Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

The financial innovations presented as a panacea by Alan Greenspan have been a big flop, causing very serious economic and social damage. At the same time, the dictatorship of the markets and the ukases of the European troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html have been infringing on the democratic rights of citizens everywhere. European treaties and the policies applied by successive governments have progressively chipped away at the peoples’ hard-won democratic rights: the legislative power has been increasingly dominated by the executive, the European parliament is a front piece for the European Commission, and there is less and less respect for what the electors try to say. Meanwhile, leaders hide behind the European treaties and repeat the old Thatcherite refrain: TINA (there is no alternative), to justify austerity and debt repayment. At the same time, they have been doing as much as possible to defy the economic and social rights conquered during the 20^th century, on the one hand.(see Part 3 of this series); and, on the other hand, to prevent a new banking crisis from erupting. However, no seriously restrictive measures have been taken to impose a new discipline on banks and other financial institutions. The banks have not cleaned up their accounts since 2007-2008. Worse yet, they have been very active in creating new bubbles and new structured financial products.

In this fifth part of the series, [2] we look at how the banks have been bending over backwards to fund their activities, their almost total dependence on public assistance, the speculative bubbles that are in gestation, speculative financial innovations, the disastrous effects of the present banking system particularly in creating food crises, as well as the new risks that the modus operandi of banks has been creating for people. [3]

Medium- and long-term financing problems

We will first have a look at the financing side of bank operations, (i.e., bank liabilities Liabilities The part of the balance-sheet that comprises the resources available to a company (equity provided by the partners, provisions for risks and charges, debts). ), where banks are encountering big problems. Institutional investors Institutional investors Entities which pool large sums of money and invest those sums in securities, real property and other investment assets. They are principally banks, insurance companies, pension funds and by extension all organizations that invest collectively in transferable securities. (insurance companies, pension funds Pension Fund
Pension Funds Pension funds: investment funds that manage capitalized retirement schemes, they are funded by the employees of one or several companies paying-into the scheme which, often, is also partially funded by the employers. The objective is to pay the pensions of the employees that take part in the scheme. They manage very big amounts of money that are usually invested on the stock markets or financial markets. , other banks, and sovereign wealth funds among others) no longer have confidence in banks, and hesitate to buy their covered bonds issued in the hope of finding stable long-term financing. Even if some banks like France’s two biggest, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale or Spain’s second biggest bank BBVA, have found buyers for their bonds, the volumes issued in 2012 remain as low as in the previous years. According to the Financial Times, this might even be the worst year since 2002. [4]

As the banks cannot find sufficient long-term funding on the financial markets, they are vitally dependant on the 3-year ECB ECB
European Central Bank The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html loans totalling €1 trillion at 1%, [5] and generally the liquidities Liquidities The capital an economy or company has available at a given point in time. A lack of liquidities can force a company into liquidation and an economy into recession. made available by the central banks of the industrialised countries (particularly by the US Federal Reserve FED
Federal Reserve Officially, Federal Reserve System, is the United States’ central bank created in 1913 by the ’Federal Reserve Act’, also called the ’Owen-Glass Act’, after a series of banking crises, particularly the ’Bank Panic’ of 1907.

FED – decentralized central bank : http://www.federalreserve.gov/ Bank, the ECB, Bank of England, National Bank of Switzerland, and the BoJ (Japanese Central Bank Central Bank The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.

ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx )).

Short-term financing problems

Much of their financing, other than deposit and savings accounts, which show no growth because of the crisis, must be found on the short-term market. According to the Liikanen report, the big European banks need €7 trillion from day to day. [6] The volume of banks’ short term debt increased significantly between 1998 and 2007, from €1.5 to €6 trillion, while from 2010 to 2012, it remained at €7 trillion! Where do banks find this short-term money? It is no longer, or hardly, available on the interbank markets, because the banks are too wary to lend each other money. They are thus dependent on Money Market Funds MMF
Money Market Funds Mutual investment funds that invest in securities, including money funds. (MMFs) which have up to $2.7 trillion available for day-to-day trading Market activities
trading Buying and selling of financial instruments such as shares, futures, derivatives, options, and warrants conducted in the hope of making a short-term profit. depending on how the winds of crisis are blowing in Europe. [7] MMFs shut off the flow in June 2011, and reopen it when the ECB lent €1 trillion. [8] At any moment, they may close or restrict the flow again. The surest supply of funding is once again the central banks. The ECB has made massive loans at 0.75% (the current rate since May 2012).

