It seems that I can’t escape AIG anymore.  I asked my kids (who are still at home) today, “Of all the jobs I had, where did I get treated the worst?”  The oldest answered “AIG.”  He was born shortly after I left AIG in 1992.

I guess I made some of the wounds obvious enough.  I don’t believe in “payback,” I believe in “Love your enemies,” and “Be honest.”  Thus I find it odd that I am being ever more sought out by reporters on any AIG news.

Granted, I’ve written on underreserving by AIG, the problems they had at their operating insurance subsidiaries during the financial crisis, which got picked up by SIGTARP.

What has prompted recent inquiries, is the sale of stock at $29/share,  at only a 1.6% discount to the prior closing price.  That price was a hodgepodge between what the market would bear, and what would give the government a “profit.”  Bad idea in my opinion; it would have been better to price the deal lower, say $28.50, where the government took a loss, but where the market might have driven the price up.  A 1.6% gap is marginal and would invite sellers. $28.50 would be over 3% and would invite buyers.

Now, some sympathy for Bruce Berkowitz — He saw book value decline by almost $1 today, from $47.32 to $46.35.  I don’t know if he was buying as the largest private shareholder of AIG, but he was certainly disappointed by the company offering shares.  Why offer shares at less than 2/3rds of book?

Easy, because AIG can’t borrow or issue any other security.  But that is a signal to what the company is worth.  I mean at worst, AIG could have procured a secured loan to  provide $3 billion, offering a valuable subsidiary as collateral.  They chose to dilute, which tells you what the stock is likely worth.

Also, with such a large fall in price after the offering the next offering should come at a larger discount to the recent market price.  Those that were burned in this offering will be less willing to step up and take immediate losses.

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This post was stimulated by this academic research piece: When Smaller Menus Are Better: Variability in Menu-Setting Ability.  The truth is, we do best in choosing between a limited menu of options.  Let me give you an example.

For a while, my wife asked me if we could replace our living room furniture.  Trying to be frugal while starting up my business, I showed her some items from Ikea, and she said yes, but I could not replace the recliner at Ikea.

So, after a month, she asked about the recliner.  I did a little searching and went to La-Z-Boy.  (Note: she uses the recliner most.)  I looked around the place and had three thoughts:

• Low price
• Reclines the way she likes.
• Fabrics/colors that I know she likes.

Those criteria enabled me to narrow down the field to two recliners, and a field of six or so “maybes.”  I know my wife pretty well; she trusts me in purchases that many wives would not let their husbands touch.  But for something she uses so much, I took her to the store, along with our youngest (who got a kick out of playing with the electronic recliners).  I took her to the two recliners.  She oohed over them and sat in both.  She liked the fabric better in one, and the comfort of the other.  She tentatively chose the latter, and went on to look at other recliners. As she went on, she said that she wasn’t finding anything that she really liked.  We ended up buying the second chair.  It’s at home now, and she likes it.  Score one more for the husband.

The key to my success was winnowing down the choices.  There were over 100 recliners at the store. But by eliminating options that I knew would not work, I came to solutions that would save my wife time, while (more…)

I am a firm believer in “you can’t get something for nothing.”  So it is when a new derivative is proposed.  Either there are natural counterparties to take up the exposure (reducing their risk), or speculators must be encouraged to take the risk (more likely).

So, with longevity derivatives, the risk is people living too long leading to more pension payments in future years.  The proposition is: find a party that is willing to make more payments if mortality is better than expected, and offer him a payment, or series of payments, as an inducement to enter the transaction.

Let’s think for a moment, what entities benefit from a rise in longevity?  I can think of one: life insurers.  But there is a problem: anti-selection.  People who buy life insurance tend to be sicker than those of the general population, who tend to be sicker than annuitants.  Annuitants live the longest, and their lifespans improve the most on average.  Life insurers would find taking on longevity risk to be a dirty hedge at best for their life insurance books.  In general there have been few reinsurance agreements for longevity risk for immediate annuity portfolios, but then, that would be a really small component of the life insurance industry at present.

Even when terminal funding was permitted (back in the 1980s to early 90s) — where plan sponsors could buy annuities from insurers to free themselves from their (more…)

So, with longevity derivatives, the risk is people living too long leading to more pension payments in future years.  The proposition is: find a party that is willing to make more payments if mortality is better than expected, and offer him a payment, or series of payments, as an inducement to enter the transaction.

Let’s think for a moment, what entities benefit from a rise in longevity?  I can think of one: life insurers.  But there is a problem: anti-selection.  People who buy life insurance tend to be sicker than those of the general population, who tend to be sicker than annuitants.  Annuitants live the longest, and their lifespans improve the most on average.  Life insurers would find taking on longevity risk to be a dirty hedge at best for their life insurance books.  In general there have been few reinsurance agreements for longevity risk for immediate annuity portfolios, but then, that would be a really small component of the life insurance industry at present.

