Washington Mutual
Yet amid the chaos, there is a bright lining to its dark cloud: Not a single dime of taxpayer money will be used to protect FDIC insured deposits at the bank. Instead, JPMorgan Chase
Where's the "systemic crisis"?
The speed with which JPMorgan was able to muster its deal after Washington Mutual's collapse does raise questions about the fairness of the transaction. That it happened at all, however, is a testament to the resiliency of the vulture capital market, even amid the current crisis. It worked out, of course, because JPMorgan saw the opportunity to swoop in and make a quick buck on the heels of Washington Mutual's collapse.
Think about that for a second. We just had the biggest American bank failure ever. The headlines are full of paranoid screaming about how financing has completely dried up. Yet somehow a rescue deal was reached in a heartbeat that:
- Protected the same people that the current government safety net does,
- Involved no taxpayer dollars, and
- Is anticipated to be immediately accretive to the acquiring company's earnings.
Could there have been a better resolution to an otherwise sticky problem? Perhaps, but at least this one didn't put taxpayers on the hook.
Bring on the successful failures!
In any healthy capital market, there's a risk/reward trade off. If you are putting your money at risk, you're doing so for the expectation of a reward. In general, the more risk you take, the more reward you can expect to receive if your risks turn out to be successful. For that market mechanism to function properly, the folks who take on risks that don't pan out must feel the financial pain of their failure.
In the capital market, having the participants feel the financial pain of their own failures serves some absolutely critical functions:
- It entices people to make intelligent choices with their cash. If you're likely to lose your money if your investment doesn't succeed, you'll probably only be willing to invest in those ideas that have a legitimate shot of working.
- It limits the collateral damage of a failed investment largely to those who were involved in the investment. Compare that to the tragedy of the commons that occurs with bailouts when one person gets the reward for a risk but all of us share the costs of its failure.
- It gives the successful companies more "white space" to expand. After all, not only will their risks be rewarded, but their unsuccessful competitors will not be able to stick around long to cause more grief in the market.
Some banks should win
The spate of bank failures this year has been largely concentrated among companies that took on excessive risks compared with their true capital base. The two major classes of failures have been investment banks taking on extraordinary leverage to juice their returns and commercial banks betting big on subprime borrowers. Nearly every other bank has either done fine or had access to enough resources to cover their failures.
US Bancorp
Likewise, along with JPMorgan, Bank of America
What future do you want?
In a functioning system that rewards success and punishes failure, in the long run, you get more banks like JPMorgan, Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, Barclays and BB&T. In a system where failures are rewarded with bailouts, you get more banks like Washington Mutual, Bear Stearns, IndyMac, and Lehman Brothers. For the good of your own pocketbook, the banking system, and the economy as a whole, let the market weed out its failures and reward its successes.