The conclusion is clear: without the €1 trillion over three years and the day-to-day loans of the ECB and the national central banks linked into the Eurosystem (to which must be added the Bank of England and the National Bank of Switzerland), many big European banks would be menaced with suffocation and bankruptcy. This is more evidence that the banks have not cleaned up their accounts. They must find massive short-term funding, whereas they hold long-term assets of doubtful value. In many cases, the value of the assets on their balance Balance End of year statement of a company’s assets (what the company possesses) and liabilities (what it owes). In other words, the assets provide information about how the funds collected by the company have been used; and the liabilities, about the origins of those funds. sheets will not be realised when they come to maturity, and the losses suffered may absorb their whole capital.

The stock exchanges are blocked

Funding from the stock exchanges is also blocked The price of bank shares has dropped, on average, to a fifth of their 2007 level [9] (see charts in appendices). The institutional investors (insurance companies, pension funds, investment funds Investment fund
Investment funds Private equity investment funds (sometimes called ’mutual funds’ seek to invest in companies according to certain criteria; of which they most often are specialized: capital-risk, capital development funds, leveraged buy-out (LBO), which reflect the different levels of the company’s maturity. , banks, and others) are not inclined to buying shares of companies that are in bad shape. This is additional proof of the abysmal distance that exists between the theoretical functioning of capitalism as announced by its supporters and reality. In theory, the stock exchange is supposed to help listed companies gain access to long-term investment capital (shares are considered to be investments that must be kept for at least eight years). However, this scenario just doesn’t work, because the stock exchange is no longer a place where companies can find funding for a long time, but a place of pure speculation. That is why banks must be recapitalised with public money.

On other hand, according to the same theory, the stock exchange, by the price of its shares, is the real representation of a company’s value. From this point of view, the average 80% drop in the capitalisation value of banks suggests a very embarrassing revelation for their directors and for the pundits of the capitalist system.

We should also remember that banks use part of the cash supplied to them by the central banks to buy back their own shares. There are two reasons for this: to try to stop the value of their shares from falling, and to pay their shareholders for their shares. [10]

Time bombs in European and US bank assets

As seen above, banks assets are in reality, large financial time bombs that are already ticking.
In Europe, 70% of the structured financial products backed by commercial mortgages (CMBS CMBS
Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities CMBS / Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities – Commercial Mortgage Mortgage A loan made against property collateral. There are two sorts of mortgages:
1) the most common form where the property that the loan is used to purchase is used as the collateral;
2) a broader use of property to guarantee any loan: it is sufficient that the borrower possesses and engages the property as collateral. -Backed Securities) that matured in 2012 were not paid! [14] These products were sold between 2004 and 2006, just before the subprime bubble burst, and they come to maturity from 2012 to 2014. According to the Fitch rating agency Rating agency
Rating agencies Rating agencies, or credit-rating agencies, evaluate creditworthiness. This includes the creditworthiness of corporations, nonprofit organizations and governments, as well as ‘securitized assets’ – which are assets that are bundled together and sold, to investors, as security. Rating agencies assign a letter grade to each bond, which represents an opinion as to the likelihood that the organization will be able to repay both the principal and interest as they become due. Ratings are made on a descending scale: AAA is the highest, then AA, A, BBB, BB, B, etc. A rating of BB or below is considered a ‘junk bond’ because it is likely to default. Many factors go into the assignment of ratings, including the profitability of the organization and its total indebtedness. The three largest credit rating agencies are Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings (FT).

Moody’s : https://www.fitchratings.com/ , only 24 of the 122 CMBS that matured in the first 11 months of 2012 were paid. In 2013-2014, the contracts that arrive at their term amount to €31.9 billion. In 2012, JP Morgan, the biggest US bank lost $5.8 billion on the European CMBS market through its London office because of the bad management by one of its agents nicknamed “the Whale”. [15] This did not stop Deutche bank or the Royal Bank of Scotland creating new CMBS for the European market! Why do these banks get involved in these operations? Because the high risk level is compensated by the expectation of higher returns than those on other products. Keep watch!

