blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/03/07/...ps-the-cds-shark/
If Paul Krugman and others want the New York Times to be the paper of record, especially when it comes to matters economic, they’re going to have to do better than this:......
......As for the NYT’s idea of the “purpose” of a CDS, all I can say is that I have no idea whatsoever where they got that one from. At least on the CDS/Greece connection, you can see how various European politicians love to be able to blame Goldman Sachs rather than themselves for their woes. But this just makes no sense at all. What “complex debt securities”, exactly, can banks issue more easily if CDS reduce the risk to purchasers? Presumably we’re not talking about simple bonds and loans here, since they’re not complex at all. Is the idea that banks somehow help companies issue debt bundled with CDS insurance? I’ve seen a few monoline wraps in my time, but nothing like that.
In any case, by putting all this garbage on its Times Topics pages, the NYT has pretty much given up any hope of having the tiniest bit of credibility in the debate over CDS. The WSJ might be sensationalist, but I haven’t ever seen it go this bad.
und hier der fragliche Artikel der NYT
www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/business/07gret.html?
NYT Gretchen Morgenson: AS more details surface about how derivatives helped Greece and perhaps other countries mask their debt loads, let’s not forget that the wonders of these complex products aren’t on display only overseas. Across our very own country, municipalities, school districts, sewer systems and other tax-exempt debt issuers are ensnared in the derivatives mess. Like the credit default swaps that hid Greece’s obligations, the instruments weighing on our municipalities were brought to us by the creative minds of Wall Street. The rocket scientists crafting the products got backup from swap advisers, a group of conflicted promoters who consulted municipalities and other issuers. Both of these camps peddled swaps as a way for tax-exempt debt issuers to reduce their financing costs.
Now, however, the promised benefits of these swaps have mutated into enormous, and sometimes smothering, expenses. Making matters worse, issuers who want out of the arrangements — swap contracts typically run for 30 years — must pay up in order to escape.
That’s right. Issuers are essentially paying twice for flawed deals that bestowed great riches on the bankers and advisers who sold them. Taxpayers should be outraged, but to be angry you have to be informed — and few taxpayers may even know that the complicated arrangements exist. ......
der Artikel geht noch 2 Seiten weiter über die Probleme ,die den Städten wie New York und Jefferson County dadurch entstanden
.....WHAT is especially maddening to many in the municipal securities market is that issuers are now relying on the same investment banks that put them into swaps-embedded debt to restructure their obligations. According to those who travel this world, issuers are afraid to upset their relationships with their bankers and are not holding them accountable for placing them in these costly trades.
“We need transparency where Wall Street discloses not only the risks but also calculates the potential costs associated with those risks,” said Joseph Fichera, chief executive at Saber Partners, an advisory firm. “If you just ask issuers to disclose, even in a footnote, the maximum possible loss or gain from the swap they probably wouldn’t do it. And if they did that, then investors and taxpayers would know what the risks are, in plain English.”
[ngo]