Even when terminal funding was permitted (back in the 1980s to early 90s) — where plan sponsors could buy annuities from insurers to (more…)

There are five factors for systemic risk.  Here they are:

1. Asset size of the institution, including synthetic exposures.
2. Degree of leverage of the institution, including synthetic exposures.
3. Asset-Liability mismatch, particularly financing long assets with short liabilities (including derivatives and margin agreements — think of AIG, or mortgage REITs on repo).
4. Degree to which the institutions owns financial companies equity or debt, or vice-versa, where other financial companies have claims on the institution in question.
5. Riskiness of the assets owned by the institution in question.

Contributing to the risks include easy monetary policy, which can lead/has led  to the neglect of risk control.  Personally, if I were a regulator of systemic risk, I would throw my effort at companies that fit factors 1 and 2, and analyze them for the other three factors.

Systemic risk is layered levered credit risk. A lent to B, who lent to C, who lent to D, who financed a bunch of bad mortgages.

#5 is underwriting risk

#4 is connectedness risk

#3 is liquidity risk

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It annoys me that Republicans argue against elimination of special tax benefits for anyone, calling it a tax increase.  Let’s get things straight here: tax increases are things that affect everyone.

The tax code needs to be cleaned up, as do subsidies.  It is not the proper place of government to be handing out special favors.  If the Republicans want to do what is right they need to trade — eliminate a subsidy/tax break that some of their constituents like in exchange for eliminating a subsidy/tax break that the Democrats like.  Rinse, lather, repeat, until we are back to something like the Tax Reform Act of 1986, or better.

Much as I am a libertarian, I would like the government to survive after shrinking considerably.  Part of that involves paying debts, unless we are thinking of doing an external default.  My but the rest of the world, particularly China, would be hurt by that.

Cutting taxes has a limit, unless one wants to see our entitlement programs end.  I’m all for that, but I think it is political suicide, because a large portion of the American public believes in magic — they think that they are entitled to a meager pension and healthcare in their old age, whether the government can afford it or not.

Look, I am for cutting the Defense budget bigtime, because it is offense, not defense; we do not need so much to defend us.  Fold Homeland Security into Defense.  Also cut Social Security and Medicare — we can’t afford them at the level indicated, but not promised… remember that these programs are statutory and not guaranteed.

After that, go after the discretionary budget, and eliminate whole departments.  Why do we need an energy department when prices are beyond control?  Why do we need an agriculture department when food prices are high, and likely to remain so?

Education department?  Things have gotten worse since its creation — eliminate it.  HUD, HHS — great big wastes, eliminate them.  Commerce, Treasury, Labor, State, Interior, Transportation, Veterans Affairs — cut them in half, and see how they adapt.  Make the Fed shrink by 90% or more… what does it take to do monetary policy?

I have no doubt that this policy would make my house price fall, but it is the right thing to do.

The deficit can be cut.  It is all a question of will.

by David Merkel

When currencies do not serve as a long-term store of value, economic actors search for ways to preserve future purchasing power, which often mean purchasing commodities. But most commodities are not cheaply storable over long periods, so actors get forced into the few that do: gold, silver, etc. There is a problem here, stemming from dumb money. When dumb money shows up for purchase of generic “commodities” distortions follow: backwardation, large storage demand, and warped market incentives.

Eventually overproduction catches up, but the volatility when it breaks can be huge and self-reinforcing, with c0unterparties raising margin to protect themselves.  Extreme volatility causes exchanges to raise margin requirements substantially, which reveals which side of the trade is inadequately financed, which typically is the side that was winning, which leads to a reversal in price action.  The dumb money is revealed.

Now after a washout, the dumb money often assumes that powerful entrenched interests colluded against them to deny them their long-deserved free ride to prosperity through speculation.  The exchanges are in cahoots with the other side.  Well, no, the exchanges have two interests, which are solvency and transaction volume, which drives their profits.  Solvency is a more primary goal for an exchange, because the second goal can’t exist without it, and exchanges are not thickly capitalized.

Many different types of financial systems are subject to these risks.  Think of AIG: they were rendered insolvent by rising margin requirements as their creditworthiness was downgraded, largely because the rating agencies concluded they were going to lose a lot of money off of their many bets on subprime residential credit.  Think of all of the mortgage REITs that got killed as repo haircuts rose on all manner of mortgage-backed securities at the time that values for the securities were depressed.  Alternatively, think of Buffett, who entered into derivative trades where he received money and bore the risk, but his agreements limited the margin that he would have to post.

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