Balkinization  

Monday, September 22, 2008

Listening to our "economic czar" (or should it be "dictator-presumptive"?)

Sandy Levinson

Today's Washington Post has an article about the proposal that the $700 billion bailout include some salary limits on the Masters of the Universe who got us into this mess and then propose, by administering, without any apparent oversight, the bailout. It concludes as follows:


Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," [Treatsury Secretary Henry] Paulson acknowledged "excesses" in executive compensation but said the debate should be put off for another time. "If we design it so it's punitive and so institutions aren't going to participate, this won't work the way we need it to work," Paulson said.

Paulson expressed more openness to the idea of foreclosure relief for homeowners whose loans are being financed by the securities the government would buy. "I think there should be a mortgage relief component to this," he said, without elaborating. For nearly a year, Paulson has touted an initiative that calls on banks to voluntarily modify mortgages held by struggling homeowners so they can stay in their homes. Paulson said in a recent interview that this effort, called Hope Now, has helped 1.7 million households. But Democrats are skeptical, noting that the data are vague about the extent of assistance provided.

Paulson again warned lawmakers to resist adding too many provisions to the bill. "We want this to be clean, and we want this to be quick, and it's urgent that we get this done," he said.

A couple of comments about "the Banker" in the Times story, discussed in my previous posting, about Paulson and the Professor, Ben Bernanke, take on added relevance. The story contrasts the two as follows:

Mr. Bernanke, 54, had managed the academic politics of the Princeton economics department, where he served as chairman, by developing a conciliator’s style. Mr. Paulson, 62, rose to the top of Goldman Sachs by pounding the phones, and the occasional table. “Hank is just the most hyperactive, get-it-done kind of guy who’s always trying to get the problem solved and move on. He’s impatient to fix things,” said Allan B. Hubbard, a former national economic adviser to Mr. Bush. “Ben is much more low-key. He’s very thoughtful. He’s an incredible thinker, listens well, analyzes well and is not intimidated by anyone. It’s probably a great pair.”

Perhaps I'm over-reacting (or am simply an academic who prefers people who actually described as "thoughtful" and have a propensity to listen instead of pounding the table). That being said, for me the very admiring Times piece describes a Paulson who seems to have a dictatorial personality, as reveald, among other things, in his demands for a "clean bill," i.e., one that doesn't include anything he doesn't personally approve. (Not to mention the astonishing lack of accountability noted by Jack and many others.)

Moreover, his description of pay caps as "punitive" puts the lie to Professor Bernanke's assurance that “There are no atheists in foxholes and no ideologues in financial crises." Paulson comes out of a culture in which anyone who is making less than $10-20 million/year is a veritable nobody (I may even be underestimating what it takes to count as a Wall Street somebody these days). According to the Washington Times (which I assume is a reliable source for conservatives who read Balkinization, Mr. Paulson made "more than $38 million in overall compensation" in the year before taking the $171,900/year position as Secretary of the Treasury. "But [Mr. Paulson] has a net worth estimated at a half-billion dollars and earlier this year gave $100 million in Goldman stock to a family foundation dedicated to conservation and environmental education, one of his favorite causes. " That is, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Paulson is a "bad man," given his charitable impulses. Still, no doubt he believes, as do all of the Masters of the Universe, that he richly earned the salaries and bonuses he was making at Goldman Sachs (which, I suspect, hopes to reap a fortune from administering the bailout) . I'd be truly surprised if he didn't view his good fortune, both literally and figuratively, as tributes to his own personal brilliance. That is just what "ideology" does, provide a framework to explain why those on top "deserve" to be there, while the fate of the lower orders can be blamed on their defects of character and judgment.

I am in rare agreement with both Bill Kristol (A Fine Mess" and Paul Krugman ("Cash for Trash") in today's NYTimes. Congress will be behaving disgracefully if they don't engage in careful review of our would-be economic dictator's hastily-cobbled and ideologically-loaded (and constitutionally transformative) bill. Kristol calls for McCain to oppose it, which would obviously make him an even more interesting "Republican" candidate, given the fact that most congressional Republican "leaders" seem to be lining up behind it. I also await Obama's more specific words on the bill. This may be his presidency that is being determined--what will be left over to pay for the social programs that he is advocating?--and he has a duty to lead and to inform rather than leaving it to Harry Reid and Chris Dodd (whom I respect greatly).

