No Runny Eggs

The industry term for them is “trailers” but I’m old enough (no, none of my movie experiences included silent films) to remember when the previews of movies were called “Future Attractions.”   Future attractions were put together to give people enough of an insight on the coming movie to decide whether they wanted to see, or “participate,” in the movie experience.   Today, we have a “Future Attraction” of what the United States will be showing.

Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, has announced that he will be nationalizing a rice production plant owned by Cargill:

“Prepare the decree, we are going to expropriate Cargill. We are not going to tolerate this,” Chavez said.

Just another rant of a Tyrant you say?   An irrational act that is based on thuggery and emotion.   An act that is devoid of rational thought or law?   Au contraire!   Chavez has a perfectly legal reason for his expropriation:

Chavez said he ordered the takeover because Cargill — one of the largest privately owned U.S. companies — avoids producing basic rice that is subject to government price controls.

Chavez set the rules that he thought would get the outcome he wanted.   Cargill looked at the rules and said “we can’t make any money doing that,” so they  looked at the rules, set by Chavez, and found a way to stay within them and make money.   The problem is that Cargill’s “outcome” is not the “outcome” that Chavez envisioned.   Thus, Chavez is crying foul and is threatening to take the plan over so that he can not only dictate the terms but dictate the outcome.

Huh, that’s funny.   Not “ha ha” funny but “isn’t that ironic” funny.

In October the TARP plan was put into place.   It was an “EMERGENCY” so one of the largest government interventions ever, was put into place with legislation that boiled down to “whatever the Secretary of Treasury says.”   Nearly immediately following the implementation, there was citing of banks who had received TARP funds doing things that their new “investors” didn’t like.   Annual recognition trips, purchasing of foreign banks, payment of “performance” bonuses, were some of the activities over which “foul” was cried.   Of course, the problem, as with Chavez’s is that the rules didn’t preclude these activities so little other than shaming them, was able to be done.

Shortly after TARP, the auto industry knocked on Congress’ door asking for alms.   Congress, having learned that providing money with no rules left them looking foolish, responded by providing a set of rules to go with the automaker loans.   These new rules ran to the opposite side of the balance.   The new rules boil down to “you will have a bunch of rules that we will have the right to change whenever and in whatever manner we choose to.   You will have no input to these rules.   The rules will not be based on any real business objectives but will be based on what we feel would be best for us.”  

There’s no doubt that Congress’ new approach to dictating outcomes will have no greater success than their original approach.   The issue isn’t whether Congress gets the rules right.   The issue is that government never, ever, ever is able to dictate economic outcomes, the best they can do is provide a framework that allows capitalism to best work.  

There’s one other lesson from this exercise.   Government is never, ever, ever a benevolent overseer.   Government in all forms, is far too susceptible to removing rational thought and believing that “because they say so” is a good enough reason for something to occur.   The result is that the more Government is involved, the less likely the outcome will be one that is able to be accomplished without significant distortion or disruption of an economic enterprise.   Also, Government’s response to not getting the right outcome is to further restrict economic options, even to the point, as with Hugo Chavez, of taking over companies who don’t comply with their vision.

Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, scenes of America’s Future Attractions.

Revisions/extensions (6:03 pm 3/5/2009, steveegg, who is slacking in his copy editing duties) – Fausta has more background on the Venezuelan end of this story. I’m shocked, SHOCKED that neo-Communists would have the same food-shortage problem the old-line Communists had.

Also, R.S. McCain has pretty much the same conclusion, as he takes a look at the exit of capital from the markets.

R&E part 2 (6:13 pm 3/5/2009, steveegg) – There’s a couple of updates in the Reuters story that bear mentioning:

– The Cargill plant that is causing Chavez to nationalize Cargill’s rice business is designed to specifically make parboiled rice and not the “basic” white rice Chavez wants made.

– Venezuelan nationalizations used to be paid for by cash, but are now paid for by debt. It seems Chavez is writing checks his treasury can’t cash.

Within a couple of minutes, in the same press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Obama said:

"What you’re now seeing is, profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective on it."

And followed it up with:

“What I’m looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.”

In his first comment, Obama  spoke as if he had  some inside knowledge and wanted to convey it.   It was almost as if he was saying, “OK, I’ve done what I need to do and things will settle from here.”

