The Racial Diversity of Hunger

Everyone knows that Oakland is diverse. Probably more people from more races and nationalities live in the city than anywhere west of New York or north of Los Angeles. But before we celebrate diversity, think of its most diverse places. Some of them are surely the lines of hungry people lining up for food.

Oakland has many food pantries — programs run primarily by churches on a shoestring. Church elders are often found at the Alameda County Community Food Bank's huge warehouse out by the airport, buying as much food as they can for as little money as possible. They worry that the bags of cans and produce they distribute will run out before everyone in line gets one.

Reverend Lee from the Cornerstone Baptist Church, a food bank stalwart, fills the small storefront off MacArthur Boulevard with white plastic bags of cans, dried goods, and bread. Then the people come. Mostly Chinese-American and African-American families get their food from the African-American activists from his church.

On the other side of the airport, in a park by the freeway sound wall next to the 98th Avenue exit, a very diverse group of Asian, black, Latino, and white folks bag up fruits and vegetables. Early in the morning, families of primarily Mexican immigrants arrive to get numbers and wait. After the big food bank truck unloads and the baggers begin work, Columbian Gardens breathes a sigh of relief as people once again have food for the coming week.

The early morning also is the arrival time for the Good Samaritan food pantry in the neighborhood of East Oakland some folks call New Chinatown. Older Chinese women line up their shopping carts and sit or stand on the sidewalk across the street from a small, ramshackle house filled with food. Then, joined by African Americans and Latinos, they trade numbers for bags, and patiently surround huge cardboard bins of lettuce, cucumbers, and pears.

Later this year, the Food Bank will publish a study that will estimate the size and depth of Alameda County's hungry population. We already know some of the figures. A third of the people in hungry families are younger than eighteen, and a quarter are older than 50. With Oakland's official unemployment rate well over 10 percent, and the unofficial rate well over that, fewer than one quarter of food-pantry clients get most of their income from a job, although probably most work.

We'll learn more when that report comes out. But a look at the people in line tells you the basic facts. Oakland has thousands of families who don't have enough to eat. They come in all races and nationalities. And so do the people who care enough to help them find the food they need to survive.

Cut Wall Street Out! How States Can Finance Their Own Economic Recovery

Pouring money into the private banking system has only fixed the economy for bankers and the wealthy; it has not done much to address either the fundamental problem of unemployment or the debt trap so many Americans find themselves in.

President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment: 2.7 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus plan began. California has lost 336,400 jobs. Arizona has lost 77,300. Michigan has lost 137,300. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses.

In this dark firmament, however, one bright star shines. The sole state to actually gain jobs is an unlikely candidate for the distinction: North Dakota. North Dakota is also one of only two states expected to meet their budgets in 2010. (The other is Montana.) North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000 people, largely located in cold and isolated farming communities. Yet, since 2000, the state's GNP has grown 56 percent, personal income has grown 43 percent and wages have grown 34 percent. The state not only has no funding problems, but this year it has a budget surplus of $1.3 billion, the largest it has ever had.

Why is North Dakota doing so well, when other states are suffering the ravages of a deepening credit crisis? Its secret may be that it has its own credit machine. North Dakota is the only state in the Union to own its own bank. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919, specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. The bank's stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota.

The Advantages of Owning Your Own Bank

So, how does owning a bank solve the state's funding problems? Isn't the state still limited to the money it has? The answer is no. Chartered banks are allowed to do something nobody else can do: They can create credit on their books simply with accounting entries, using the magic of "fractional reserve" lending. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains on its web site:

"Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here's how it works: Most of a bank's loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank ... holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times."

How many times? President Obama puts this "multiplier effect" at eight to ten. In a speech on April 14, he said:

"[A]lthough there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks - 'where's our bailout?,' they ask - the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth."

It can, but it hasn't recently, because private banks are limited by bank capital requirements and by their for-profit business models. And that is where a state-owned bank has enormous advantages: States own huge amounts of capital, and they can think farther ahead that their quarterly profit statements, allowing them to take long-term risks. Their asset bases are not marred by oversized salaries and bonuses; they have no shareholders expecting a sizable cut, and they have not marred their books with bad derivatives bets, unmarketable collateralized debt obligations and mark-to-market accounting problems.