Perhaps I am exaggerating in my constant references to "constitutional dictatorship." But let me suggest that we are facing a "natural experiment": I will be proved wrong if Congress in fact exerts some real decision-making authority (and not merely formal rubber-stamping "authority") in the next several weeks (and note the plural); if, on the other hand, Banker Paulson manages to stampede Congress into passing his version of a "clean bill" because of the imminent "cataclysm" that he has declared we face, then I think the term becomes ever more useful as an analytic construct.

Comments:

As far as a "clean" bill is concerned, so far it's Paulsen who's loading it up. It now includes foreign holders and has been expanded to include many other forms of bad risk, not just MBS.
 

I understand and agree with your general concerns, but like Paulson, I don't see why limits on executive compensation should be a part of this bill. I've seen a lot of people make the argument that these executives are the ones who "got us into this mess," so they should be punished somehow. In the first place, it's not clear to me that everyone eligible to participate in the bailout is, in fact, responsible. In the second, I don't see that it's the government's place to punish people for non-criminal errors of judgment made in the market. Third, Paulson has a point when he says that compensation caps would discourage some firms from participating in the bailout. Fourth, it may not be such a bright idea to cap the salaries of many of the wealthiest members of our society when we're already facing massive deficits. Fifth, the angst over executive compensation seems as misguided to me as the nostalgia among some baseball fans for the days when players made 50,000 a year. If an enterprise is massively profitable, as Goldman Sachs was during Paulson's leadership or as Major League Baseball is, it seems only just that the people most responsible for the enterprise's success should make large sums of money. Where else should the money go? It isn't as if the starting salary at a place like Sachs isn't high enough already. Now, I do think it would be wise to cap severance packages at a certain (low) percentage of salary; otherwise, being fired isn't nearly as much of a disincentive to mismanagement as it ought to be. But I'm not sure that it's pragmatic to link that to participation in this bailout. Anyway, those are just my hurriedly jotted down thoughts.
 

All Congress needs to do is give the new entity the authority to renegotiate mortgage terms in any residential property it purchases. If Congress wants to add detail after holding hearings, do it during the next Congress.

Congress has no business deciding what bank shareholders decide to pay their management.
 

It gives me extreme pleasure to imagine what Bart
and Rush and Sean would be saying if this crisis
had occurred about two years into an Obama
administration.
 

farris w said...

It gives me extreme pleasure to imagine what Bart and Rush and Sean would be saying if this crisis
had occurred about two years into an Obama
administration.


First, I would have moved all of my assets into gold figuring correctly that the Obama team would not have a clue how to deal with such a crisis (a view which has been confirmed over the past week).

It would be scarce comfort at all to poke sticks at the fact that several members of this hypothetical Obama Administration were directly or indirectly involved in the Fannie and Freddie debacles as the financial sector melted down. I would be far more worried about how to keep my firm afloat during the oncoming recession/depression.

Once again, too many of you folks appear to be utterly clueless about the enormity of the catastrophe we have hopefully just avoided.
 

Congress has no business deciding what bank shareholders decide to pay their management.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 1:33 PM


It does if we're going to be the majority shareholders.
 

"Congress has no business deciding what bank shareholders decide to pay their management".

Agreed. I also agree that the president and his lackeys have no business doing this either. On the other hand, if you agree that something needs to be done to avoid a financial meltdown, which i take it you and i both agree upon, I would much rather place the burden of ultimate financial risk upon those who caused the problem in the first place and the shareholders who knowingly took the gamble of investing in these ponzi schemes, of whom i am not, than upon the average taxpayer, of whom i am one. considering the position mr. paulson comes from, i would not for an instant believe that subconsciously he would want not want to protect his own. considering this administration's history on just about everything, i would not trust them to oversee anything without proper congressional and judicial oversight.

"i would be far more worried about now to keep my firm afloat during the oncoming recession/depression".

for once, we completely agree, except to the extent that you believe that obama, who has reacted with a cool head this week, would be worse than the back and forth lurching of mccain, who started out saying there was nothing wrong with the economy, and now says we're in a crisis. panic managing at its worst.
 

Bart writes:'First, I would have moved all of my assets into gold figuring correctly that the Obama team would not have a clue how to deal with such a crisis

What if McCain/Graham get to drive?

Once again, too many of you folks appear to be utterly clueless about the enormity of the catastrophe we have hopefully just avoided.