In his second statement, Obama dispelled the notion that he has inside knowledge, or if he had, ever cared about the stock market value.   “I don’t care what happens to the stock market, I”m moving forward, I know best,” was the implied statement.

Is it possible for Obama to utter the two statements and be consistent?   Can he reconcile an attitude for the complete disregard of the major indexes and a bullish call for stocks?   Yes he can!

I think we can safely put aside the nonsensical talk that occurred around Obama’s election, that speculated, perhaps hoped, that he would “govern from the center.”   There is no doubt that Obama is implementing what previous to November of 2008, would have been completely unthinkable.   Take overs of the major banking institutions and the auto industry, increasing debt by multiple trillions and by virtue of a “stimulus bill” and his budget, inserting government involvement deeper and wider than ever before seen.   Obama is from far, far away Leftville and is intent on reshaping America to reflect his view of what America as Leftville, should look like.

The next question than is “What does Leftville look like?”   Here again, we can quit with any nonsense of what some want Obama to say and go directly to his words.   In nearly every major speech since his election, Obama has included the phrase “Shared sacrifice.”   “Shared sacrifice” in the New Obama Dictionary, means that all should be equally dependent upon the government.   The problem that Obama has is that in the 234+ years of the country, that hasn’t been the plan.   The result is that there is a large class of folks who have accumulated levels of wealth that allow them not to be dependent on the government.   When I say “wealth,” I don not mean people with millions of dollars.   I’m referring to people who have saved, paid their bills on time and when they retire, will be able to do so not taking world tours each year but by continuing to pay their bills and perhaps, if they’re lucky, leave a small monetary remembrance to their heirs.   At one time these people were considered “successful” but no more.   With a desire for “shared sacrifice,” Obama needs to find a way to quickly remove the means that the “successful” have that allows them to be independent of the government.   How to do it.

Here again, Obama and the folks around him have given us his exact plan.   In the words of Rahm Emanuel, “never allow a crisis to go to waste.”   Obama is continuing to exacerbate and fan a crisis to acheive his vision.   Let’s go back and look at his comments from today in reverse order:

“What I’m looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.”

Of course he’s looking at the stock market.   Does anyone really believe that there is a day of 3%, 4% or greater drops in the market that he and his staff are not aware of it?   Baloney!   The only truth in Obama’s statement is that if he worried about it, he would get his long term strategy wrong.   If your strategy is to erase wealth from a broad section of the population than you purposely ignore the market.   You also  sow fear, confusion and mistrust so that the market is unable to find footing.   Do this long enough and you will erase huge amounts of 401Ks and other investments.

OK, so if you’re intent on erasing wealth why would you come out and tell people:

"What you’re now seeing is, profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective on it."

Simple.   At the end of December, 74% of the markets value was sitting on the sidelines in cash.   I would guess that that number has increased as the market as continued to drop.   It’s hard to quickly erase wealth in the stock market if the money isn’t in the stock market.   How do you fix that?   As President you tell people that it’s OK to get back in the market.   You do that while continuing to push forward with all the policies and plans that market has told you have no value.

Obama is the master of saying one thing and acting in a manner that is completely contrary.   Remember, this is the man who said he agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision on DC handguns and is now trying to move gun restriction legislation forward.   This is the man who said he was not supportive of late term abortions but has nominated the person singularly responsible for keeping “Tiller the Killer” in business.   Believing Obama’s words without any evidence of action supporting those words is naive and ignorant.  

The only thing we can say about Obama is that while his lips may be saying “yes” his actions almost always, will say something else.

One role I had was in marketing for a major wireless provider.   My job was to identify trends and come up with pricing and promotion ideas to increase sales.   There were times were I would trial a concept, see a couple of preliminary successes and make a recommendation to roll the program out market wide.   On more than one occasion as I tried to explain the trend I believed was forming, I would hear from our General Manager something along the lines of “2 points does not a trend make.”

Reports out that TCF bank has decided that the restrictions that come with TARP are more impairing than the loans are beneficial.   Thus, they are looking to pay back their $361.2 million to the Treasury.  