European and US banks still have several trillion dollars of residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS MBS
Mortgage Backed Securities See ABS. ) on their balance sheets, notably subprime MBS and other categories of asset Asset Something belonging to an individual or a business that has value or the power to earn money (FT). The opposite of assets are liabilities, that is the part of the balance sheet reflecting a company’s resources (the capital contributed by the partners, provisions for contingencies and charges, as well as the outstanding debts). -backed securities (ABS ABS
Asset backed security A generic term designating a security issued by an intermediate entity (SPV) between a transferor and investors in the context of a securitization operation. This security is a bond. When the assets backing these securities (called underlying assets) are made up of mortgage loans like subprime loans, they are called Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). MBS are subdivided into Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS), backed by mortgage loans made to private individuals and Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS). The term Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) is used when the underlying assets are bonds issued by companies or banks, and Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) when these assets are bank loans. ). Banks have a hard time trying to unload these securities unless they accept important losses. At the end of December 2011, MBS could be sold for no more than 43% of their nominal value, but there were very few buyers. [16] Banks are very discrete about the exact volumes of MBS they hold on their balance sheets, and even more so concerning their off-balance sheet holdings.

Collateral Collateral Transferable assets or a guarantee serving as security against the repayment of a loan, should the borrower default. loan obligations (CLO CLO
Collateralized Loan Obligation A Collateralized Loan Obligation is one of the forms of securitization of debt held by a financial institution. A homogenous portfolio of commercial loans is offered for sale to outside investors and refinanced through the issue of the most conventional securities possible in order to attract the maximum number of bids. ) are another structured product Structured product A structured product is generally a product designed by a bank. It is often a complex combination of options, swaps, etc. Its price is determined using mathematical models which model the behaviour of the product as a function of time and the various evolutions of the market. Structured products are often sold at high margins with poor visibility for the purchaser. created during the period leading up to the subprime crisis, which raises concern while at the same time enticing the most aggressive European banks, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland into the fairy circle of high risk – high profits. CLOs were sold to gain funds for investors who wanted to buy companies by taking on more debt, playing on leverage Leverage This is the ratio between funds borrowed for investment and the personal funds or equity that backs them up. A company may have borrowed much more than its capitalized value, in which case it is said to be ’highly leveraged’. The more highly a company is leveraged, the higher the risk associated with lending to the company; but higher also are the possible profits that it may realise as compared with its own value. to the maximum, which is known as a leveraged buy-out LBO
leveraged Buy-Out The purchase or takeover of control of a company financed by debt. Most frequently an LBO is carried out by a holding company which borrows most of the funds needed for the purchase of the target company’s shares, restructures it, then requires dividends which are used to reimburse the loans and finally re-sells the company once it has returned to profitability. (LBO). These CLOs are now reaching maturity, and their owners are wondering how they will be paid. The European market is totally flat, but the US market has come back to life, selling $39 billion in 2012. Some European banks are also purchasing them because the possible gains are high given the risks involved. [17] Fragile, handle with care Care Le concept de « care work » (travail de soin) fait référence à un ensemble de pratiques matérielles et psychologiques destinées à apporter une réponse concrète aux besoins des autres et d’une communauté (dont des écosystèmes). On préfère le concept de care à celui de travail « domestique » ou de « reproduction » car il intègre les dimensions émotionnelles et psychologiques (charge mentale, affection, soutien), et il ne se limite pas aux aspects « privés » et gratuit en englobant également les activités rémunérées nécessaires à la reproduction de la vie humaine. .

New bombs are being set

JP Morgan and other big banks have proposed to create structured products comparable to the subprime mortgages CDOs, for credit linked to international trade. Remember that Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs) were created out of different types of mortgages, which the banks wanted to unload by securitising them (that is by transforming mortgages into a more easily tradable security). [18] JP Morgan wants to do it all over again with export credits instead of mortgages. It was this same bank that in 1994 created the ancestor of CDOs. [19] The export credit market is $10 trillion per year. JP Morgan is trying to persuade banks that are active in this market, to structure the credits into CDOs so as to render them more liquid. The official line is that this approach will reduce assets thereby reducing the leverage effect in accordance with the new Basel III regulations on the need to increase capital ratios (see Part 6 and the Basel III accords). In fact, for JP Morgan and the other big banks that are always seeking to achieve profitable financial innovation, this is a new mine to open and exploit on a major market. [20] Here again, if the JP Morgan strategy works well there are high prospects of more damage from a new bubble.