You're projecting a bit too much here, bart. What's interesting in the linked article is that the author is advocating more of what got us into this mess. So now we need a 700 bn bailout (if it beats the alternative it'll be worth it), and if the author got his way, we'd need another in the likely future, given how the bailout up to now have been going over.
 

bitswapper said...

Bart writes:'First, I would have moved all of my assets into gold figuring correctly that the Obama team would not have a clue how to deal with such a crisis

What if McCain/Graham get to drive?


Back in 2005, McCain WAS attempting to head off the Fannie and Freddie mess with a bill tightening the standards for these loans. It was blocked by Dems on a party line vote.

Once the Dems have signed off on this rescue bill, the GOP needs to pound them mercilessly on this issue. However, I have to assume that there will be a deal cut between the parties where the Dems will give Paulson what he wants in exchange for an agreement that everyone will point the fingers of blame at the banks and not at each other.
 

Bart writes:
Back in 2005, McCain WAS attempting to head off the Fannie and Freddie mess with a bill tightening the standards for these loans.


I thought you disapproved of more federal bureaucracies. How would that act have headed off the current situation?
 

Bart writes
It was blocked by Dems on a party line vote.


Too bad McAbsent didn't vote for it.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

bit:

Freddie and Fannie ended up dominating the mortgage market while guaranteeing and pushing loans to non-credit worthy borrowers. Absent this subsidy and political pressure, it is highly unlikely that the banks would have risked their own money on these novel and questionable financial instruments. The McCain bill would have significantly tightened the standards for lending and many if not all of these sub prime instruments would not have been permitted.

BTW, McCain was not on the banking committee where the Dems voted against the bill and indicated that they would filibuster the bill if it came for a vote. Consequently, the GOP leadership did not bring the bill to a vote on the Senate floor for McCain and everyone else to vote.
 

tray:

I don't see that it's the government's place to punish people for non-criminal errors of judgment made in the market.

I don't see why the gummint can't attach strings to any aid they give.

And if these people weren't doing anything wrong, then why do they need a bailout?

Cheers,
 

It would be scarce comfort at all to poke sticks at the fact that several members of this hypothetical Obama Administration were directly or indirectly involved in the Fannie and Freddie debacles as the financial sector melted down.

Obama's thinking of appointing Gramm and Davis? News to me. Where'd you hear that?

Cheers,
 

And if these people weren't doing anything wrong, then why do they need a bailout?

On my super-rudimentary understanding of what's happened (feel free, those of you who are more informed than I, to shoot holes in this), these companies hold mortgage-backed-securities that are backed by bad mortgages. They held these securities largely on the basis of extremely inaccurate ratings given by the rating agencies. So where exactly did the big financial institutions err? I see that mistakes were made on the parts of lenders, the rating agencies, but what should the investment banks have done differently? Predicted that the housing bubble would burst?
 

Chris Dodd now has an alternative bill, a report of which is available here.
 

Bart writes:
The McCain bill would have significantly tightened the standards for lending and many if not all of these sub prime instruments would not have been permitted.


It narrowed the applicability of who the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act applied to and tried to replace one bureaucracy with another. It also further loosened the dismantling of the Securities Exchange Act and would have made it even easier for banks to disguise bad mortgages. Its just not clear the the bill would have remedied the damage from GLB. The bill looked more political than meaningful. It didn't look to address the disguising of bad loans.
 

Congress has no business deciding what bank shareholders decide to pay their management.

Congress has no business giving money to enterprises who claim that they are failing and need help but are giving away the store to their CEO's.

Look, the bank shareholders retain full authority to give their CEO all the money they want to. But, you know, if they care more about their CEO's pay than they do about keeping the enterprise going, they deserve what they get.

The reality is that even though they are theoretically in charge, shareholders have very little real power to stop management from paying itself tons of money. A limit on compensation as part of a bailout package restores power that the shareholders should have had in the first place, by allowing them to choose whether paying huge salaries to the top executives is really more important than recovering something on their investment.
 

Not to mention that large compensation packages are supposedly geared to attrack "top talent."
 

It may be stating the obvious, but it is for the Congress and not the Treasury to decide what legislation it will pass in response to the request the Administration has made. On all the evidence, the Democratic leadership is not minded simply to pass the measure the Administration has requested. One bitten, twice shy, perhaps?