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is set up as a dba: "the State of North Dakota doing business as the Bank of North Dakota." Technically, that makes the capital of the state the capital of the bank. Projecting the possibilities of this arrangement to California, the State of California owns about $200 billion in real estate, has $62 billion in various investments and has $128 billion in projected 2009 revenues. Leveraged by a factor of eight, that capital base could support nearly $4 trillion in loans.

To get a bank charter, specific investments would probably need to be earmarked by the state as startup capital; but the startup capital required for a typical California bank is only about $20 million. This is small potatoes for the world's eighth largest economy, and the money would not actually be "spent." It would just become bank equity, transmuting from one form of investment into another - and a lucrative investment at that. In the case of the BND, the bank's return on equity is about 25 percent. It pays a hefty dividend to the state, which is expected to exceed $60 million this year. In the last decade, the BND has turned back a third of a billion dollars to the state's general fund, offsetting taxes. California could do substantially better than that. California pays $5 billion annually just in interest on its debt. If it had its own bank, the bank could refinance its debt and return that $5 billion to the state's coffers; and it would make substantially more on money lent out.

Besides capital, a bank needs "reserves," which it gets from deposits. For the BND, this too is no problem, since it has a captive deposit base. By law, the state and all its agencies must deposit their funds in the bank, which pays a competitive interest rate to the state treasurer. The bank also accepts deposits from other entities. These copious deposits can then be plowed back into the state in the form of loans.

Public Banking on the Central Bank Model

The BND's populist organizers originally conceived of the bank as a credit union-like institution that would free farmers from predatory lenders, but conservative interests later took control and suppressed these commercial lending functions. The BND is now chiefly a "bankers' bank." It acts like a central bank, with functions similar to those of a branch of the Federal Reserve. It avoids rivalry with private banks by partnering with them. Most lending is originated by a local bank. The BND then comes in to participate in the loan, share risk and buy down the interest rate.

One of the BND's functions is to provide a secondary market for real estate loans, which it buys from local banks. Its residential loan portfolio is now $500 billion to $600 billion. This function has helped the state to avoid the credit crisis that afflicted Wall Street when the secondary market for loans collapsed in late 2007. Before that, investors routinely bought securitized loans (CDOs) from the banks, making room on the banks' books for more loans. But these "shadow lenders" disappeared when they realized that the derivatives called "credit default swaps" supposedly protecting their CDOs were a highly unreliable form of insurance. In North Dakota, this secondary real estate market is provided by the BND, which has invested conservatively, avoiding the speculative derivatives debacle.

Other services the BND provides include guarantees for entrepreneurial startups and student loans, the purchase of municipal bonds from public institutions and a well-funded disaster loan program. When the city of Fargo was struck by a massive flood recently, the disaster fund helped the city avoid the devastation suffered by New Orleans in similar circumstances; and when North Dakota failed to meet its state budget a few years ago, the BND met the shortfall. The BND has an account with the Federal Reserve Bank, but its deposits are not insured by the FDIC. Rather, they are guaranteed by the State of North Dakota itself - a prudent move today, when the FDIC is verging on bankruptcy.

The Commercial Banking Model: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia

The BND studiously avoids competition with private banks, but a publicly-owned bank could profitably engage in commercial lending. A successful model for that approach was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which served both central bank and commercial bank functions. For nearly a century, the publicly-owned Commonwealth Bank provided financing for housing, small business, and other enterprise, affording effective public competition that "kept the banks honest" and kept interest rates low. Commonwealth Bank put the needs of borrowers ahead of profits, ensuring that sound investment flows were maintained to farming and other essential areas; yet, the bank was always profitable, from 1911 until nearly the end of the century.

Indeed, it seems to have been too profitable, making it a takeover target. It was simply "too good not to be privatized." The bank was sold in the 1990s for a good deal of money, but it's proponents consider it's loss as a social and economic institution to be incalculable.

A State Bank of Florida?

Could the sort of commercial model tested by Commonwealth Bank work today in the United States? Economist Farid Khavari thinks so. A Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, he proposes a Bank of the State of Florida (BSF) that would make loans to Floridians at much lower interest rates than they are getting now, using the magic of fractional reserve lending. He explains:

"For $100 in deposits, a bank can create $900 in new money by making loans. So, the BSF can pay 6 percent for CDs, and make mortgage loans at 2 percent. For $6 per year in interest paid out, the BSF can earn $18 by lending $900 at 2 percent for mortgages."

