The Good Money and the Bad Money

Mar 6
07:36

2009

Michael Lombardi

Michael Lombardi

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

The "good" money is when hard-working people pay their taxes and we entrust those taxes to the government. The "bad" money is when large corporations ...

mediaimage
The "good" money is when hard-working people pay their taxes and we entrust those taxes to the government. The "bad" money is when large corporations make bad management decisions and they lose their shareholder value.

Throughout history,The Good Money and the Bad Money Articles good money has chased bad money. In his testimony this week, Fed Chairman Bernanke said that American International Group found a loophole in the system where it was able to start a hedge fund during the boom, risking the largest insurance business in the world. To put a patch on the bad management decision AIG made, the government has put $150 billion into AIG. That $150 billion being good taxpayer money.

Same story with Citigroup, one of the world's largest banks. Citigroup made many mistakes during the boom, making loans it should have not made. The government has come to the rescue of Citigroup, pouring $45.0 in good billions into the bank. The government now owns 36% of Citigroup.

The government thinks AIG and Citigroup are too big to fail. I guess they think General Motors and Chrysler are too big to fail, too. So, the government, I believe, is throwing good money after bad money.

In these difficult times, the government needs to help the economy by spending. I'm all for reduced interest rates and expanding the money supply. I'm also for government work projects, like road reconstruction. But when it comes to spending billions of taxpayer money to bail out private enterprise, I'm concerned in many cases that we are just throwing good money after bad.

I'm a student of the "lost decade" of Japan and feel that the U.S. is making the same mistakes Japan did during its economic crisis of the 1990s. Japan's problems started just like ours: a real estate bubble developed, banks made loans on overpriced real estate, and, when the bubble burst, the banks were left with trillions in loan losses.

Hoping to contain public fear, the Japan government first started with cash infusions into its troubled companies, much like the U.S. is doing today. Japan injected about two trillion yen into Japan's banks during the crisis, but it was fruitless. Japan learned that throwing good money after bad money doesn't work. And we should have learned from Japan's mistakes instead of making the same mistakes.

In the end, Japan took the hard road of nationalizing a major bank, wiping out shareholder value and allowing major banks that couldn't cut it to simply fail. Japanese banks wrote off almost $100 trillion yen in bad loans, a staggering 20% of the country's GDP. It was not until Japan let the banks wash themselves out that a bottom to the economic crisis was reached and a recovery followed. We need to take the same tough actions here in America, as opposed to delaying the inevitable at the cost of trillions in consumer tax money.

** Michael's Personal Notes:

The recession hit home yesterday when I heard one of my friends had lost his job after 20 years with the same company, a large multi-national corporation. The U.S. February jobs numbers will be out Friday morning. The numbers will no doubt be mind-boggling. Aside from the job losses themselves, the physiological impact of consumers hearing about large job loss numbers causes greater retrenchment of consumer spending...a vicious cycle. The more negative news consumers hear about the economy, the more they cut on their spending. It hurts to see anyone lose their job during these times. What do you say to that person? 

** Where the Market Stands:

We had a small rally yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up a paltry 149.82 points. I say "small" rally because, after the beating this market has taken, it's failed to deliver a decent rally -- a sign of a very weak market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 21.7% for the year. The bear is in full control. After the quick dive by the Dow Jones under the 7,000 level, if the market doesn't give us a few good days here to breathe, the stock market will be in worse shape than most analysts think. 

** What He Said:

"Investors have been put into an unfair corner. Those that invested in stocks because they got caught in the tech boom (1999) have seen their investments gone. Now, those that have leveraged heavily to play the real estate game, because it is the place to be  (2005), could see the same fate as the stock market investors. Thanks again, Mr. Greenspan." Michael Lombardi, in PROFIT CONFIDENTIAL, May 27, 2005. Michael started warning about the crisis coming in the U.S. real estate market right at the peak of the boom, now widely believed to be 2005.

Profit Confidential

---

http://www.profitconfidential.com/

LOMBARDI PUBLISHING CORPORATION
News, Analysis, and Information Services Since 1986.
One Million Customers in 141 Countries.

Lombardi Publishing Corporation
Financial Publications Division
350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3304
New York, NY 10118-3304

---

Copyright 2008; Lombardi Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this e-newsletter may be used or reproduced in any manner or means, including print, electronic, mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system whatsoever, without written permission from the copyright holder.