America’s accounting recession

Last September I wrote an article entitled “Accounting side of sub prime”, as it was evident from that time that the real problem with the sub prime crisis in the US is one of accounting, and not economics. And this could in fact be a reason supporting the fact that the other major economies seem not be to be suffering as much from the credit squeeze in the US, as the underlying cause was not initially economics. At the time I stated that because of the accounting rules being used by the US, the sub prime crisis would deepen because they were not, and still are not, aware of what the full extent of the problem was/is. Initial estimates were that the total sub prime write off would be US$60 Billion and now it is being touted as over US$300 Billion.

Goldman Sachs in reporting its last results (1 ½ weeks ago) stated very importantly that they have always believed in “marking to market” their securities. Thus they have not been affected by the problem facing other financial institutions, such as the now defunct Bear Stearns, which “marked to model” and therefore became stuck with instruments that they have no idea what the real value is.

Underlying problem
This is the underlying problem of the sub prime crisis that continues to cause a tail spin in global financial markets, and is the cause of global inflation and global growth slow down. America is truly great. They not only caused the world pain by invading Iraq, but also had to create a global financial crisis by first of all being irresponsible with risk management practices, and secondly compounding this by wide monetary policy swings in the form of interest rates.

It is no secret that the current recession in the US is “made in America”, as it was the quick moves up and down in interest rates that caused the problem in the first place, and then the delayed action by the Bernananke led Fed that put the final nail in the coffin. So the US messes up and we all suffer.

But at a micro level the real problem is that the US’s rules based accounting means that financial institutions were allowed to mark to mythical model (self created) rather than value their instruments at what the market says they are worth. Similarly, the same accounting rules allowed events such as Enron and WorldCom to happen. The global accounting agenda should see some convergence taking place between US GAAP and IFRS come 2009, and my fervent hope is that it will be more like an acquisition of US GAAP by IFRS rather than a merger. We need to take what is good from their standards and incorporate it into ours.

So the effect of all this risk management is that global economies are being affected by higher inflation, and slow down in economic growth caused by reduced consumption patterns. The fact is that people in the US are seeing their wealth plummet because of a falling stock market and house prices. The weaker US dollar has also caused massive increases in prices of commodities such as corn, wheat, gold, and oil, which has resulted in significant inflationary pressures. This has occurred because the US dollar is a reserve currency. Hence a fall in the US dollar has seen investors buying commodities such as gold and oil to maintain the real value of their investments, while fleeing the weakening US dollar.

This fall off in US dollar has been caused by the change in relative interest rates. What drives currency values is interest rate expectations by investors, so as the expectation (followed by action) is that interest rates will fall in the US, and at the same time as interest rates in countries such as Australia and Europe rise or remain stable, then the spread between the US and these other rates become wider. As we all know, the return on money is interest, and so if the interest one can get from the Euro is higher than that on the US dollar then investors will buy the Euro and sell the US dollar. The result is that the price of the US dollar relative to the Euro depreciates, causing the weakening US dollar.

Consideration of risks
The reason for the Fed decreasing interest rates is to create more liquidity by providing cheaper money to the market, and thus encourage greater spending and investment to spur economic growth. Thus as long as the US economy is seen to be at great risk then the Fed will continue to decrease interest rates and the value of the US dollar will fall, followed by an increase in oil and gold fueled by greater speculative demand.

The decision of whether to decrease, increase, or keep interest rates stable is determined by whether the Fed believes that there is a greater risk to the consumer from a weaker economy or higher inflation. The irony is that as interest rates come down, and more cash is in the system then it means more spending that drives inflation. The Fed must therefore consider all economic data, for example inflation and housing sales, to determine whether to increase or decrease rates.

The important barometer for the Fed’s next move will be what happens with the financial institutions. If there is threat of another Bear Stearns then they most certainly will move rates lower. If the institutions show sign of stability, or increased profits however, they will either hold rates stable or increase, depending on the strength of the economic data. So this is the decision that the Fed faces, and to get an indication of what will happen globally then one only needs to look at the economic data coming out of the various countries.

The latest interest rate reduction, and provision of liquidity, seems to have temporarily stabilized the markets. The next three to four weeks will indicate whether it has worked to permanently, and this all depends on the value of the sub prime instruments. If house prices continue to fall then this could negatively affect the perception of the value of these instruments, which would imply further write downs and possibly another Bear Stearns. If house prices stabilize then this would be good for the US dollar and the global market. The difficulty is because there is no market to value the securities then the uncertainty of where the bottom is will drive the US dollar and equity markets lower. This uncertainty is caused primarily because the securities were not being marked to market.

In fact the real US economy, where companies sell tangible products, such as technology, food, etc. is not doing badly, and companies such as Pepsi and Apple are awash with cash. So the US does not have a problem with the economy, as the companies in the real economy are still doing well, with the exception of discretionary expenditures such as retail and autos, as consumer purchasing power is affected. The prayer for countries like Jamaica is that house prices will begin to stabilize but analysts are expecting housing prices to go down at least until June 2008, so let’s hope they are wrong.

I have heard some compare the “US accounting recession” to our own 1990s meltdown, and in some ways they are similar, especially with some calling for a bail out by the US government.
There are many others who are warning against a bail out, however, and it seems that they may eventually win. In any event the intervention by the Fed thus far into the Bear Stearns situation is of a different complexion from the way we approached the 1990s meltdown, which makes the difference in the after event, which will be the subject of a presentation I will today.