Obama appears to be listening and taking advice from the right people. See Obama, Not McCain, Shows Steady Hand in Crisis: Albert R. Hunt - Washington Exec Ed - Bloomberg News. Obama will undoubtedly liaise closely with the Democratic leadership in Congress.

Bart De Palma has boldly asserted with all his vast experience of regulatory issues:

"Congress has no business deciding what bank shareholders decide to pay their management."

This comment from the UK Regulator on executive compensation was interesting:-

Lord Adair Turner told BBC News that the FSA would not regulate how much was paid, but would ask banks to explain their bonus structures. Banks found to encourage risky actions could be compelled to hold more capital, raising their costs. Some believe bonuses should be based on longer-term results. "What we are now doing is saying to banks, explain to us what your structure of bonuses are," said Lord Turner. "If we think they are in danger of encouraging people through that bonus structure to take risky actions which appear to look good at the time, but which create toxic assets for the future, then we have the power to say if you want to do that, you've got to hold a bit more capital because we think you're a more risky institution."

Funny isn't it to see our resident LSR now wittering on about the "the enormity of the catastrophe we have hopefully just avoided." Yet he is still apparently not ready to embrace the idea that only more comprehensive and better enforced regulation can prevent such catastrophes, nor the idea that the ordinary working taxpayer should be insulated from the consequences, by the tax consequences of financing this bail-out being visited first on the financial services sector and then on those high net worth individuals with unearned income who took the misstated profits as dividends while the scams were going on - for him that was 'socialism'.

I see no reason why the super-rich who took the profits while the going was good should not have some of the pain too - to each according to their means.

FDR was right. I've posted this quote from FDR's first inaugural address before but it remains apposite as a healthy antidote to the loathsome spotted reptiles:

Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."


Addendum: the decision of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies and place themselves under banking regulation rather than SEC regulation was, I am told, not exactly voluntary - at issue was also their continued licences to operate in Europe where they both have a substantial presence. The transformation will require them both to raise a lot more capital (and operate on much more conservative prudential ratios) so I guess their 'cowboy' days are over.
 

Once again, too many of you folks appear to be utterly clueless about the enormity of the catastrophe we have hopefully just avoided.

Clueless? It's funny you should say that since time after time you have demonstrated that when it comes to politics you are quite simply barking mad.
 

Why does the Volokh Conspiracy have comments that are so much more civil than the ones here? Almost every post here leads to Bart DePalma making a conservative point in argumentative fashion, and then a whole bunch of people leap in with personal insults.
 

Almost every post here leads to Bart DePalma making a conservative point in argumentative fashion

"Argumentative" is being very kind. Baghdad Bart is using this site to spew rightwingnut propaganda.
 

Sean:

Why does the Volokh Conspiracy have comments that are so much more civil than the ones here? Almost every post here leads to Bart DePalma making a conservative point in argumentative fashion, and then a whole bunch of people leap in with personal insults.

Because "Bart" is one of the most fact-challenged and dishonest disputants around. He miscites court cases, statutes, and black-letter law, he repeats assertions endlessly w/o support under the presumption that such is a valid form of "argument", and ignores substantive demolishments of his inane claims. If he tried any of this in an actual court of law, he'd get his keister kicked so hard he wouldn't be able to sit for months.

This place would be plenty civil if "Bart" would just behave and honsetly address what others are saying. But he doesn't, so ridicule and sarcasm are about all he deserves.

Cheers,
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

How can you respect Chris Dodd? He was one of the senators responsible for pushing the increases in housing loans partially responsible for this mess.
 

How can you respect Chris Dodd? He was one of the senators responsible for pushing the increases in housing loans partially responsible for this mess.

Logically speaking, one could respect Chris Dodd for lots of reasons even if he deserved blame for the current crisis.

In fact, he doesn't deserve blame at all. The problem here isn't the housing loans per se; as jellin explains on the thread above, it's the leverage. If banks had continued in their traditional role as intermediaries, they could have worked out the mortgages. That would have meant losses, but nothing threatening to the whole system. What created this mess was the de-regulatory environment that Republican ideology has imposed on us for the last 25 years. That absence of regulation -- such as the exemptions from leverage rules given to Wall Street bankers starting in 2004 -- has caused the crisis.
 

Mark Field: The problem here isn't the housing loans per se; as jellin explains on the thread above, it's the leverage. ...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is the essential point, but it is getting all but lost in the uproar.
 

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