And with that, here  are the lessons to be learned:

Government programs, no matter how well intentioned,  never, ever, ever, ever help businesses run more efficiently.   Don’t believe me?   Ask anyone who has ever had an SBA loan.

and

Government programs, no matter how well thought through, will always, always, always  have unintended consequences that for some period of time, will disrupt and distort the very function they were created to aid.   Again, don’t believe me?   Just ask anyone who receives farm supports.

I know that 2 points don’t make a trend but I’m guessing that three certainly does the trick!

President Barack Obama has pledged that his administration would be the most ethical and transparent that the US had ever seen.   Key to his pledge of transparency was the legislative and budgeting process.   In fact, David Axelrod and other Obama spokespeople have been touting the candidness of the President’s budget with comments such as:

“The president is determined to treat the American people as adults and be straight-up about what we’re facing and what we need to do to move forward,” said David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president.

As a blogger, I suppose I should be happy when political types make absolute statements about issues that aren’t absolute.   It becomes easy fodder for the next post.   However, as a citizen, it annoys me greatly because it leaves me trying to decide if the person saying it is either stupid enough to believe or think that I will be stupid enough to believe.   Oh, whatever.

You can see the detail of the “most transparent budget ever” here.

A quick and by that I mean no more than 15 minutes, review of the transparent budget reveals a few issues:

• Contrary to Obama’s claims that there would be no tax increases until the Bush tax cuts expire, you will see on page 123 that the increase of the capital gains rate of “rich people” will begin in FY 2010.   For those of you unfamiliar with a fiscal year, it would mean that those tax rates could go into effect on 10/1/09.   I suspect for implementation reasons they will actually go into effect on 1/1/10 but that is still a year earlier than the tax cuts are due to expire.
• While President Obama is lauding himself for reducing deficits to “merely” $500 billion by the end of his first term, he’s not telling you the whole story.   On page 133 you can see what is happening to debt.   In 2013 when Obama says his “transparent” deficit is on $500 B, his total debt increase is $925 B!   In fact, he proposed 10 year budget shows that debt will increase at a rate close to $1 Trillion each year past Obama’s first term!
• Page 114 shows the projected total debt and projected GDP.   As I told you here, the GDP figures have as much reality as unicorns and mermaids, they’re too high.    On the flip side,  if Obama spends all he says he will, the debt is likely under forecast.   Rater than nitpicking, let’s take the “transparent” numbers at face value.   If debt comes to be as Obama’s forecast has it, we will for the first time since WWII have debt that is greater than our annual GDP.    In  FY 2008 our debt was 70% of GDP.    Obama’s plan shows us increasing debt as a % of GDP every year of his forecast reaching 101% of GDP by 2019!    This after increasing revenues (taxes and such) 76% during that same time frame!  
• Finally, US debt is only partially held by the public.   At the end of FY 2008, $5.8 T of debt was held by the public.   Approximately $3 T of that amount is held by foreign entities.   Somehow the Obama administration has concluded that while GDP will increase just 60% they will convince foreign entities to increase their purchasing to support a 230% increase in debt.   If that’s not miraculous enough, they’ve added the extra difficulty of financing all of that debt with rates that are below the historical norm!   The Obama budget assumes that the long term rate for the 10 yr. Treasury is 4%.   A look at this table shows that since 1960, the 10 yr treasury has only averaged 4% or less 3 times.   While not statistically accurate, a simple average of the rates for the past 48 years is nearly 7%.   I don’t care who’s doing the rounding, that doesn’t get close to 4%!

It looks like we will continue with the redefinition of  words for the New Obama English.   From now on, “Transparent,” when used by someone in the Obama administration will mean:

“Truth”, not based in reality but if not questioned and sprinkled with lots of hope, could fool that portion of the populace for whom “it feels right.”

Between,  his Tuesday night address to Congress and a speech today, President Obama has revealed his budget proposals not only for the coming fiscal year but in large part, for the length of his Presidency.

First, let’s deal with the issue that is budget proposals are somehow different than those provided by previous administrations.   They aren’t.   While there have been different methods of presenting the budget such as continuing operations versus special appropriations for Iraq, there has been one constant comparable in all of them; the increase in debt required to service them.   Put in other words, each of the fiscal years, regardless of how the budget was compiled, can be compared based upon the year end debt that they created.