The frantic scramble for profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a company’s activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. causes losses

A few examples illustrate the magnitude of the risks that banks continue to take. There was the blow to Societe Generale in France (€4.9 billion) resulting from the continual mishaps of its trader, Jerome Kerviel. This affair goes back to January 2008 and we might imagine that the banks would have since taken the lesson. Not at all! In September 2011, the Swiss bank UBS announced losses of $2.3 billion through unauthorised transactions by Kweku Adoboli, manager at Global Synthetic Equities Trading in London. Again in London, as mentioned above, JP Morgan’s “whale” lost $5.5 billion for “his” bank. These affairs are only the tip of the iceberg.

A speculative bubble Speculative bubble An economic, financial or speculative bubble is formed when the level of trading-prices on a market (financial assets market, currency-exchange market, property market, raw materials market, etc.) settles well above the intrinsic (or fundamental) financial value of the goods or assets being exchanged. In such a situation, prices diverge from the usual economic valuation under the influence of buyers’ beliefs. has developed in Corporate Bonds Corporate bonds Securities issued by corporations in order to raise funds on the Money Markets. These bonds resemble government bonds but are considered to be more risky than government bonds and other guaranteed securities such as Mortgage Backed Securities, and therefore pay higher interest rates.

Many financial market Financial market The market for long-term capital. It comprises a primary market, where new issues are sold, and a secondary market, where existing securities are traded. Aside from the regulated markets, there are over-the-counter markets which are not required to meet minimum conditions. observers and many fund managers consider that a speculative bubble has developed in the Corporate Bonds sector, bonds issued by big companies. There is thus, a new bubble forming on the debt of major corporations. Why has this $9.2 trillion market been creating a bubble? The return that banks and other institutional investors get from the United States treasury and the sovereign bonds of the main EU powers is at a historical low. The investors search around for a better sector, in which there is no apparent risk: corporate bonds of non financial companies gave a more attractive return of about 4.5%. Another reason that banks prefer to purchase obligations rather than take on loans is that obligations can be easily converted into cash on the secondary market Secondary market The market where institutional investors resell and purchase financial assets. Thus the secondary market is the market where already existing financial assets are traded. if need be. [21] This rush on bonds caused a serious drop in their yield Yield The income return on an investment. This refers to the interest or dividends received from a security and is usually expressed annually as a percentage based on the investment’s cost, its current market value or its face value. , which fell from 4.5% at the beginning of 2012 to 2.7% in September of that same year.

A major corporation like Nestle was able to issue €500 million in 4-year obligations offering no more than 0.75% p.a. This case is exceptional, but it shows that the rush on corporate bonds does exist. According to JP Morgan, the call for bonds is such that the yield on junk bonds Junk Bonds The nickname in the USA for high-risk bonds, also called High Yield Bonds, issued by a company whose solvency is considered doubtful. This type of bond is considered highly speculative by the rating agencies. was in free fall during the summer of 2012, dropping from 6.9% to 5.4%. If the trend continues, institutional investors may look elsewhere for better returns. [22]

The craving for profit is such that companies succeed in issuing PIK PIK
Payment In Kind A PIK or PIK loan is a loan characterized by the fact that the payment of interest is not necessarily made in currency. The interest can be paid, for example, in the form of another debt security, by securities issued by the borrowing company or via the issuing of stock purchase options. (Pay in Kind) bonds, which were trendy before 2006-2007 then found no new buyers until 2012. These bonds receive no interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. until the capital is fully paid off. Of course, the promised final repayment is high, but there is a great risk that the company borrowing will not be in a position to either pay back interest or capital when the loan matures! It would in fact be prudent of a lender to ask why a company that is unable to pay regular interest over the duration of the loan will be able to repay the full amount at the end. [23] Once again the craving for profit and the availability of liquidity Liquidity The facility with which a financial instrument can be bought or sold without a significant change in price. (because of central bank loans) has led to a keen interest for these high risk products.

