Why the 2008 crisis is far from over 👇 1/2 Now that @robilypj and Carlo Palombo have been exonerated it’s worth remembering that absolutely nobody faced criminal charges at the executive level for what happened in 2008. On the contrary, 17 years later, we are only now beginning to feel the sharp end of the consequences of bailing out the banks - especially in terms of the public costs and the impact of relentlessly kicking the can down the road rather than properly writing down the bad debt. Indeed, the debt that government balance sheets were saddled with since 2008 to plug the capital hole at the heart of the financial system is only now coming home to roost in terms of its prohibitive debt servicing cost as well as its impact on middle and working class incomes (ask Rachel Reeves). Yet the fundamental reality behind this sorry state of affairs is still rarely addressed. And that is the simple fact that instead of forcing write downs on those who should have absorbed these costs (as it was their poor judgment that led to this crisis) we have decided to keep them afloat at taxpayer expense. Even today. The markets understand this of course. That’s why most banks’ return on equity has flatlined since the crisis and never really recovered. There is a deep knowing, one could say, that such banks should never politically be allowed to provide above par returns to shareholders until their ONGOING state subsidies are unwound. This, however, (at least based on central bank balance sheets) could take years if not decades. Indeed, the current consensus is that the outsized central bank balance sheets (all propped up with government debt which has to be serviced by taxpayers) may have to become a permanent feature of the financial system because without it the plumbing of the financial system tends toward gridlock and breakdown. The absurdity of this situation is that as and when the unsustainability of this framework leads to higher interest rates to deal with real economy supply side shortages, it is BANKS that become the key beneficiaries of the framework (as high interest rates materialise the capital to plug their holes on a permanent level via much higher unearned coupon flows distributed to banks by way of interest on reserves). Yet when politicians and governments dare to reduce the unfair distribution of taxpayer rents to banks via windfall taxes, the markets and banks freak out once again threatening instability, especially in places like Italy. Meloni’s solution to this dilemma was striking a temporary truce with the banking system. If governments can’t claw back the unearned income from banks for the benefit of taxpayers, neither could bank equity holders. To avoid windfall taxes banks were instead told they had to keep these profits in a type of special locked reserve fund. The government wouldn’t get its hands on the money but neither would shareholders. Paying out dividends or buybacks with this cash was banned. Unfortunately, there was no similar conditionality placed on buying other banks’ equities. If you’ve been wondering how one of the eurozone’s weakest banking sectors found the resources to go on a cross border acquisition spree, this is the answer. The current Italian M&A frenzy is largely a workaround to return all that excess cash that’s sitting in the italian bank system via deal flow that rewards shareholders through M&A linked share appreciation. In the UniCredit BPM deal for example, BPM shareholders would have received a premium worth of UniCredit shares. These are far more liquid than BPM and thus more easy to cash out in a way that can materialise that premium in cash terms (without tanking bank stocks entirely). Meanwhile, UniCredit - which the Italians already like to call a “stateless bank” - would have gained greater market dominance potentially impacting domestic credit distribution, while becoming even more dominant and stateless in nature (note its moves on Commerzbank).

Dear @saylor, I spent four years following your wisdom. Thank you for changing my life. Stay humble. Short fiat. Long Bitcoin. 🟠📈