Fed's Warsh: Fundamental Reassessment of Every Asset Everywhere

[RedEarth]

Here are few excepts from Fed Governor Kevin Warsh's speech: The Promise and Peril of the New Financial Architecture
There are some notable signs of improvement. Short-term funding spreads are retreating from extremely elevated levels. Funding maturities are being extended beyond the very near term. Money market funds and commercial paper markets are showing signs of stabilization. And credit default swap spreads of banking institutions are narrowing significantly.

Nonetheless, financial markets overall remain strained. Risk spreads remain quite high and lending standards appear strict. Indications of economic activity in the United States have turned decidedly negative. The economy contracted slightly in the third quarter, and the recent data on sales and production suggest that the fourth quarter will be weak.

Still, the depth and duration of this period of weak economic activity remain highly uncertain.

While housing may well have been the trigger for the onset of the broader financial turmoil, I have long believed it is not the fundamental cause. Indeed, recent financial market developments strongly indicate that housing, as an asset class, does not stand alone. Indeed, the problems associated with housing finance reveal broader failings, including inadequate market discipline, excessive reliance on credit ratings, and poor credit and liquidity risk-management practices by many financial firms.

During the past several months, this domestic housing-centric diagnosis has also been subjected to a natural experiment. Among U.S. financial institutions, asset quality concerns are no longer confined to the mortgage sector. At the same time, non-U.S. financial institutions--including some with relatively modest exposures to the United States or their own domestic housing markets--appear to be suffering substantial losses. Equity prices of European banks declined more on average during 2008 year-to-date than their U.S. counterparts. Moreover, economic weakness among our advanced foreign trading partners is increasingly evident, even among economies with more modest exposures to the housing sector.

... I would advance the following: We are witnessing a fundamental reassessment of the value of virtually every asset everywhere in the world.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/feds-warsh-fundamental-reassessment-of.html

[Warpy]

1. We certainly are.

We're entering a period when the economy will no longer be floated on a sea of debt. That means people are going to have to learn to save for the things they want. It also means that prices won't skyrocket forever since they became meaningless when credit flowed freely and the bills never had to be paid. It probably means a period of deflation in everything but food and fuel, so look out below. The one thing that characterizes a deflationary period is high unemployment. The one thing that ends it is a public works program that puts everybody back to work and stimulates demand.