The shortage of collateral [24]

Up to 2007-2008, the financial markets experienced a period of growth and exuberance. The Bankers and other institutional investors cross lent capital and structured products to each other in a joyful asset-go-round without any verification as to the credit worthiness or the capacities of those signing a contract to assume their responsibilities when it came to maturity. For example, bankers paid insurance premiums to Lehman Brothers and AIG to cover against the risk of payment defaults without first verifying whether they had the means to pay the indemnity if need be.

In most transactions, the borrower must put up an asset as a guarantee. This is called collateral. What often happened and still does is that the same collateral is used to guarantee several different transactions. A borrows from B and puts up collateral as a guarantee. B borrows from C and uses the same collateral as a guarantee, and so on. If the chain is broken anywhere, there is the risk of not finding the collateral. As long as the markets were euphoric and nobody asked embarrassing questions about collateral, business went on as usual. Since 2008, things have not quite been the same and the co-contractor who wants collateral may insist on having assurances that it is really available if need be, that its value is authentic and of that it is of good quality. Collateral circulates less and doubtful collateral is refused. [25]

It is reasonable not to accept toxic assets Toxic assets An asset that becomes illiquid when its secondary market disappears. Toxic assets cannot be sold, as they are often guaranteed to lose money. The term “toxic asset” was coined in the financial crisis of 2008/09, in regards to mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, all of which could not be sold after they exposed their holders to massive losses. such as subprime CDOs as collateral. This has led to the beginning of a shortage of collateral. In 2011 and 2012, the Franco-Belgian financial company Dexia suffered from insufficiently good collateral, and was unable to cover its financial needs. In 2012, Dexia borrowed close to €35 billion from the ECB at 1% within the LTRO LTRO
Long-Term Refinancing Operation An LTRO is a mechanism by which the European Central Bank makes large amounts of cash available to private banks via credits over three months to three years at very low rates. framework. The enormous loans from the ECB were insufficient, so Dexia, once again, turned to the French and Belgian States, in October-November 2012 for a €5 billion recapitalisation.

According to the Financial Times, Spanish banks have become experts in the creation of collateral. They create structured ABS products from doubtful mortgage credits and other equally doubtful products, and push them on the ECB as collateral for treasury needs. [26] So the ECB accepts this custom-made low quality collateral. This example offers more evidence of how the ECB bows down to the bankers.

In the context of collateral, we must also denounce the lies concerning government bonds that are supposedly giving the banks a headache. Government bonds are a much surer form of collateral than most private financial instruments Financial instruments Financial instruments include financial securities and financial contracts. . Banks do not hesitate to offer them as prime quality collateral for ECB loans.

Sovereign debts

Indeed, let us have another look at sovereign debt Sovereign debt Government debts or debts guaranteed by the government. . Until now, it has not caused any banking catastrophes. Nevertheless, it is evident that in countries like Spain and Italy, the banks are making important purchases of the bonds issued by their own governments. They have two good reasons for acting in this way: on the one hand, they hold large amounts of liquidities lent by their central banks at very low interest rates Interest rates When A lends money to B, B repays the amount lent by A (the capital) as well as a supplementary sum known as interest, so that A has an interest in agreeing to this financial operation. The interest is determined by the interest rate, which may be high or low. To take a very simple example: if A borrows 100 million dollars for 10 years at a fixed interest rate of 5%, the first year he will repay a tenth of the capital initially borrowed (10 million dollars) plus 5% of the capital owed, i.e. 5 million dollars, that is a total of 15 million dollars. In the second year, he will again repay 10% of the capital borrowed, but the 5% now only applies to the remaining 90 million dollars still due, i.e. 4.5 million dollars, or a total of 14.5 million dollars. And so on, until the tenth year when he will repay the last 10 million dollars, plus 5% of that remaining 10 million dollars, i.e. 0.5 million dollars, giving a total of 10.5 million dollars. Over 10 years, the total amount repaid will come to 127.5 million dollars. The repayment of the capital is not usually made in equal instalments. In the initial years, the repayment concerns mainly the interest, and the proportion of capital repaid increases over the years. In this case, if repayments are stopped, the capital still due is higher…