The state would earn $15,000 per $100,000 of mortgage, at a cost of about $1,700, while the homeowner would save $88,000 in interest and pay for the home 15 years sooner. "Our bank will save people about seven years of their pay over the course of 30 years, just on interest costs," says Dr. Khavari. He also proposes 6 percent credit cards and 6 percent certificates of deposit.

The state could earn billions yearly on these loans, while saving hefty sums for consumers. It could also refinance its own debts and those of its municipal governments at very low interest rates. According to a German study, interest composes 30 percent to 50 percent of everything we buy. Slashing interest costs can make projects such as low-cost housing, alternative energy development, and infrastructure construction not only sustainable, but profitable for the state, while at the same time creating much-needed jobs.

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Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In "Web of Debt," her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel that gets its power from "the money trust." Her eleven books include "Forbidden Medicine, Nature's Pharmacy" (co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker) and "The Key to Ultimate Health" (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen). Her web sites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.

City firms coy about details of their Christmas parties

Venturi's Table organised Christmas parties for 97 companies with several banks imposing a confidentiality agreement

Fears of a public backlash prompted many firms to compel event organisers to keep details of their lavish Christmas parties a secret. Photograph: Rex Features

It is usually a cause for celebration, but this year many firms were eager to keep their Christmas corporate bonding out of the news.

For fear of provoking a public backlash, almost one third of the companies booking £150-a-head cookery parties with West London based Venturi's Table asked the firm for written confirmation that the booking would be kept confidential.

More than half these were banks. Some even requested formal confidentiality agreements. Almost one in two City firms , and 31% of companies overall, insisted on secrecy, for example wanting assurances they would not be listed on the cookery centre's website. Last year, fewer than one in ten companies thought it necessary.

Anna Venturi, owner of the corporate cookery centre, said: "Last year there was a lot of talk about the banking crisis but nobody thought there was a problem about having a party. Now, clients want to keep it quiet, particularly the banks. They don't want it known that a lot of employees are letting their hair down, being silly, drinking and doing things which are seen as politically incorrect. Companies don't want to show they are spending a lot of money."

The centre has several kitchens where over the afternoon separate parties are given cookery lessons, then they eat and drink.

Venturi said that the demand for discretion went as far as companies not wanting signs posted outside kitchens indicating who the booking is for, in case revellers from the adjacent kitchen find out. This is particularly sensitive in the case of banks, which are under intense public and political pressure to cut back on bonuses and other forms of excess following their taxpayer-funded bail-outs. Banks are worried that workers from rival firms might leak details of such parties to the media, Venturi added.

One anonymous City firm emailed the company: "My Managing Director, xxxx ( and the host for the event) has told me to make sure our event is not mentioned to press. It is very important as stakeholders have been told we have stopped internal hospitality for a while but we felt it was important for our staff."

Another company making a booking insisted: "Hi, just a quick note to say that we would like to keep our Christmas party booking confidential. Please can you confirm in writing this will not be disclosed in any way eg: in any press materials or on your website. Sure you understand that spending on events is still a sensitive issue and so we would prefer to keep this under wraps. Once you can confirm this I will organise signing of the event agreement and payment of the deposit. "

Of the 97 Christmas parties hosted by Venturi's Table this year, 56 were for City companies. In total, 30 of the bookings asked the firm to sign a confidentiality agreement about their event or asked for this to be confirmed in writing by email. Some 26 of the companies that asked the cookery firm to sign confidentiality agreements were from the City, with 16 were from the banking industry, two were telecoms firms, three involved in the public sector and five were construction companies.

Profits for us, losses for you

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Home equity lines have dried up across U.S.

As home prices collapse, banks cut off credit, further souring the economy

Borrowing on the home for quick cash is a lot harder than it used to be in the United States, and it's causing headaches for homeowners, banks and the economy.

During the housing boom, millions of people borrowed against the value of their homes to remodel kitchens, finish basements, pay off credit cards, buy TVs or cars, and finance educations. Banks encouraged the borrowing, touting in ads how easy it is to unlock the cash in their homes to "live richly" and "seize your someday."

Now, the days of tapping your house for easy money have gone the way of soaring home prices. A quarter of all homeowners are ineligible for home equity loans because they owe more on their mortgage than what the house is worth. Those who have equity in their homes are finding banks far more stingy. Many with home-equity loans are seeing their credit limits reduced dramatically.

The sharp pullback is dragging on the U.S. economy, household budgets and banks' books. And it's another sign that the consumer spending binge that powered the economy through most of the decade is unlikely to return anytime soon.

