Canada Gets Into the Act: Injects $20bn Into Economy…

There hasn’t been much news from Canada in light of the global financial crisis, or at least not much widely-reported news.

In fact, Canada’s banking sector is hardly immune to the global credit tightening and the sub-prime-triggered crisis.

Here, then, is an overview of recent events in Canada:

• The TSX’s S&P Index is down over 10% in just four days.
• Bloomberg reports RBC’s Asset Management clients have withdrawn $1.2bn in the past month.
• Also from Bloomberg, TD saw $1.15bn redeemed in September.
• The Bank of Canada has injected $20bn into money markets to ease liquidity concerns among Canada’s banks.
• The Bank of Canada has also agreed to accept ABCPs – the Asset Backed Commercial Paper at the heart of the crisis – as collateral on a temporary basis.
• The average price of a home in Toronto dropped 6% in September, while the number of sales are down 11%, according to a report in the National Post. The number of homes listed for sale is up 19%.
• In Vancouver, meanwhile, the number of home sales declined a whopping 42.9% in September, versus a year ago, according to a report on CBC.
• The number of new Vancouver listings rose 28.8%.
• The “benchmark” price of a detached home has falled 5.8% since May in Vancouver, while the “benchmark” price of a condo fell 5.2%.

List of House Members Who Voted for Bailout…

Here’s the complete list of the members of Congress who voted in favor of the bailout bill:

Roll Call for Bailout Bill Vote

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 681

(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 1424 YEA-AND-NAY      3-Oct-2008      1:22 PM
QUESTION: On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments
BILL TITLE: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	172	63
Republican	91	108
Independent
TOTALS	263	171

—- YEAS    263 —

Abercrombie Ackerman Alexander Allen Andrews Arcuri Baca Bachus Baird Baldwin Barrett (SC) Bean Berkley Berman Berry Biggert Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blunt Boehner Bonner Bono Mack Boozman Boren Boswell Boucher Boustany Boyd (FL) Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Braley (IA) Brown (SC) Brown, Corrine Buchanan Calvert Camp (MI) Campbell (CA) Cannon Cantor Capps Capuano Cardoza Carnahan Carson Castle Clarke Cleaver Clyburn Coble Cohen Cole (OK) Conaway Cooper Costa Cramer Crenshaw Crowley Cubin Cuellar Cummings Davis (AL) Davis (CA) Davis (IL) Davis, Tom DeGette DeLauro Dent Dicks Dingell Donnelly Doyle Dreier Edwards (MD) Edwards (TX) Ehlers Ellison Ellsworth Emanuel Emerson Engel Eshoo Etheridge Everett Fallin Farr Fattah Ferguson Fossella

Foster Frank (MA) Frelinghuysen Gerlach Giffords Gilchrest Gonzalez Gordon Granger Green, Al Gutierrez Hall (NY) Hare Harman Hastings (FL) Herger Higgins Hinojosa Hirono Hobson Hoekstra Holt Honda Hooley Hoyer Inglis (SC) Israel Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Johnson, E. B. Kanjorski Kennedy Kildee Kilpatrick Kind King (NY) Kirk Klein (FL) Kline (MN) Knollenberg Kuhl (NY) LaHood Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lee Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (GA) Lewis (KY) Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe Lowey Lungren, Daniel E. Mahoney (FL) Maloney (NY) Markey Marshall Matsui McCarthy (NY) McCollum (MN) McCrery McGovern McHugh McKeon McNerney McNulty Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Melancon Miller (NC) Miller, Gary Miller, George Mitchell Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (VA) Murphy (CT) Murphy, Patrick Murtha Myrick Nadler Neal (MA) Oberstar Obey Olver Ortiz

Pallone Pascrell Pastor Pelosi Perlmutter Peterson (PA) Pickering Pomeroy Porter Price (NC) Pryce (OH) Putnam Radanovich Rahall Ramstad Rangel Regula Reyes Reynolds Richardson Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Ros-Lehtinen Ross Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Sarbanes Saxton Schakowsky Schiff Schmidt Schwartz Scott (GA) Sessions Sestak Shadegg Shays Shuster Simpson Sires Skelton Slaughter Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Snyder Solis Souder Space Speier Spratt Sullivan Sutton Tancredo Tanner Tauscher Terry Thompson (CA) Thornberry Tiberi Tierney Towns Tsongas Upton Van Hollen Velázquez Walden (OR) Walsh (NY) Wamp Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Watt Waxman Weiner Welch (VT) Weldon (FL) Weller Wexler Wilson (NM) Wilson (OH) Wilson (SC) Wolf Woolsey Wu Yarmuth