The nominal interest rate is the rate at which the loan is contracted. The real interest rate is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. (0.75 to 1%); on the other hand, their own country’s bonds are remunerated at much higher rates (4 to 7%). However, the austerity policies are so brutal that it is uncertain whether these governments will always be to pay them back. This problem is not an immediate threat, but the possibility of future difficulties must be considered. [27]

Shadow banking

One of the main causes of bank fragility is their off-balance sheet activities, which in some cases may be greater than their officially declared activities. The major banks continue creating ad hoc companies (Special Purpose Vehicles, MMFs) that are not considered as banks and do not have to comply with banking regulations. [30] Until now these companies could operate without control or, in the case of MMFs, with little control, lending to banks and conducting many kinds of speculative actions on a multitude of derivatives Derivatives A family of financial products that includes mainly options, futures, swaps and their combinations, all related to other assets (shares, bonds, raw materials and commodities, interest rates, indices, etc.) from which they are by nature inseparable—options on shares, futures contracts on an index, etc. Their value depends on and is derived from (thus the name) that of these other assets. There are derivatives involving a firm commitment (currency futures, interest-rate or exchange swaps) and derivatives involving a conditional commitment (options, warrants, etc.). or raw materials (including foodstuffs) on futures Futures A futures contract is a standardized advance commitment, negotiated on an organized futures market, to deliver a specified quantity of a precisely defined underlying asset at a specified time – the ‘delivery date’ – and place. Futures contracts are the most widely traded financial instruments in the world. markets or the over the counter (OTC OTC
Over-the-Counter market An over-the-counter or off-exchange market is an unregulated market on which transactions are made directly between the seller and the purchaser, as opposed to a so-called organized or regulated market where there is a regulatory authority, such as a stock exchange. ) market, which is not regulated. The opacity is total or nearly so. Banks are not obliged to declare, in their accounts, the activities of the non-banking companies they create. The most dangerous activities are the ones conducted by Special Purpose Vehicles. If the losses of one of these companies causes their bankruptcy, the bank that created it is forced by its creditors to record this loss on its balance sheet, which may absorb the bank’s capital and cause it to go bankrupt (or perhaps be taken over by another bank or the government, or be given a public bailout). This is what has happened to Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Dexia, Fortis, and several others since 2008.

Speculation on commodities Commodities The goods exchanged on the commodities market, traditionally raw materials such as metals and fuels, and cereals.  [31]

Through their trading activities, banks are the biggest speculators on the over the counter and commodities futures markets. They have much greater means available than the other protagonists. See the website Commodity business awards (http://www.commoditybusinessawards.com/nominate.html), where a list of important bankers and brokers on the commodities markets is available (whether on the commodities market where they are bought and sold, or on the underlying derivatives market). Among these banks, the ones most often mentioned are BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Societe Generale.

What is more, the banks are trying to take direct control of the stocks of raw materials. This is the case of Credit Suisse which is associated with Glencore, [32] the world’s biggest raw materials brokerage company. Meanwhile, JP Morgan is seeking to purchase 61,800 tons of copper in order to influence copper market prices. [33]

These are the leading performers in the development of speculative bubbles formed on the commodities markets. [34] When the bubble bursts, the repercussions on the state of the banks will cause new damage. Not to mention, and much more seriously, the consequences on the people in the developing countries that export raw materials.

Currency speculation

Banks are also the main participants on the currency markets, which they maintain in a permanent state of instability. Approximately 98% of foreign exchange activity is speculative. Only 2% is associated with the really productive economy, Foreign Direct Investments, effective international trade of goods and services, remittances by emigrants, and credit or debt repayment). Between €3 to €4 trillion transit daily through the foreign exchange markets! Banks also trade heavily on foreign exchange derivatives, which may cause considerable damage, not to mention the damage to society because of the instability of the currencies.

