A Second Bank Bailout?

Alan Kohler has some commentary over at Business Spectator that suggests a stunning ending for the global financial crisis; one that actually involves a massive windfall for the banks themselves.

It is now getting very interesting. The three Icelandic banks have defaulted, as has Countrywide, Lehman and Bear Stearns. AIG has been taken over by the US Government, which is counted as a part-default, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are in “conservatorship”...

Ambac, MBIA, PMI, General Motors, Ford and a lot of US home builders are teetering.

If the list of defaults – full and partial – gets to nine, then a mass transfer of money will take place from unsuspecting investors around the world into the banking system. How much? Nobody knows, but it’s many trillions.

...

The distress among those who lose their money will be immense. It will be a real loss, not a theoretical paper loss. Cash will be transferred from their own bank accounts into the issuing bank, via these Cayman Islands special purpose vehicles.

The repercussions on the losers and the economies in which they live, will be unpredictable but definitely huge...

There will also be a tsunami of litigation, as dumbfounded investors try to get their money back, claiming to have been deceived by the sales people who sold them the products...

But for the banks, it’s happy days. Suddenly, when the ninth reference entity tips over, they will be flooded with capital. It’s possible they will have so much new capital, they won’t know what to do with it.

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Aaron Longwell is Chief Web Craftsman at New Media Logic Corporation in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. As a professional software developer for 12 years and a student of public policy, he occasionally has interesting things to say about software, technology, culture and politics.

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