El plan estadounidense para garantizar la compra de activos tóxicos

El New York Times recoge las opiniones de 4 relevantes economistas estadounidenses sobre si el plan de que el Estado garantice en 90% la compra de activos tóxicos funcionará o no.

Me parece muy claro el enfoque de Paul Krugman, que pone el dedo en la cuestión clave ¿los activos tóxicos están infravalorados por una espiral de precaución retroalimentada de los inversores, o es que realmente son inversiones en activos que no valen lo que se pensaba? En el primer caso la garantía pública simplemente generará confianza, los activos se revalorizarán y los bancos volverán a tener un balance saneado y podrán conceder préstamos. En el segundo caso, el valor de esos activos no se recuperará y habrá que ejecutar la garantía pública que ahora se ofrece: los contribuyentes americanos pagarán con su dinero los excesos de los bancos.

...In essence, the Geithner plan is the same as the Paulson plan from six months ago: buy up the toxic assets, and hope that this unfreezes the markets. Don’t be fooled by the apparent role of private enterprise: more than 90 percent of the funds will come from taxpayers. And the way the funds are structured provides a strong incentive for investors to overpay for assets (see my explanation on my blog).

So can this work?

Since the beginning of the crisis, there have been two views of what’s going on.

View #1 is that we’re looking at an unnecessary panic. The housing bust, so the story goes, has spooked the public, and made people nervous about banks. In response, banks have pulled back, which has led to ridiculously low prices for assets, which makes banks look even weaker, forcing them to pull back even more. On this view what the market really needs is a slap in the face to calm it down. And if we can get the market in troubled assets going, people will see that things aren’t really that bad, and — as Larry Summers said on yesterday’s Newshour – the vicious circles will turn into virtuous circles.

View #2 is that the banks really, truly messed up: they bet heavily on unrealistic beliefs about housing and consumer debt, and lost those bets. Confidence is low because people have become realistic.

The Geithner plan can only work if view #1 is right. If view #2 is right – if the banks are really in deep trouble that goes beyond lack of confidence — subsidizing investor purchases of toxic assets, many of which aren’t even held by the most troubled banks, has no real chance of turning things around.

As you can guess, I believe in view #2. We had vast excesses during the bubble years, and I don’t think we can fix the damage with the power of positive thinking plus a bit of financial engineering.

But that’s where the issue lies.