Over thirty years ago, James Tobin, long time advisor to US President J.F. Kennedy, suggested throwing sand into the wheels of international speculation. In spite of all the fine talk by some heads of States, the plague of foreign exchange rate speculation has worsened. Bank and other lobbies Lobby
Lobbies A lobby is an entity organized to represent and defend the interests of a specific group by exerting pressure or influence on persons or institutions that hold power. Lobbying consists in conducting actions aimed at influencing, directly or indirectly, the drafting, application or interpretation of legislative measures, standards, regulations and more generally any intervention or decision by the Public Authorities. have so far averted having the smallest grain of sand disrupt their wheels from spinning or profits from accumulating. The decision taken in January 2013 by 11 eurozone governments to impose a tax of 0.1% on financial transactions is totally insufficient.

High–frequency trading

High-frequency trading enables orders to be passed on the markets in 0.1 milliseconds (one ten thousandth of a second). The “Regulations and banking activities separation act” put before the French national assembly by Pierre Moscovici, French finance and economy minister, on 19 December 2012 contains an interesting description of high-frequency trading: “High-frequency trading is a market activity entrusted to computers running on algorithms that combine observation and analysis of the market, and the placing of orders at ever higher frequencies. They may place several thousand orders per second on the same exchange platform, sometimes causing saturation. The risks are high in case of coding errors, these may cause absurd financial movements (the quasi-bankruptcy of the ’Knight Capital Group’ in August 2012 is an example). In 2011, high-frequency trading accounted for more than 60% of the orders on the Paris stock exchange, only 33% of which created a real transaction”. [46]

High-frequency trading is clearly linked to speculative operating: manipulate the financial markets in order to influence prices and extract a profit. Specialists are well aware of the most popular methods:
 Quote Stuffing Quote stuffing A tactic of quickly entering and withdrawing large orders in an attempt to flood the market with quotes that competitors must process, thus slowing the frequency of their trading. : “A tactic of quickly entering and withdrawing large orders in an attempt to flood the market with quotes that competitors have to process, thus causing them to lose their competitive edge in high frequency trading”. [47] [48]

Layering Layering A technique that consists in pretending to sell before actually buying. A trader places a series of bids up to a ceiling price, thus creating layers of orders. Once the ceiling is reached, the trader sells massively and at the same time cancels all remaining orders that have been placed. The technique is based on the hope of filling competitors’ sales-ledgers with offers to buy from other traders. , high-frequency traders may use this method to sell a block of values at the highest possible price, they place a series of buying orders at price offers up to a ceiling price, and in this way create layers of orders, once the ceiling is reached they sell massively before the price has time to go down, and at the same time cancel the invalid orders. This process relies on the filling of their competitors sales ledger with offers to buy, and then surprising the market by inversing the movement. [49]

On 6 May 2010, Wall Street experienced a “flash crash” [50] typically caused by high-frequency trading including a ’quote stuffing’ operation. The Dow lost about 998.52 points (before recovering 600) between 2.42pm and 2.52pm. A fall of 9.2% in ten minutes, unprecedented in stock exchange history. This incident spotlights the involvement of high-frequency trading that corresponds to about two-thirds of transactions on Wall Street.

Such accidents will certainly happen again. The big banks that actively use high-frequency trading are opposed to banning the system or introducing any strict controls under the pretext of maintaining the greatest possible liquidity on the financial markets.

Proprietary trading Proprietary trading Banks trading for their own account.

Proprietary trading: when banks trade for themselves, is an important banking activity, producing a great amount of revenue and profit, but carrying very heavy risks. Banks engage their own resources (equity Equity The capital put into an enterprise by the shareholders. Not to be confused with ’hard capital’ or ’unsecured debt’. , customer deposits, borrowings) to take positions (buy or sell) on the different financial markets: stocks and shares, interest rates, foreign currency, raw materials, derivatives, futures, forwards, commodities (including foodstuffs), and their futures and real estate. Trading is definitely a speculative venture, because it is based on short-term market movements greatly influenced by their own actions. One illustration of the speculative nature of trading is Societe Generale’s €4.9 billion loss in 2008 because of the positions, taken by one of its traders Jerome Kerviel, which engaged close to €50 billion. JP Morgan allowed $100 billion dollars to been engaged by a person on its London proprietary trading department staff known as the “Whale”. The sums involved by the banks in propriety trading action are so huge that the losses can menace the survival of the bank itself.