When President Bush took office, the US debt was approximately $5.7 Trillion.   At the end of Bush’s first term, total debt was $7.4 T, an average increase of $350 Billion per year.   During Bush’s second term debt ended around $10.6 T with $1.6 T of that coming in the last year alone.   If you take out the last year the average increase was $500 billion per year and that was while paying for the Iraq war.

Enter President Obama.

I won’t pick apart what he’s done to the deficit this year, except to say that while Obama is quick to talk about what he “inherited,” he’s not so ready to discuss that he is just as responsible for the $1.75 T projected deficit of this year as Bush is.   After all, wasn’t it than   Senator Barack Obama who assured us that he was “just a phone call away” working to persuade Congress to pass the $700 B TARP.   And wasn’t PEBO who was consulted on the auto bailout?   Wasn’t it also PEBO who made the ultimate decision on requesting the second tranche for Tarp?   Finally, as President Obama wasn’t it he who led the way to the stimulus package, the largest single expenditure ever in the US?   The only people who believe that this deficit was “inherited” are those who worship at the altar of Obama or simply chose to be ignorant.

Moving past ’09, President Obama’s budget plan will optimistically, increase the US debt by a minimum of $1T in the first two years and $500 B in the second two years of his administration, a total of a $3 T increase in debt in only 4 years!   Enormous deficits especially when you consider that  Obama will no longer have a war to finance, he will not have to spend to “reclaim the economy” after this year and the previous CBO budget had projected that the deficits during this same time frame would be “merely” $1.7 T!

I noted that the deficits that Obama is projecting are optimistic.   In fact, the deficits are likely not even nearly achievable.   Why do I say that?   After all, isn’t part of Obama’s plan to increase taxes on “the rich,” close loopholes and find other ways to raise tax revenue?   Yes he is.   However, Obama has overlooked one very basic economic fundamental.

Back in June of last year I introduced you to Hauser’s Law.   Hauser’s Law, simply put, says that no matter what you do to tax rates, how you open or close tax loopholes, whether you increase one type of rate and decrease another, tax income tends to equalize around 19.5% of GDP.   Nobody can explain for certain why this happens but, when you see a trend that holds over nearly 60 years, across numerous administrations, spending and taxing philosophies, if it isn’t a law, it should be made one.  

What’s Hauser’s Law got to do with Obama’s deficits?   Simple.

Obama is banking on a rapid return of income that he can tax.   Obama’s budget assumes that growth will be negative 1.2% this year returning to a robust 3.2% next year.   The CBO which is in line with many private economists, believes growth will be negative 2.2% this year and positive 1.5% next year.   Doesn’t sound like much until you realize that Hauser’s Law says that each percentage point equates to about $28 B of missed tax revenue and that it compounds over the time frame.   If Obama is off by just 1% in each of the years that translates to a deficit understatement of over $130 B (remember when a Billion used to be a big number?).   If the CBO is right and Obama wrong, the first two years alone will translate to over $130 B with additional shortages in the last two years because of a lower GDP run rate.  

As an aside, isn’t it ironic that Obama’s budget is highly optimistic in projecting revenue when he’s been telling us for months that this is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?   If you look at what happened to GDP the years following the depression Obama is not just optimistic, he’s delusional!

On top of the overly optimistic growth rates is another problem for Obama’s tax revenue.   Obama has committed to significantly increasing a number of taxes to increase the revenue.   He has even proposed a new tax, a carbon tax to generate significant amounts of new revenue.   Economists of all persuasions will tell you that increasing taxes will reduce overall GDP.   Increasing taxes on something will always cause less of that something to be consumed or created.   Don’t believe me?   Just take one look at what is happening to cigarette consumption as taxes continue to be increased on them…it’s not going up!   Now we can discuss what the elasticity of that change is i.e. do you have to double the taxes before GDP is impacted or will a 1% increase in taxes impact GDP.   However, Hauser’s law says that the elasticity discussion is moot.   Hauser’s Law will say that the very fact that less GDP is generated will result in less tax revenue being generated regardless of what the actual rates are.

Everything Obama does is for the optics or in how the action supports his ideology.   It’s too bad that he doesn’t approach issues from an actual intelectual honesty and curiousity.   If he had in the case of his budget, he may have learned the core fact from Hauser’s Law:

Putting it a different way, capital migrates away from regimes in which it is treated harshly, and toward regimes in which it is free to be invested profitably and safely. In this regard, the capital controlled by our richest citizens is especially tax-intolerant.

