LyrArc Article Gist
The first significant action to help homeowners threatened with foreclosure comes from Sheila Bair, Chairman of the Federal Deposit insurance Corporation, one of the few people after Bernanke and Paulson who have shown initiative and foresight in the current crisis. Bernanke and Paulson had the foresight to open the Fed lending window to investment firms like Lehman Brothers and others but little has been done for homeowners to have significant impact. When interviewed on television in the days surrounding the Bear Stearns crisis Sheila has shown a good grasp of the issues and courage to take the initiative. This action is similiar in line to what Martin Feldstein has suggested on the pages of the WSJ for some time now. Martin wanted the Federal government to step in to loan homeowners the 20% of their outstanding loan and work towards bringing the homeowners payment to an affordable sum. According to Feldstein's calculation this would be about the right amount as a percentage of their loan so that homeowners rationally would not be better off walking away from the loan as the best possible decision under the circumstances. If the rational option was taken under a scenario that homeowners would get no direct help here is what would happen even though it may be intuitively read in one's mind. Homeowners would walk away in increasing numbers, it would become the popular option, one that has happened in prior housing crises in Colorado for example but this time it would be spread out across America, making it dangerous. This would launch a downward spiral or cycle in which the more homeowners walk way, or default the more house prices drop, and the more house prices drop a new group of homeowners who previously had enough equity in the house now because of the last price drop enter the category of homeowners who would be better off just walking away as a rational option. During the next wave this gorup would default and set the spiral or cycle moving again to lead to further price declines and another group of homeowners finding not enough equity in their homes to justify making payments and this group would walk away. At each turn of this spiral another cycle would be set in motion which is why it is so dangerous once it gets started, and the need for timely but also well thought out plan and good execution. This cycle is that of the economic system as a whole. As house prices drop at each turn of this cycle, it would have a serious impact on consumption for an already indebted American consumer. A drop in consumption means fewer product purchases by consumers, and the falling demand means factories would close as companies consolidate operations around the remaining factories to keep capacity utilization at reasonable levels, and this would mean layoffs and cuts in investment and other spending. The layoffs in turn would add another layer of homeowners leaving their homes through foreclosures adding to the pool of homeowners who have left their homes, and adding to the downward pressure on house prices. The pickup in inflation would bite at exactly the worst time as this would mean consumers would have to spend even more carefully. The price of oil which normally would respond to changes such as a fleet of cars with higher mileage on American roads would take a longer time to respond as this fleet change would take a few years to occur. It would respond to lower demand for oil in American factories but the considerable demand in Asia and other countries where the economies are likely to slow down but still be growing at rates to accomodate the large number of people who have not benefited from the market economy, would make the price decline in oil a gradual affair. The weaker dollar would add to the price of imports adding to the inflation. This bite from inflation would lower consumption even further in the economic cycle. And this would mean lower production in factories and even more layoffs at the next turn of the economic cycle. The Federal Reserve would find itself having difficult choices between maintaining confidence in the dollar, for which Capman and McKinnon argue on the pages of the WSJ recently and lowering rates but not achieving much in terms of stimulating either consumption or investment as this would take time to work itself out and all the Fed could achieve by its interest rate making tool is to buy time to weather these adjustments in an orderly manner. There is almost a consensus among experts that interest rate reductions in the current climate of inflationary movements in prices and the current currency exchange rates moving towards a loss of confidence in the dollar is something to be done very carefully and each action taken only with careful understanding of the possible consequences. A look at the proposal itsel shows that it gets around the whole issue of moral hazard by having the cost paid for in this manner. The mortgage investors will pay for the 5 years of interest on the 20% of the loan the government provides. The homeowner takes over after that. The mortgage investors cannot add deferred interest, prepayment penalties or other ways to make the homeowner pay some of the interest charges. And the homeowners payment has to be afforadable so mortgage investors have to show that the payment is not more than 35% of income of the homeownercalled the debt to income ratio (DTI). And only homeowners with mortgage payments above 40% DTI are eligible. And the government would raise the money needed through a $50 billion offering. To show there is no moral hazard that is the government bailing out any of the parties involved, the government will get back all of its money or intends to do so, the government will have the first rights to the money should a home foreclose and before anybody else is paid.