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South Korea Makes a Quick Economic Recovery
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Under IMF and US presssure S. Korea's government took tough steps to resolve its banking crisis in 1997. The government closed or restructured 12 of the 32 largest banks and put in $60 billion to write off bad loans and replenish cash reserves of remaining banks, says Prof. Eichengreen. The Korea Asset Management Corporation, a public fund, bought about two-thirds of the problem loans on the bank's books, to free up capital for new loans. This was also done in a compressed period of time under US pressure. In the US because of heavy lobbying influence in Washington and with the Bush and Obama administrations, and the lack of any external pressures such as S. Korea experienced, the banking industry has not undergone a serious restructuring. Volcker recommended reforms have actually been watered down. The difference in the two approaches is striking. S. Korea had the advantage of being able to rebound with exports to a growing US and Europe during that period. A serious restructuring of the banking industry was the first step, something that has not taken place in the US. And there is a failure to cleanup the problem of mortgage backed securities in the US financial system.
Lessons from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the example of South Korea and other countries.
05/09/2006
The lessons S. Korea shares with the G20 from its banking crisis in the late 1990's, with nonperforming loans of banks at 40-50% of GDP according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Banks had to be merged, closed or nationalized using BIS standards for reserves in a short time. It also led to asevere contraction in the Korean economy as banks not only stopped making loans but called in outstanding loans. This contraction reached minus 7% in the second and third quarters of 1998. The bigger challenge now is how to resolve the bad asset problem without seeing such huge hits to the American economy which would further depress the global economy and have unforeseen consequences. Already Comerice department estimates are for a 6.3% contraction in the US econmy for 4th quarter 2008.
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The U.S. leaned on S. Korea to make radical changes in its banking system in 1997, with takeover of banks by the government, closing of loss ridden banks, and creation of a new banking sector. The moves were compressed into a short time because of U.S. pressure. The large influence of bank lobbying in the US, in Republican and Democratic administrations, has led to a situation in which the U.S. banking sector is similiar to what it was before the 2008 crisis, with the same too-big-to fail banks- only larger now- and with unresolved bad housing loans.
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S. Korea in 1997 at the urging of Treasury Secretary Rubin took decisive step to unwind failed financial institutions. This in stark contrast to Treasury Secretary Geither, regulators and U.S. Fed officials actions in 2008 to merge troubled mortgage institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual with Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. In the process creating mega banks that are hard to manage and hard to run, and "too big to fail," according to former and current Fed governors Hoenig and Fisher. Prof. Cochrane of the University of Chicago says the U.S. Federal Reserve's new job as financial regulator after the 2008 financial crisis, is an impossible one.
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