The State of the Recession--a long way to go

Going into this holiday weekend, we need to take a little time to reflect on the state of the economy and the financial markets. I certainly don’t want what I write below to sound like a “rosy scenario” but I would like to try and put some perspective on where I think we are and what is ahead of us.

First, as I have written many times, the liquidity problem is behind us. Liquidity problems are of short term nature and require immediate action. The difficulties we now face are related to solvency and the ability to work things through. This takes time and it takes persistence, things that Americans are often impatient with.

My argument here is that many of the problems we face are known. In the words of the world famous philosopher Donald Rumsfeld, in dealing with a “solvency problem” we are dealing with “known unknowns.” (To clarify my argument, I would argue that a “liquidity crisis” is related to “unknown unknowns.”) Banks and other financial institutions, along with non-financial organizations, unless they are just blinding themselves to the truth of the situation, know what they need to watch out for. That is one reason why banks are not lending much these days. (See my post “The Clogged Banking System” http://seekingalpha.com/article/129838-the-clogged-banking-system.)

The “solvency problems” has to do with assets whose value is less than that recorded on the balance sheet of an organization. This “solvency problem” has been exacerbated by the large amounts of debt financial institutions and others have used to acquire these assets thereby leaving the problem of whether or not the equity base of the company exceeds the “hole” that exists between the “real” value of the assets and the value recorded on the financial statements.

The “unknown” here is exactly how much the organizations will eventually get from the “known” questionable assets. The answer to this hinges upon the issue of whether or not the value of the asset will improve if these organizations work with the asset, especially if the asset is a loan that the borrower has some chance of repaying in large part. The alternative, of course is that the value of the asset will never increase and needs to be “charged off” right now.

There is no question that banks and other financial institutions tend to be overly optimistic about their ability to “work things out”, but this is a time when they need to be as realistic as possible about the condition their assets are in. This is a turnaround environment and having led three (successful) bank turnarounds I know how important it is to be realistic about asset values at a time like this. Good leaders, good executives, are ones that face the problem head on and do not try and postpone the inevitable.

But, there is a second issue here. The government help that has been provided to the private sector has not always been helpful. If fact, some of the actions of our leaders have created an environment of greater uncertainty, something that an uncertain economy and financial system does not really need. For example, those of you that have read my posts over time know that I am very skeptical of the actions taken last fall by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. (See my post on “The Bailout Plan: Did Bernanke Panic?” http://seekingalpha.com/article/106186-the-bailout-plan-did-bernanke-panic.)

The follow up to this was the execution of the bailout plan, fondly labeled TARP. It was obvious that our leaders were making up the plan as they administered it which led to several changes in direction that totally confused participants and the market. Plus there was never any oversight administered to the program so the money went out and no one knew where it went.

Now we have a “recovery package” that has been approved by Congress. Again, there is great uncertainty about what the “package” is and what will it do. (See my posts
http://seekingalpha.com/article/117878-the-obama-stimulus-plan-why-i-m-concerned and
http://seekingalpha.com/article/116414-what-will-be-the-impact-of-obama-s-stimulus-plan.)

Then, following this package we had the “summary” of a bank toxic asset program presented by Secretary Geithner that bombed and then the presentation of the P-PIP (See my post http://seekingalpha.com/article/127639-public-private-investment-program-liquidity-or-solvency.) which Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz and others have torn into as providing a fantastic “real option” that provides tremendous upside for private investors and horrendous potential downsides for tax payers. Furthermore, in response to criticisms that this opportunity was just for “big” players, the Treasury responded that, well, smaller organizations would be let into the game—and, well, we may let the individual investor get into the scheme just like the patriotic program that allowed individuals to buy Treasury bonds during World War II.

The third issue centers on the amount of debt outstanding in the world. We write about the plight of the United States consumer and all the debt that he/she accumulated during the credit bubble of the early 2000s. This is a problem and will take a long time to work itself out with layoffs and unemployment increasing and bankruptcies, both individual and small business, on the upswing, along with rising delinquencies on credit cards and other consumer loans and with the overhang of large amounts of residential mortgages repricing over the next 15 months or so. This will be a drag on the United States economy for a while.

Real investment in the economy will not begin to rise until consumers get their balance sheets in order and feel confident enough to spend once again. However, many analysts are arguing that the economy is in for a structural shift, returning the United States consumer to a more fiscally conservative balance sheet with more of their disposable incomes going toward saving. This will require businesses to be smaller and more conservative in their operations. Both will retard recovery.

In addition, there is the problem of debt in the world. There are huge amounts of debt outstanding in the world that are going to have to be dealt with over then next three years of so. (An example of this looming problem is discussed in the Financial Times this morning, “Eastern Eggshells,” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3f00a48-249c-11de-9a01-00144feabdc0.html.) This just points to the fact that this recession is world wide in nature and the fate of the United States is going to be tied up with what goes on in Eastern Europe, in Japan, in China, in Russia, in Western Europe, and so on and so on.

This is why a growing number of people, like Niall Ferguson, author of “The Ascent of Money” is concerned that the United States—and others—are trying to resolve the problems created by too much debt and financial leverage by increasing the amount of debt and financial leverage that is in the world. These people are contending that we are all in this together and we must fight extreme national self-interest and protectionism.

The state of the nation is precarious—there is no doubt about that. However, I believe that we have progressed to the point that we are dealing with “known unknowns” rather than “unknown unknowns”. There is still much uncertainty in the economy, in the world, and people are attempting to work through the problems they face. But, because there are many people feeling a lot of pain right now and there will be more joining their ranks in the near future, there is a great deal of pressure to do a lot of “something” about it. And, in the minds of many, the effort must err on the side of doing too much rather than in doing too little. The potential downside to all these efforts is that much of what will be done may actually create more difficulties than they solve. Impatience is not always a virtue.