At the peak of the housing boom in 2006, banks made $430 billion in home equity loans and lines of credit, according to the trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance. From 2002 to 2006, such lending was equal to 2.8 percent of the nation's economic activity, according to a study by finance professors Atif Mian and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago.

For the first nine months of 2009, only $40 billion in new home equity loans were made. The impact on the economy: close to zero.

Millions of homeowners borrowed from the house to improve their standard of living. Now, unable to count on rising home values to absorb more borrowing, indebted homeowners are feeling anything but wealthy.

Holly Scribner, 34, and her husband took out a $20,000 home equity loan in mid-2007 — just as the housing market began its swoon. They used the money to replace sinks and faucets, paint, buy a snow blower and make other improvements to their home in Nashua, N.H.

The $200 monthly payment was easy until property taxes jumped $200 a month, the basement flooded (causing $20,000 in damage) and the family ran into other financial difficulties as the recession took hold. Their home's value fell from $279,000 to $180,000. They could no longer afford to make payments on either their first $200,000 mortgage or the home equity loan.

Scribner, who is a stay-at-home mom with three children, avoided foreclosure by striking a deal with the first mortgage lender, HSBC, which agreed to modify their loan and reduce payments from $1,900 a month to $1,100 a month. The home equity lender, Ditech, refused to negotiate. Scribner's husband, Scott, works at an auto loan financing company but is looking for a second job to supplement the family's income.

The family is still having trouble making regular payments on the home-equity loan. The latest was for $100 in November.

"It was a huge mess. I ruined my credit," Holly Scribner says. "We did everything right, we thought, and we ended up in a bad situation."

It's a mess for the banking industry, too.

Home equity lending gained popularity after 1986, the year Congress eliminated the tax deduction for interest on credit card debt but preserved deductions on interest for home equity loans and lines of credit. Homeowners realized it was easier or cheaper to tap their home equity for cash than to use money taken from savings accounts, mutual funds or personal loans to fund home improvements.

How the Fed's Massive MBS Purchases Harm Banks

Editor's Note: I asked "Mike in Alaska" to expand some of his intriguing blog comments into a full-length article. Note that I have added the underlining below, not the author. --RPM

How the Fed’s Massive Purchase of Mortgage-Backed Securities
Plays a Role in Harming Banks and the Overall Financial System:
A small town community bank perspective.
By Michael J. Dunton

Creation of Excess Reserves Earning 0.25%

Let me explain to the average reader what excess reserves mean in a context of a small community bank. Each day a young lady from my staff would come into my office and show me where we were at, in cash (paper and electronic), from the day’s course of business. I always had to know what time it was in the morning so as to be ready for her visit between 11:30 and Noon—I sometimes could be in a meeting in the building, or could be somewhere about town. If we needed cash, I would call up the Federal Home Loan Bank that we belonged to and borrow overnight funds—or I could borrow for 30, 60, 90, 12, 180, or 360 days if the rate was too good to pass up. We could even borrow on a term facility for up to 30 years, but going out that long on the yield curve, whether borrow or lending, is a bit dramatic for me. The same goes if we had excess cash: I could lend it out overnight, or buy a CD of varying maturities and rates.

That was then.

Fast forward to now and we get the situation where we haven’t had to borrow for daily liquidity for so long that I have forgotten the Federal Home Loan Bank’s phone number and our bank’s account number (don’t worry, I have it written down). We are swimming in excess cash. We see this as a result of several events: first, mortgage-backed securities we hold have been paying off at a faster speed due to the Federal Reserve’s purchase of MBS in the market; second, our loan demand is down—our loan balances are about 5% lower than normal; third, other bonds' yields are being dragged down and issuers are calling the higher yielding securities and reissuing new bonds at lower yields; lastly, our customers are holding higher cash balances. I now needn’t worry if I have to borrow for my daily liquidity on any given day for the foreseeable future—I just need to worry how to stay in business with $15 million stuck earning 0.25% and flat to decreasing loan demand for the next year.

Let’s explore why the Fed has been affecting excess reserves by way of buying up mortgage-backed securities. The Fed is trying to stimulate the economy, help homeowners, and buoy the banks by re-inflating the housing asset bubble. Most mortgages are rolled up into securities (MBS) and sold to investors. We’ve written, through November, $126 million in mortgages versus $58 million last year. We’ve only kept on our books about $28 million in mortgages. Most of our mortgages are sold to Fannie, who then rolls them into large pools of MBS. Regular banks (the big boys), in the past, have done the same thing as Fannie and Freddie and rolled their mortgages into private-label MBS. As I will discuss later, Fannie and Freddie pretty much control the mortgage landscape right now and other players are living off the crumbs.

