Är de tillfällig stimulanspolitik - staten köper upp tillgångar i dåliga tider för att öka likviditeten i ekonomin, och säljer sedan tillgångarna med vinst när ekonomin vänt uppåt igen - eller är de "socialism för de rika", ett eliminerande av risk för kapitalister?
Nu verkar det som att utvärderingarna av USA:s krisprogram börjar komma på allvar. New York Times skriver 31 mars:
"Take your pick: A $100 billion loss. A nearly $24 billion profit. A $100 billion profit.Treasury hävdar också att de kommer tjäna $12 miljarder när de säljer sin 92-procentiga andel av AIG senare i år.
When it comes to calculating the bill for the government's bailout of banks, insurers, automakers and the ailing housing market, the numbers have been all over the map."
"It has been a profitable financial crisis for the US Treasury, at least in terms of the distressed assets it purchased in 2008 and 2009.Michael McKenzie & Aline van Duyn, "Treasury begins its mortgage retreat", FT 24 mars 2011
This week, the Treasury said it would start selling $10bn of mortgages per month as it liquidates the $142bn portfolio of paper it accumulated from September 2008 through December 2009 under the Housing and Economic Relief Act of 2008.
On the heels of making money from selling stakes in AIG and Citi, the US Treasury estimates that it stands to generate between $15bn and $20bn in profit from the sale of mortgages over the next year. Some, such as Richard Gilhooly, strategist at TD Securities, estimate that these numbers may be conservative.
This reflects the fact that the Treasury bought mortgages and debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage financiers, when the securities were trading at very wide levels over US government bond yields, a spread that has subsequently shrunk as sentiment in the market has improved. /.../
The body’s planned sales marks the first stage of the US government ending its huge support of the mortgage market during the financial crisis."
Eric Dash, "Treasury Now Sees Profit From Bailouts", NYT 31 mars
Neil M. Barofsky (tidigare chef för TARP), "Where the bailout went wrong", NYT 30 mars
Fed öppnade hösten 2008 sitt "discount window", ett program för billiga lån till finansiella institutioner för att öka likviditeten i systemet, och NYT rapporterar angående att dokumenten om programmen offentliggjorts.
Binyamin Appelbaum & Jo Craven McGinty, "Fed Lending Saved Many During Crisis", NYT 1 april
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Uppdatering 15 maj
Gillian Tett skriver en krönika i FT om just frågan om vinst och förlust för staten i TARP. Hon hävdar att TARP-programmet presterat över förväntningarna (bland annat hennes egna), och att USA klarat krisen betydligt bättre än vad länder historiskt sett klarat så djupa kriser: hon hänvisar till forskning från IMF som visar att fiskala kostnader för 40 kriser under de senaste decennierna i snitt varit 13 procent av BNP; denna gång "the bill is under 1 per cent". Man kan tycka att det är ett snävt sätt att räkna på statens förluster på, för det är klart att också den ökade arbetslösheten osv kostar en massa, men om man tar denna typ av beräkning för vad den är så är den mycket intressant. Så här beskriver hon omfattningen och nettokostnaderna för TARP:
"what actually appeared was Tarp-lite: the Treasury subsequently declared that it “only” needed $475bn, not $700bn, to save the system, and now expects to get (almost) all of this money back. Right now, for example, the official accounts show that the Tarp has spent $245bn supporting banks, $151bn bailing out AIG and the auto groups, $1bn supporting the housing market, and a further $17bn on credit support programmes. However, $296bn has already been recouped from banks, via asset sales and the repayment of capital injections. And when other asset sales are completed, the Treasury expects to recoup almost everything, apart from a $40bn-odd fund earmarked for housing. Moreover, since it expects to make profits from other government financial support programmes, such as the Fed’s purchase of assets, the overall tally from the crisis- fighting measures is now projected to be a $24bn profit – at least in the Treasury accounts."Gillian Tett, "Tarp shows that US can break political gridlock", FT 13 maj
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UPPDATERING 30 maj
NYT rapporterar att USA:s finansdepartemente gjort sin första försäljning av AIG-aktier. Treasury sålde 15 procent av AIG:s aktier och minskade därmed sin andel av AIG från 92 till 77 procent. De fick in $8.7 miljarder och gjorde en vinst på $54 miljoner.
Michael J. de la Merced & Mary Williams Walsh, "U.S. Profits From Selling A.I.G. Stock", NYT 24 maj
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UPPDATERING 1 juli
följande bild kommer från Economist den 9 juni:
"When Congress held its nose in 2008 and approved the Troubled Assets Relief Programme (TARP) to spend up to $700 billion to alleviate panic, the White House reckoned it might end up losing half of that amount. In the end $411 billion was ploughed into financial firms, carmakers and schemes to reduce foreclosures and restart private lending. As of June 7th $308 billion of that had been paid back. The Treasury values the remainder at $130 billion but could quite plausibly garner more. In that case it will turn a cash profit on TARP, although the picture would be worse if the Treasury’s subsidised lending rates are also counted as a cost. /.../Economist, "Hard-nosed socialists", 9 juni
The big black hole is housing. The Treasury has so far recorded a loss of $138 billion on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the gigantic mortgage agencies it rescued in the summer of 2008. Data from the Congressional Budget Office that include the implicit subsidy yield a cost through 2021 of $365 billion or more. Actual cash outlays will be lower: the White House reckons the agencies will make money in the next decade, cutting the final bill to just $73 billion.
Either way, the direct bill for America’s crisis-era rescues is likely to be remarkably small or to show a profit. America’s experience is not unique: Britain estimates its interventions will eventually earn £3.4 billion ($5.6 billion) and Switzerland reckons it has made a $4.2 billion profit so far on its support for UBS. But it is impressive: the IMF puts the average cost of international bail-outs at 13% of GDP."
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Uppdatering 5 november 2012
Sheila Bair som tidigare var chef för FDIC och Neil Barofsky som höll i TARP-programmet har båda kommit med nya böcker om USA:s bailouts, och Economists Free Exchange-blogg skriver intressant utifrån dem. Det verkar finnas gott om material för kritiska diskussioner om "elite capture" etc där. The Economist skriver i recensionen av de två böckerna i papperstidningen:
"Is the government too deferential to the concerns of the big banks and insufficiently attentive to the needs of ordinary people? Yes, according to two new books: “Bailout” by Neil Barofsky and Sheila Bair’s “Bull by the Horns”. Both accounts correct other, more triumphalist histories of the financial crisis, such as David Wessel’s “In Fed We Trust”, which came out in 2009."och:
"Both books /.../ do something essential: they show the paths not taken. The financial crisis did not have to be so unfair."Economist, "Crisis mis-manaement", 27 oktober
M.C.K., "They did not have to be so unfair", Economist Free Exchange 31 oktober
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