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Tagebuch New York
Das Geld der Bank
Als Bankkunde muss man in New York umdenken. Die Geldinstitute drängen einem ihr Vermögen derart auf, dass sich asozial vorkommt, wer noch keine Schulden hat.
Montag, 24. September 2007
Als Bankkunde muss man in New York umdenken. Die meisten Sparkassen und Banken, mit denen ich bisher in Deutschland zu tun hatte, wollten vor allem eines: mein Geld. Sie boten mir lauter nette Anlageideen an, manchmal drängten sie mir diese richtiggehend auf.
In Amerika ist es gerade umgekehrt: Hier wollen die Banken zwar auch mein Geld, sie versuchen aber dadurch dranzukommen, dass mir zunächst ihres aufdrängen. Ich werde so sehr eingedeckt mit Kreditangeboten, dass ich mir fast asozial vorkommen, weil ich noch keine Schulden gemacht habe. Man braucht nur das Online-Portal meiner Bank zu öffnen, schon springt einem das erste Angebot ins Auge: „Ihr persönlicher Kredit: 5000 Dollar für nur 107 Dollar im Monat“. Dahinter verbergen sich durchaus beachtliche Zinsen von 10,05 bis 25,99 Prozent.
Vorige Woche rief ich die Hotline meiner Kreditkarten-Gesellschaft an. Der Anrufbeantworter dirigierte mich zu Michael, einem freundlichen Mann, der in einem Call-Center in Indien saß.
Weiter unter www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/special/510/100410/...4/130953/article.html
Aged and Smooth Stock Picks
Kass: How the Market Will Unravel
By Doug Kass
Street.com Contributor
9/24/2007 2:11 PM EDT
The bearish case for stocks is predicated on the notion that the massive creation and accumulation of debt -- particularly the consumer sector -- contributed to a large portion of the domestic economic (and stock market) gains experienced since 2000.
This added liquidity from nontraditional lenders dulled the effect of the Fed and served to buoy the low credit markets, allowing companies that should have failed to have access to large sums of equity and bonds. This created the feeling that all was well with the business world as stock markets rallied around the world and corporate default rates hit all-time lows by early 2007.
But that was an illusion.
Today, the nontraditional (and creative) credit originators are in intensive care and will not fuel growth anywhere near the degree to which they have in the past. The binge of mindless mortgage (and other forms of) borrowing abetted by generous strangers and central bankers abroad, by legions of unscrupulous mortgage lenders in the U.S. who fed the machine of packagers of credit on Wall Street and, most importantly, by a too easy Federal Reserve -- is now being reversed. The credit unwind in the upcoming years can be expected to have a profoundly negative impact in the current down cycle of economic activity -- possibly for years to come.
Other factors:
Supporting this notion, semiconductor equipment shipments in August fell dramatically and well more than forecast. Importantly, the U.S. does not have a concession on poor mortgage lending practices -- investing/trading in housing and heavy mortgage equity withdrawals have spurred housing speculation and consumption binges in Europe . Indeed the resort areas of Europe (like Costa Del Sol, Spain) are no different than the Miami, Fla., market a year ago -- dotted with construction cranes and now with an excess of unsalable housing inventory.
That weakness coupled with our domestic weakness could finally impact even the high-growth regions of the world.
Following the stock market bubble in the late 1990s, it was tech that was dreck (and plagued by excess capacity). In the most recent cycle, it was the housing sector that bubbled up and is now plagued with excess capacity. In my debate last week, economist Brian Wesbury was a devout economic bull, citing that housing represented only about 6 percent of GDP.
From my perch, bears are not overstating the multiplier effect of a sustained housing downturn (homeowners have only just begun to acquiesce to a deteriorating market) nor the negative wealth effect of a decline in housing prices. (A 20% drop in home prices equates to over $4 trillion of lost consumer wealth.)
Supportive of a 20%-plus drop in home prices was last week's CME extension of the futures market of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index to five years from only one year. Click here for examples of the market participants' 2011 home price expectations in major regions in the home futures market. If these home-price declines are anywhere close to reality, the subprime crisis is only in the second inning.
Based on continued strength in the emerging markets, the recent commodity cost pressures (oil and food), a sharply lower U.S. dollar placing upside pressure on import prices, and, more importantly, a projected rise in the Owners Equivalent Rent (the irony is that currently tight rental markets -- the consumer can't readily access the mortgage market and home prices remain high -- should produce a 4%-plus rise in the housing component (31%) of the CPI) it is reasonable to expect an alarming rise in the CPI over the next few months.
Gold is rocketing and TIPS (Treasury inflation-protected securities) spreads are already widening. (Higher inflation is the inference of Greenspan in his recent book in which he candidly admits that his own efforts at containing inflation were helped by "the potent disinflationary force" of "globalization's vast economic migration" of cheap labor into competitive markets. In the next two decades, Greenspan relates, the benefits will be played out and will be replaced by inflationary influences.
And with that likely success will be rising trade protectionism and higher corporate and individual tax rates. Again, as Brian wrote in the WSJ. "Populism is in the air these days, and the threat from tax hikes, trade protectionism and more government involvement in the economy is rising." (To select a candidate that is most aligned with your views, take this quiz!.
In all likelihood, the Federal Reserve's loosening of the monetary reins will not only hasten the depreciation of our currency -- it will do little to bring the housing market back into balance. Tuesday's 50-basis-point reduction in the discount rate and the federal funds rate is like treating a patient wracked with cancer with antibiotics.
When the injections of antibiotics wear off, the patient's body is still disease-ridden. That body of stressed and stretched individual mortgage holders, a consumer levered far greater than in prior cycles, the quickening pace of mortgage resets in 2007-08, crippled (capital weak) nontraditional lenders and a record inventory of unsold homes will act as a weight against economic recovery.
The equity markets are currently moving on the fumes of that past cycle.
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