The same is true for capitalism. Capitalism is a beautiful thing when the people “love their neighbors as themselves” and “do onto others” as they would have others do onto themselves. A country of hedonists and narcissists will destroy each other without hesitation. These are the fruits of Darwinism. It is survival of the fittest. Why shouldn’t I plunder you for everything you have? So what if YOU are going to be destitute; just think how happy my wife and kids will be while we enjoy your money. It equals out right? “If I didn’t take the suckers money, someone else would have.” If there is no system of eternal reward or punishment why should I care? Oh, it’s wrong because YOU say so? Well it “feels right” to me so what gives you the right to impose your morality on me? We are reaping the harvest that comes as a result of moral relativism. Today’s corporations are run by generations who have been taught by public schools and Ivy League universities that they are accidents which emanated from cosmic goo (Carl Sagan). They believe that man determines right from wrong and there is no higher authority. This is the same disastrous belief that failed the so-called “enlightenment” in France a concomitant of the French Revolution. Ivy League universities like Princeton think they are being savvy by adding courses on corporate ethics to their curriculum but when people are taught that they are accidents and there is no morality beyond what “reason” can bring us – it is all empty rhetoric. You cannot believe anyone anymore. How do you trust anyone's reported numbers? How do you know you can trust anyone's analysis? Stronger government oversight and regulation will safeguard us from corporate greed? Dream on folks. That has been tried for the last 100+ years. First of all, immoral people will always find away to get around the new laws and regulations. Secondly, the government and their regulators are no more than a sample taken from the same pool of immoral people that are ostensibly being regulated. Look how many of our representatives took sweet heart deals from Fannie Mae. They are just as corrupt as those running many corporations. These are the same spoiled brats who we saw smoking their dope, dropping their acid and protesting our country at Woodstock. You’re going to take solace in the notion that these reprobates are going to fix the problem? They ARE the problem. They reject the very foundation that made this country the most prosperous nation on earth. We are overly self righteous in that we all point the finger at corporate America for being corrupt and insatiably greedy as though we ourselves are immune. When I listen to the Obama campaign it makes me nauseous to hear them blame the banks and mortgage industry for making “bad loans”. There is culpability across the board from the mortgage lenders, realtors, developers, property appraisers to the actual borrowers themselves. It is time for America to grow up and start taking responsibility. The elected idiots are telling people what they want to hear. You never hear about “predatory BORROWERS” in their populist rhetoric. You don’t hear about the millions of prodigals who knowingly borrowed more than they KNEW they could afford for a house or houses they knew they couldn’t afford. As I warned these people myself that when the bottom drops out they will not be able to make their payments once their ARM adjusts. They just replied that they were going to “flip” the home before that ever happened. Well the music stopped and all of the sudden they are playing the victim and are calling for a “new deal” from their enablers the Democrats. We as a nation CAN become stronger from our suffering if we stop acting like insolent children, take responsibility for our own actions and once again become a people worthy of self government. Just as gold is refined by fire as the fire burns out all of the impurities, we can use this time to become a better people. If we as a nation do not return to our heritage, which first requires that we learn what those roots are (thanks to the juggernaut of public education), we will witness a tyrannical ending to our freedoms. The writing is on the wall. People find it cute these days in using the phrase about having a “come to Jesus moment”. I am not being flippant in saying that is exactly what we need. "Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?" – George Washington/Alexander Hamilton (Farewell Address)

September 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Ken Cutts

What is the real implication of "US taxpayers now own equity..." in such and such?

September 17, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Jack Strassner

I was under the impression, at least that was what I taught in school that this was supposed to be the land of the free, right? Isn't this supposed to be FREE ENTERPRISE? Aren't we supposed to be living in a country where the government is ONLY supposed to be concerned with matters involving NATIONAL SECURITY, and NOT the financial market??? Since when is it constitutional for our present day communistic government to stick their rotten hands into something that isn't their business? Since this country has been taken off of the GOLD STANDARD, all of the problems have begun. I hope no one expects "Big Brother" to ever return the entities that he has siezed control of back to their proper owners! Remember, the government NEVER gives back anything!! They are gradually taking our freedoms away...day after day! Apparently they feel threatened by John McCain and want the system to fail so that they can enact Marshall Law before the elections. Think I am crazy? Let's just watch and see....Today AIG, Tomorrow it will probably be J.P. Morgan and than General Motors and than who know what else they will grab before their appetite is satisfied!

September 17, 2008 at 3:59 pm

JP

What the Fed means is inflation and devaluation of the dollar. The Fed option was bankrupcy, instant loss of jobs and financial trust down the drain. Either way we are all screwed. Its the financial Katrina of 2008. At least we can say the Fed and the Treasury reacted better than FEMA. The damages of this storm are severe no matter what any adminstration does. Next storm Ike - credit cards, savings and loan, regional banks and some nationwide banks going out of business. In total the Fed has 112 banks on watch with some 50% looking like they are going...going...gone.

