Monday, October 24, 2011

Are US taxpayers on the hook for European bank failures?

First read this story: http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-backstopping-75-trillion-of.html
Now read this: http://dailybail.com/home/william-black-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper-bank-of-americas.html

We are about to watch dominoes fall down in slow motion.  First will be defaults by Greece.  Then other countries will default, probably including Italy. Then the French, German, British, Dutch and Belgian banks that bought these bonds will fail. 

But it doesn't end there.  These banks bought credit default swaps from Bank of America and JPMorganChase.  These two banks have more than $150 trillion of derivatives outstanding. These banks are insured by the the FDIC.   Of course, the $150 trillion is notional value and the American banks probably are really only at risk of a fraction of that amount.  But what if they are on the hook for 10%, or $15 trillion.  They can't afford to pay that, so the FDIC and Fed will have to step in.  When AIG was nationalized in 2008, the government took over more than $100 billion in liabilities.  This is like AIG on steroids.

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