Contrary to Obama and Gibb’s protestations that this is the first budget with “full disclosure,” this is a budget that is built on more optimism than all the “Hope” in Obamaland.   The budget will fail on any measure of fiscal integrity and responsibility.   My hope is that the country doesn’t fail economically along with it.

What’s that I hear?   it’s the big sucking sound created by the Federal Government mucking around in things they know nothing about.   First on the list:

AIG Needs More Help After $60 Billion Loss

AIG, as you may remember, was the first “too big to fail,” after the Feds got nervous after Lehman hit the dust.   After two bites at the apple, AIG got a total of $150B government support.   Reports are that after several sales of profitable pieces of their company, AIG has gotten their outstanding balance down to $35B.   It’s believed that AIG will report the largest loss ever by a US company tomorrow at $60B.   Please note that we (and by we I mean the Federal Government) owns 80% of AIG so there should be no surprise when money is “shovel ready” to keep them afloat.

Next:

U.S. Eyes Large Stake in Citi

Citigroup Inc. is in talks with federal officials that could result in the U.S. government substantially expanding its ownership of the struggling bank, according to people familiar with the situation.

While the discussions could fall apart, the government could wind up holding as much as 40% of Citigroup’s common stock.

Here again, the Fed is already into Citi for $45B.   This little ditty has a twist from the others.   Citi is spinning this saying “it won’t cost the taxpayers a dime!”   Oh lucky us, not exactly.

You see, nearly all accounting and investing rules will tell you that at 40% ownership you effectively control the company.   Once you own the company, you are responsible for it.   Once you’re responsible for it, if the company should need additional capital, you as the major shareholder will be put in the position of either putting up that capital or diluting your ownership.   For an entity that can just run an inkjet to get the additional capital, the answer is easy.

Oh, and the part about not costing the taxpayers anything, not so much.   The preferred stock that we currently have gets periodic interest payments.   It is also in a senior position to common shareholders should the company go bankrupt.   By converting to common stock the interest payments will go away.   Thus, at the very least it will cost the taxpayer something short term and if the company ultimately fails or needs more money, it will definitely cost more.

Finally thought on this one; even though the Obama administration’s spokes person said just 3 days ago:

“This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government”

Don’t “bank that!”   Remember, all Obama positions have expiration dates.

Bringing it all together:

Remember that the automakers are back talking about plans for their future support.   If any of you believe that just one more government infusion will get the automakers back to a point where they’ll be able to function on their own please take note of what’s happening in the financial industry.   When it comes to government “help,” it’s fair to say:

In for a penny, in for a pound!

As is apparent to anyone who has paid any attention lately, the economy is challenged.   The situation is so difficult that the latest forecast  from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), issued prior to the Stimulus bill, indicates that the deficit for the current year would be nearly $1.2 Trillion.   The CBO’s estimate of the impact Stimulus bill is to increase the deficit by another $185 Billion for a new total $1.4 Trillion.

This weekend in his weekly radio address, President Obama spoke about the need to get the deficit under control.   With a deficit of at least $1.4 Trillion this year, President Obama set out a goal of reducing the deficit to a mere $533 Billion by the end of his first term.    Simply amazing, or maybe not.

According to that same CBO forecast, the projected budget deficit for the last year of Obama’s first term, FY 2013, was projected to be $257 Billion.   Yeah, yeah, I know.   That nasty stimulus bill really jacked the future deficit up right?   According to the CBO’s analysis, the increase is $28 billion in 2013 for a total of $285 Billion.

Well, that’s odd!   Yes, but that’s not all.

In the same CBO forecast, they gave the estimated change to the deficit  for a variety of other actions.

You may remember that Obama has promised to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months?   You may also remember that Obama promised to make Bin Laden “Job #1”.   I think it’s safe to say he’ll have that solved in the same 16 month period and because Bin Laden is the only trouble maker in the region, we should be able to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, certainly by 2013.   The CBO forecast shows an alternative benefit of $30 billion if the total number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are reduced to 30,000 by 2013.   He shouldn’t need that many but I suppose a token force is OK.

The CBO forecast assumes that the “Bush tax cuts” are allowed to expire, something that Obama has promised, so you don’t need an adjustment there.

