We have a major capital problem at the U.S. banking level. What Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson are essentially proposing is an asset swap. The Fed will take on the toxic assets of the banks and they will receive reserves in exchange. This is important because it will alleviate the strains in the credit markets. That’s a good first step, however, it is not a solution to the problem at the household level and THAT is where the real economic weakness is. By introducing this asset swap idea Ben Bernanke is simply altering bank balance sheets. He is not fixing the economy.
So, the government has a partially correct solution. Not the BEST solution, but it gets to the core of the credit issues. They will essentially trade the bad paper for good paper and it will alleviate many of the pressures on the banks. As I have written here many times the banks are the lifeblood of the system. I like to think of the banks as the oil in the engine. If you run out oil the system begins to break down and eventually the engine stops running. You can’t have a healthy functioning economy if the banks aren’t lending. Unfortunately, because this won’t fix any problems at the household level it won’t induce any borrowing. So, it’s a clever way to resolve the banking crisis, however, it doesn’t fix the root of the problem which is at the household level. So, again I ask – is this a “bailout”? You bet your ass it is. Unfortunately, it’s not a bailout of the entire system. It’s just a bailout of the banking system. And their problems are merely a symptom of much bigger problems at the household level.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.