September 17, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Frank

One of the tenets of socialism is Government participation in the ownership of businesses. Socialism is more on the left of the political continuum than Liberalism. In view of the recent bailouts of big businesses, conservatives should stop using Liberalism as a bad word.

September 17, 2008 at 2:41 pm

KCT

Tax cuts? There were never going to be tax cuts. Business profits are way down, unemployment is way up, and that means tax revenues are going to be way, way shy of budget in 2009. The Treasury and the Fed keep dolling out, and the candidates promise all, but clearly no one in the federal government has reconciled the check book lately and found out how seriously they are overdrawn. Like a bad CEO, the government is going to give itself a raise, and the taxpayers/stockholders are going to have no choice but to pony up. I agree that the financial press should have been more vocal, should have seen this coming. But let's face it, most of the financial press are former employees of Bear Stears, Lehman, AIG, et al. Where are the financial whiz kids who dreamed up derivatives of derivatives so that the same financial instruments could be sold over and over, repackaged until the underlying investment is virtually unrecognizable and its actual risk impossible to guage? I think a lot of them are working at Barrons, Forbes, and maybe even Fox Business. You don't really expect them to come out and tell us, do you? I think it's time for everyone on Wall St and in Washington to take a refresher in Economics 101. Clearly they've all confused the invisible hand of the market with their own sleight of hand. The invisible hand of the market will keep doing what it does, and this house of cards is going to fall. In the end we will have a Soviet style planned economy, and the invisible hand will do to us what it did to the USSR.

September 17, 2008 at 2:34 pm

JON

Good article except for this : quote "There remain a host of consequences taxpayers must consider in this rescue." We, as taxpayers, have nothing to consider. NO ONE ASKED US WHAT WE THOUGHT!! They take our hard earned money and then they bail these companies out. How much did the upper management receive in pay and benefits for AIG this year? Hope it was less than 1 cent because it looks like thats about what their work was worth. I wish I could get paid millions of dollars to run my company into the ground, and then have the hard working American taxpayers bail my ass out. God I can't take it anymore. I have never been so angry in my entire life. Our "elected" officials just sit by and say its for the good of the economy and the world. Meanwhile, they take that lobby money and buy another benz or another mansion on the beach. F all of 'em.

September 17, 2008 at 2:29 pm

DCX2

Credit Default Swaps brought to you by former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), in the form of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This Act virtually eliminated all government oversight of what includes Swaps. It was voted for in the Senate largely along party lines, with exactly 1 Democrat voting for and 0 Republicans voting against. It was signed into law by former President Clinton in a fine example bi-partisan destruction of our financial system. This is what happens when the Private Market is permitted to grow without oversight. It grows rapidly and collapses destructively. Government oversight may restrict growth, but I think the lack of rapid collapse is a worthwhile trade-off. JPF - I love your last line, especially "your kids and their kids". The current Republican administration is not fiscally conservative; I refer to their irresponsible deficit spending as "tax your children and spend."

September 17, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Peter

Once again, our government has failed us. Politicians are all in a club. All of them, Republicans and Democrats. We are not in the club. How much do they think we are willing to take? I'm sick of all of it. What legacy of this once great country is being left for my son? Greed and corruption.

September 17, 2008 at 1:28 pm

WSV

Sad day(s). You want to know who to blame? Blame yourself. We sit by and let all this happen, returning useless legislators to DC again and again (certainly true here in Jersey) and not paying attention when the players in these financial markets made these instruments (of destruction?) so complicated no lay person can understand it. Like it now or not, we have gotten what we have asked for.

September 17, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Martymar

We deserve the results of all of this. Best regards, renter, shorter, and metal hoarder.

September 17, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Ray N

I need some help. Can the federal government help me and all the other people in this society?? Ay present they are trying to take away more then we got to take care of the millionares and corporate crooks.

September 17, 2008 at 12:52 pm

RBS

We can certainly blame the present administration, but what I want to know is where was the great Democratic Congress who was going to change everything. McCain warned two years ago about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and no one wanted to take action. Obama and Dodd have taken the most in campaign funds from both entities. Also, tell me why the Clinton administration allowed the whole subprime loans. We were told when we lived in Florida that Hispanics could get home loans probably easier then us -- my husband had his own business and they would only count my income. Guess we need to watch what we wish for -- Obama is a great "talker" with very little experience. Whether people want to admit it or not Palin has more experience then him.

September 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm

about this blog

  • Elizabeth MacDonald is the stocks editor for Fox Business Network. She is recognized as one of the top prize-winning business journalists in the country, and has received 14 awards, including the top prize in business journalism, the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Journalism, and the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism.

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