Depressed Yields and More Risk for Banks

Most MBS are good, but enough of the bad ones went south to affect the entire economy and paralyze the banking system. The Federal Reserve stepped in and bought up enough MBS so as to push mortgage rates down to bring buyers back into the market and prop up housing values. No one outside the Fed is certain what specific MBS were bought and from whom, but it was enough to pretty much control the pricing of all new mortgages. New mortgages were written up as refis and for new purchases. Now when those old loans were paid off at the new closing, the MBS that were connected to those old loans were quickly paid down, if not paid off entirely. That means those older, higher-yielding MBS that banks and other investors were holding gradually disappeared during this time—those MBS were paying a lot higher yield than the new MBS that took their place. Banks investments in MBS now earn less and if we want to replace the yield, on a one to one basis, we have to go out longer on the yield curve and accept more risk.

Let me now try to further explain why the Fed buying up these mortgage-backed securities is harmful to the economy and to banks in particular. When the Fed buys a bunch of MBS, it is overpaying for them—its like a rich guy early in an auction putting a ridiculously high bid on an valuable item that pretty much ends the bidding. This makes the yield on the MBS go down—it forces the mortgage market to offer 30 year mortgages between 4.5 to 5%. Now, no one in the mortgage market likes depressed prices like that for a 30 year income stream, but Fannie and Freddie were there to catch all that action. Don’t get me wrong, we made money doing the dirty work for Fannie and Freddie by originating and servicing the loan, but the risk is all on Fannie and Freddie right now. For the most part, they are the market for the foreseeable future. There are other institutions out there doing the same thing, but the real action is all Fannie and Freddie. Now Fannie and Freddie can push off any screwball regulation and fees on us with impunity. Each new rule and regulation costs a bank to implement through training and changes in systems. So now we’re getting increasingly pinched on the origination side of our business by Fannie and Freddie, which was made possible by the Fed’s involvement in buying up MBS.

Distorted Prices

Finally, the Fed’s foray into the mortgage market, by buying up MBS, has distorted true market prices for mortgage products, both in terms of revenue and costs. As it stands right now, the mortgage market is entirely dependent upon the federal government (the Fed, Fannie/Freddie, and the rest of the DC klunks). We essentially have people running the market, those pulling the strings from above, who derive the livelihood not from their financial performance, but from their position in government. Because banks, especially community banks, derive a large source of their income through mortgage activities, they will be forced to take what the government determines is right. There’s simply no viable alternative to the federal government’s heavy handed tactics in the mortgage market. The average homeowner may think he is getting an absolute steal by getting a sub 5% 30-year mortgage, but as a taxpayer he will receive a bargain he had not planned for. With virtually no private capital alternative to challenge Fannie and Freddie, the distortion will continue and true market prices will be an afterthought.

Summary

The Fed’s actions to help the economy by helping homeowners and banks through purchases of mortgage-backed securities is riddled with hidden costs and unintended consequences. Although mortgages have become cheap and commoditized, banks are earning less from their investments in MBS and direct holding of mortgages. Excessive purchases of MBS, by the Fed, have increased banks' excess reserves while decreasing mortgage loan pricing. These extra reserves now sit at the Fed earning a paltry 0.25%. Furthermore, the mortgage market is almost entirely dependent on the federal government and this has created distortions in price and its correspondent risks. Finally, if the Fed and the rest of the Washington apparatchik decided to get out of the mortgage business, or play a diminished role, then it would do so with the risk of the housing bubble deflating, due to greatly increased mortgage costs to consumers and further weakening banks by collateral values plummeting.

Michael J. Dunton is a SVP at a community bank in Alaska.

Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California

The Obama administration’s new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation’s economy is stabilizing.

As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to lend money, said Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration’s office of advocacy.

“While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more,” Headd said.

California has been particularly hard hit. The latest data show small-business bankruptcies up 81% in the state for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year. Filings nationwide were up 44%, according to the credit analysis firm Equifax Inc.

The actual number of small businesses in trouble is probably higher, experts said, because many owners file for personal bankruptcy rather than seek protection for the business.

Full article here

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”