The AMT gets fixed each year so that new folks aren’t pulled into it.   While I doubt Obama will continue this because of his need to trap the few taxpayers left into higher brackets, I’ll be generous and take the $45 Billion, including interest, impact against the deficit.

That leaves us at a projected 2013 deficit of $290 Billion.   That looks to be more than 45% less, $243 billion below, the audacious target President Obama has set for himself.   Huh?   The CBO tells us that discretionary spending, that which Congress can control without changing things like Medicare, Social Security etc., will be $1.220 Trillion in 2013.   For the budget deficit to grow $243 Billion over the latest, adjusted for the Stimulus plan, forecast  by the CBO, Congress will need to increase their discretionary spending by 20% over the assumed increases for inflation, growth and GDP adjustments.   In the CBO’s forecast, discretionary spending is only expected to increase by $36 Billion over Obama’s term.   If discretionary spending does increase by $243 Billion over the rate that the CBO has projected, it will grow at a rate that is 675% higher than that projected rate.  

In November of 2008, while yet simply PEBO, Obama stated:

We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.

I guess this is yet another Obama promise that came with an expiration date.

On the plus side, a couple of additional announcements like this and Obama’s planned increase in the capital gains rate won’t be very news worthy.   What capital gains will be left to tax?

You’ve probably heard the adage, “When the US gets a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia.”   The adage comes from the fact that world economies intertwined and the US, being the largest, influences a lot of what happens in the rest of the world.   Early in this economic downturn several financial experts attempted to argue that there had been a significant decoupling of world economies.   They argued that while issues were deteriorating in the US, other countries, especially China, wouldn’t see the downturn because their economy was much more stand alone.   While the evidence is obvious that these folks were wrong, Marc Faber does a good job of reconstructing events and deconstructing the decoupling myth, in yesterday’s WSJ.

Admittedly, Faber is known as Dr. Doom.   He has had a perspective on US financial management that is less than complimentary.   That said, Faber’s analysis is still spot on.

Faber’s key descriptive paragraph of the events of this downturn is here:

In 2008, a collapse in all asset prices led to lower U.S. consumption, which caused plunging exports, lower industrial production, and less capital spending in China. This led to a collapse in commodity prices and in the demand for luxury goods and capital goods from Europe and Japan. The virtuous up-cycle turned into a vicious down-cycle with an intensity not witnessed since before World War II.

As important as the tear down of the decoupling theory is Faber’s take on what caused this bubble to burst and what is to be learned from our experience.   As to what was the cause, Faber says:

Sadly, government policy responses — not only in the U.S. — are plainly wrong. It is not that the free market failed. The mistake was constant interventions in the free market by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury that addressed symptoms and postponed problems instead of solving them.

Faber rightly identifies the Fed’s easy credit monetary policies following the Dotcom bust as the fuel for the next bust.   By keeping rates artificially low for too long, Faber argues:

The complete mispricing of money, combined with a cornucopia of financial innovations, led to the housing boom and allowed buyers to purchase homes with no down payments and homeowners to refinance their existing mortgages.

Read the whole article.   Faber is correct in his analysis and he is correct on what he sees from the folks who are attempting to “do something” to resolve this problem:

So what now? Unfortunately, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner were, as Fed officials, among the chief architects of easy money and are therefore largely responsible for the credit bubble that got us here. Worse, their commitment to meddling in markets has only intensified with the adoption of near-zero interest rates and massive bank bailouts.

Faber’s suggestion for what should be done?

The best policy response would be to do nothing and let the free market correct the excesses brought about by unforgivable policy errors. Further interventions through ill-conceived bailouts and bulging fiscal deficits are bound to prolong the agony and lead to another slump — possibly an inflationary depression with dire social consequences.

All the Fed, Treasury and Congress have done in this downturn is to cause more fear and uncertainty.   They have done nothing to change the arc of the events that they all were a part of creating.   By implementing programs like today’s housing bailout, US financial institutions and businesses will be even less likely to put themselves out to take risk.   After all, who’s to say that tomorrow Congress won’t decide that their business needs to have contracts revoked, rewritten or renegotiated by force.   Until the Fed, Treasury, Congress and President Obama quit making “the rules of the day” don’t expect the US economy to improve or recurrent, wasteful spending to slow down.