Crisis? What Crisis?

The near-term crisis is over.

Libor is coming down. Mortgage rates are coming down. Bond market of all maturities and for all stripes of borrowers has thawed. Prime consumer credit is moving. CDS spreads have come down from hysterical/historical levels, although it's likely never to come back to pre-crisis levels -- before it disappears. There're still a few anomalies remaining in the market, most notably the spread between nominal and inflation-indexed treasuries. But these anomalies are generally understandable and temporary.

This is not to say all problems are over. Employment and housing will lag at least a few months. The on-going earnings season will be ugly. The tsunami may very well reverberate around the globe back and forth another round, or two. But, barring human stupidity (which can never be barred), these are problems, not crisis.

Oh, another powerful socio-psychological support: the society so much wants Obama to succeed that Citi, BofA, and JP Morgan all decided to move their bad earnings up to Friday, before the inauguration. Wow, that's powerful, meticulous command and control from Obama's still-shadow government, as well as incredible cooperation from our good corporate citizens. Can we assume the remaining bank earnings (Goldman, Wells Fargo) will be good?

On the other hand, the long-term crisis remains healthy and strong, completely unharmed. In fact, I'd say it's been strengthened tremendously by all the scrambling trying to avert the short-term one.

1. Corporate governance.
Lack of shareholder visibility and control, loss of board independence, de-coupling of risk-taker and reward-taker, maturity mismatch between (shareholders and debt-holders) risk and (decision-makers) reward, grossly inadequate risk management systems and techniques, massive built-in systemic chain reaction mechanism...do you see any improvement? Me, neither.

2. Government debt.
Yes, somebody has to pay. That somebody is most likely our later selves and our children and grandchildren, in the form of massively diminished purchasing power and high inflation.

3. Inflation.
Yes, right now it's deflation. And expanded M0 money base alone doesn't cause inflation; more important factors in modern economy include leverage and velocity of money. But greed will drive us to leverage up and churn money as soon as the economy seems to show the first sign of life. And this inflation will be particularly punishing to the poor and polarizing to the society because it will be first and foremost driven by commodities. Will the Fed have enough foresight and political will to jack up interest rates soon enough and fast enough? No chance. In fact, inflation is the path of least resistance to eliminate the massive internal debt. In order to do this, the real interest rate needs to remain negative for a long time. It needs to be an integral part of fiscal policy. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do. It's just the thing people will do.

4. Devaluing dollar.
Yes, right now the dollar is strong for lack of alternatives and unwinding of USD carry trades. But this is bad for US economy and the unsustainable global imbalance. Service economy is a mirage. It's simply impossible to sustain an economy the size of US with lawyers, management consultants, middlemen, and McDonalds and Walmarts. We have to make some stuff, from iPhones to good cars to, yes, steel and toys. To do that we need a significantly devalued dollar to kick start it. Furthermore, there's no easier way to eliminate the massive external debt than devaluing dollar. Yes, it's a scam and everybody knows it but what can they do about it hehehehe...

5. Savings deficit.
No, we refuse to learn to save. It's unamerican. If the government let the crisis blow up, allowed the market to work through its wrongs, and gave people the chance to learn from pain, maybe we would've learned to save. But no, we the people will not allow the government to give us that chance. We are a democracy damnit. The society at large will continue to borrow until the government bails them out, again and again. And the government will continue to bailout the irresponsible until nobody is willing to lend us anymore. And Asia will stop lending, some day.

6. Democracy.
Our democracy failed. It failed when it allowed Bush to invade Iraq and erect Patriotic Act. It failed epically when it re-elected Bush after the disastrous first term. If Bush had just given up in face of pathetic ratings and done nothing about the crisis, instead just followed his inborn, legendary apathy and ignorance, he would've done one virtuous service to the country by giving the capitalist system a chance to work its way through. But hell no, he had to mess up our long-term prospect one last time with the massive, rapid-fire, headless-chicken bailouts. And our elected Congress laid down, spread their collective legs, and let Paulson have his way, any which way he wished. And we had a collective orgasm watching it on TV. Ultimate political porn.

But mostly I'm upset that all the government interventions screwed up the system and made it even more irrational in the long-term. Capitalism requires a minimum degree of rationalism. Arbitrariness increases risk. Arbitrariness from world governments is the ultimate systemic risk. Excessive regulation increases societal cost of doing business. Without all the political headless chickens mucking around, it would've been very painful in the short-term for sure, but the long-term future would've been much clearer and more stable.