—- NAYS    171 —

Aderholt Akin Altmire Bachmann Barrow Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Becerra Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blumenauer Boyda (KS) Broun (GA) Brown-Waite, Ginny Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Buyer Capito Carney Carter Castor Cazayoux Chabot Chandler Childers Clay Conyers Costello Courtney Culberson Davis (KY) Davis, David Davis, Lincoln Deal (GA) DeFazio Delahunt Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Doggett Doolittle Drake Duncan English (PA) Feeney Filner Flake Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gillibrand Gingrey

Gohmert Goode Goodlatte Graves Green, Gene Grijalva Hall (TX) Hastings (WA) Hayes Heller Hensarling Herseth Sandlin Hill Hinchey Hodes Holden Hulshof Hunter Inslee Issa Jefferson Johnson (GA) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Jordan Kagen Kaptur Keller King (IA) Kingston Kucinich Lamborn Lampson Latham LaTourette Latta Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lucas Lynch Mack Manzullo Marchant Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul (TX) McCotter McDermott McHenry McIntyre McMorris Rodgers Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI)

Moran (KS) Murphy, Tim Musgrave Napolitano Neugebauer Nunes Paul Payne Pearce Pence Peterson (MN) Petri Pitts Platts Poe Price (GA) Rehberg Reichert Renzi Rodriguez Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Roskam Rothman Roybal-Allard Royce Salazar Sali Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Scalise Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Serrano Shea-Porter Sherman Shimkus Shuler Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Stark Stearns Stupak Taylor Thompson (MS) Tiahrt Turner Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Visclosky Walberg Walz (MN) Westmoreland Whitfield (KY) Wittman (VA) Young (AK) Young (FL)

What Really Led to the Credit Crisis?

While the US government tries to put a $1 trillion (yes, you read that right: trillion) bailout package together, and Mr. Barack Obama and others in favour of governmental economic interventionism call for greater regulation (without any specifics), there is plenty of discussion as to what got the economy to this perilous state.

The answer is very simple: risk has been divorced from financial underwriting decisions.

At the very heart of the current crisis are the so-called “sub-prime” mortgages. The banks who offered these mortgages faced no downside in the event a mortgage defaults. That not only makes for imprudent lending decisions, it rewards them.

Here’s why: a customer comes into a bank and requests a mortgage, the payments for which he or she can’t really afford. If the bank bears the loss in the event of a default, logic dictates the banker will very carefully scrutinize the customer’s finances and ability to repay the mortgage. Doing otherwise puts the bank at risk, so the mortgage application is diligently underwritten.

But that’s not the way the process actually worked.

Instead, the banker approved the mortgage application and issued the loan. The mortgage, meanwhile, was immediately sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Fannie or Freddie guaranteed the mortgage against default, bundled it with other mortgages, and sent it to Wall St., where the bundle of (now guaranteed) mortgages was sold to investors as Asset Backed Commercial Paper.

On the surface, you have a winning combination: investors get a chance to invest in a product backed by real assets and with a guarantee against default. Banks get paid up front for the sale of the mortgage. The original customer gets to buy a house he or she never thought possible to afford. No one loses. The bank doesn’t care if the borrower ultimately defaults: it has cleverly divorced itself from the consequences of poor underwriting decisions. The investor who bought the ABCP doesn’t care much either: his or her investment is guaranteed against default by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae who, it’s very widely believed, would never be allowed to collapse (which has since proven to be true). Even the borrower doesn’t care: the value of the house is sure to go up, building equity against which he or she can further borrow to buy that boat and big screen TV he or she has always wanted.

Except for one overlooked detail: the entire scheme is predicated upon housing prices never going down.

What might have prevented such a scheme from ever materializing? That’s easy: the linchpin of the whole dubious set up is Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. That’s the point at which underwriting became divorced from risk. Without Freddie and Fannie guaranteeing the mortgages against default, the investors buying the ABCPs would have been confronted with the actual downside potential. That, obviously, makes them far less attactive investments, and acts as a natural braking mechanism against an oversupply of credit. With less money flowing back to the banks, the motivation to put ever more risky mortgages on the books is removed: the riskier any particular mortgage is, the less valuable it is when the bank sells it.

Suddenly, that same customer applying for a mortgage on a home he or she cannot possibly afford is confronted with a banker shaking his head and suggesting a far more modest mortgage, the payments for which the customer can actually afford to service.

How did Freddie and Fannie get into a position of causing such a mess? President Roosevelt, as part of his “New Deal” economic interventionism, created Fannie in 1938 specifically to cause an increase in liquidity for mortgages. That liquidity, exactly 70 years later, led directly to the current crisis.

And where does that leave us today? With the US government proposing a taxpayer financed $1 trillion bailout for the purpose of increasing lending liquidity. And removing, again, financial underwriting decisions from the consequences of those same decisions.

Take a moment to have a chat with your grandchildren: tell them the economic sky is going to fall yet again within the next 70 years. Tell them we’re sorry for causing it, but it seemed like a great idea at the time…