Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

America's Middle Class Caught in a Vice

Politics / Social Issues Feb 26, 2013 - 03:21 PM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Politics

Shah Gilani writes: This is a chicken and egg kind of discussion about what caused the housing crash.

It's not that there's a right answer (but I am right) or a wrong answer, it's about looking at what happened to determine whether it's going to happen again. It is.

I'm always right.


Really, it's about America's middle class mostly, and the vise they're caught in.

Notice, the title here poses that as a question. Are they caught in a vise?

I say, "Yes!"

But, I'll get to that.

First, it's back to the chicken... or the egg.
Did borrowers over-borrow because they were greedy? Or, did lenders over-lend because they were greedy? Yeah, yeah, we all agree. They both were.

But what precipitated it?

Of course I want your opinion. But, first you're going to have to hear mine. And since I'm always right, you may just want to come along with me and be smart. Just kidding!

It's simple to me: You can't borrow if lenders won't lend.

There. I rest my case.

Oh, you want more depth, more color? Okay.

But let me first put aside something that I know will come up anyway. The Community Reinvestment Act didn't cause the subprime surge.

Did the surge happen when the government forced banks to reach into underserved areas to offer loans to folks who weren't over-banked - and who didn't have ATM machines on every corner of their neighborhoods - only to have those same banks create subprime loans that would later default?

Yes it did.

But the number of defaults in the subprime category within the boundaries of CRA-demarked neighborhoods is a drop in the bucket compared to the national corral, where subprime loans were drawing out, and creating subprime borrows out of better than subprime buyers - with higher creditworthiness.

Look at borrowers as the chickens. They had to be hatched. Not from eggs, because they were already in the market. Most of them would have been far too afraid to risk over-leveraging themselves on something they knew they couldn't afford if they were charged the kind of interest that high-risk borrowers face.

To fatten them up, hard-boiled lenders gave those chickens legs and dreams - and a means to fly out of their old neighborhoods and roost in fancier digs.

Most people forget - or didn't know - that prime borrowers had been pretty well exhausted by lenders bending over backwards to get them into new homes.

Interest rates were kept artificially so low for so long, which left investors clamoring for yield. Prime borrowers were getting harder and harder to find, so bankers grabbed the two-for-one throttle and pulled subprime borrowers into their origination factories. Then they did a "pool "em and fool "em" maneuver - for yield-hungry investors, that is - and put them into mortgage-backed securitization, get "em off my balance sheet, schemes.

And it worked. Well, at least for a while.

Middle Class Mistakes?
So, what does all this have to do with the middle class being in a vise?

Bloomberg Businessweek is a great publication that I highly recommend. This week's issue, February 18-24, 2013, has a piece titled, "Oh, Craps. U.S. Homeowners Are Repeating Their Mistakes."

The gist of the article is that, for folks with a "very high risk exposure - a low wealth-to-income ratio, more than three-quarters of their assets are in housing or stocks, and (have) debt greater than a quarter of their assets," which serves as my definition of the middle-class in America, lost 47% of their wealth between 2007 and 2010.

What bothers me about the article is that it presupposes that homeownership makes it hard to diversify. It states that, "since 1983, for the richest 20 percent of U.S. households, the principal residence as a share of net worth has been around 30 percent. For the next 60 percent - most of us - housing has risen from 62 percent to 67 percent of total wealth."

So, what's the problem? Those Americans leveraged themselves to get into their homes and borrowed against them.

We know what happened next.

But, it's not just about middle-class America's homes as their source of wealth. The article states, in its opening paragraph, "If there's one thing Americans should have learned from the recession, it's the importance of diversifying risk. Middle-class households had too much of their net worth tied up in their homes and were too exposed to stocks through 401(k)s and other investments."

In other words: WAKE UP AMERICA - you idiots who have been struggling to get into the middle class and you idiots in the middle-class (thank goodness that idiot class is shrinking, right?) have it all wrong. You shouldn't just be buying houses and stocks.

It's not Bloomberg. They're just putting this out there. I don't want to insult one of my favorite magazines, but WHAT THE...

What is the middle class supposed to do? Trade derivatives?

It's not ironic, it's sad - no, it's disgusting - that the two principal sources, or steps up the aspirational ladder in America - home ownership and an equity portfolio - are... well...

I'm not going to call them schemes, though there's a part of me that wants to. That would be hyperbole to the max...

Those two steps up the ladder in America are manipulated by bankers and brokers for their own self-serving benefit.

That's why I think - no, that's why I know -that America's shrinking middle class is caught in a vise.

Do I have answers for this dual problem?

You bet I do.

But, first, I want to hear what you have to say.

The floor is open. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Source :http://moneymorning.com/2013/02/26/is-americas-middle-class-caught-in-a-vise/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2013 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investent advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in