Short selling: another speculative activity

Short selling is the sale of a stock that we do not hold at the moment, but intend to buy later to balance the end of the account. For the Banque de France: “there are two kinds of short selling”:
• Covered short-selling: in this case, the seller has borrowed (or made a borrowing agreement for) the stock that he must eventually sell at the end of the operation. In fact, the stock that this person borrows will be sold, and he promises to return the same kind of stock to the lender;
• Naked or uncovered short selling: in this case, there is no borrowed stock or borrowing agreement before the sale of the stock. The seller must buy identical stock to be able to pass it on to the buyer”. [51]

According to the French banking federation, ’short “short selling is good for market vitality (...) it increases market cash flow.” [52] Who do they think they are kidding?

Who sells short and why?

Short selling is done by a large number of market participants, such as banks, hedge funds, and financial institutions such as pension funds and insurance companies among others. It is a purely speculative activity. A speculator gambles that the price of the share Share A unit of ownership interest in a corporation or financial asset, representing one part of the total capital stock. Its owner (a shareholder) is entitled to receive an equal distribution of any profits distributed (a dividend) and to attend shareholder meetings. concerned will fall, and if his guess is right he purchases it at a lower price than that at which he sold it, and so makes a profit. This kind of practice undermines market stability. The sharp fall in the price of bank shares during the summer of 2011 was aggravated by short selling. It is easy to understand why this kind of activity should be quite simply prohibited. [53]

Leverage

As they systematically use leverage, their equity is small compared to the risks they take. From their point of view this is the desired situation: have the least possible amount of equity in proportion to their assets. A low general profit / assets ratio can produce a high profit/equity ratio, if the equity is as low as possible. Imagine a profit of €1.2 billion with assets of €100 billion, which means a profit of level of 1.2%. However, if compared to equity of €8 billion, this becomes 15% profit. If the bank using leverage, then borrows €200 billion on the financial markets to purchase further assets. the volume of assets becomes €300 billion, the equity has remained the same at €8 billion, while the liabilities have also risen by €200 billion. If the bank continues to make a profit of 1.2% that becomes €3.6 billion. With equity still at €8 billion that means a Return on Equity (ROE) of 45%. This is the fundamental reason to increase leverage by borrowing.

As we saw in Parts 2 and 4 of this series, apparently minimal losses may be quickly followed by disastrous effects and the need for a bailout. In this example, a loss of €8 billion on total assets of €300 billion (a loss of 2.66%) would wipe out the equity and result in bankruptcy. This happened to Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, among others. The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report published in October 2012, considers that the leverage of European banks is 23:1 without taking derivatives into account. A ratio of 23:1 considering only tangible assets (without derivatives) is very high! [54] The real leverage effect is even more important, because banks have debts and assets that are off-balance sheet (notably a significant amount of derivatives).

Conclusion: The big banks continue playing with fire, because they are persuaded that governments will save them whenever necessary. They do not encounter any serious opposition from the authorities as they continue to trade (this question will be discussed in Part 6). At the same time, they are playing an ongoing game of brinkmanship. In spite of their continual marketing efforts to regain public confidence, they have no desire to change their objectives from seeking maximum and immediate profit, and gaining as much power as they can to influence government decisions. Their force corresponds to current government leaders’ decisions to give them total freedom of action. The leaders’ moralistic tones, insisting that banks should be more restrained in their bonuses and remunerations, are only for Public consumption.

Karl Marx writes in Capital that “At their birth the great banks, decorated with national titles, were only associations of private speculators, who placed themselves by the side of governments, and, thanks to the privileges they received, were in a position to advance money to the State’. This is just as applicable to today’s banks. [55]

Banks have a colossal capacity to wreak havoc. Those who believe that a humane capitalist bank is possible must wake up and realise this is pure fantasy. The entire banking system must be withdrawn from capitalist control, and without any compensation, in order to create a public service under the control of citizens, users, and banking sector workers. [56] This is the only way to guarantee the total respect of public service precepts concerning savings and credit that are in the interest of the community.

In Part 6, the new banking regulations will be analysed.

Translated by Mike Krolikowski and Charles LaVia

Annexe : Share price movements of 17 banks

Charts by Yvette Krolikowski (CADTM) - Sources Les échos and abcbourse

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7