The Fed has just doled out over $300 billion in loans to bail out Bear Stearns and other bad actors in the subprime mortgage mess. It’s hard to say what fraction of that capital is really at risk, but let’s say 10%. That’s a pretty big transfer to shareholders, especially considering that there’s nothing in it for the general public other than avoidance of financial contagion effects. If this were an environmental or public health issue, skeptics would be lined up to question whether contagion in fact exists, whether fixing it does more harm than good (e.g., by creating future moral hazard), and whether there’s a better way to spend the money. Contagion would have to be proven with models, subject to infinite scrutiny and delay. Yet here, billions are doled out with no visible analysis or public process, based on policies invented ad hoc. Perhaps a little feedback control is needed here: let’s create a bailout fund, supported by taxes on firms that are deemed too big to fail by some objective criteria. Then two negative feedbacks will operate: firms that get too large will be encouraged to split themselves into manageable chunks, and the potential beneficiaries of bailouts will have to ask themselves how badly they really want insurance. Let’s try it, and see how long the precautionary principle lasts in the financial sector.
Update: Paul Krugman has a nice editorial on the problem.
And if financial players like Bear are going to receive the kind of rescue previously limited to deposit-taking banks, the implication seems obvious: they should be regulated like banks, too.