In recent weeks, the global liquidity and credit crunch that started last August has become more severe. This is easy to show: in the US, the euro zone and the UK, spreads between Libor interest rates (for bank-to-bank loans), central bank interest rates and government bonds are extremely high and have grown since the crisis began. This signals risk aversion and mistrust of counterparties.
To be sure, major central banks have injected dozens of billions of dollars of liquidity into the commercial banking sector and the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada have lowered their interest rates. But worsening financial conditions prove that this policy response has failed miserably.
So it is no surprise that central banks have become increasingly desperate in the face of the most severe crisis since the advent of financial globalization. The recent announcement of coordinated liquidity injections by the Fed and four other major central banks is, to be blunt, too little too late.
These measures will fail to reduce interbank spreads significantly, because monetary policy cannot address the core problems underlying the crisis. The issue is not just illiquidity -- financial institutions with short-term liabilities and longer-term illiquid assets. Many more economic agents face serious credit and solvency problems, including millions of households in the US, UK and Eurozone with excessive mortgages, hundreds of bankrupt subprime mortgage lenders, a growing number of distressed homebuilders, many highly leveraged and distressed financial institutions and, increasingly, corporate-sector firms.
At the same time, monetary injections cannot resolve the generalized uncertainty of a financial system in which globalization and securitization have led to a lack of transparency that has undermined trust and confidence. When you mistrust your financial counterparties, you won't want to lend to them, no matter how much money you have.
The US is now headed towards recession, regardless of what the Fed does. The build-up of real and financial problems -- the worst US housing recession ever, oil at US$90 a barrel or above, a severe credit crunch, falling investment by the corporate sector and savings-less and debt-burdened consumers buffeted by multiple negative shocks -- make a recession unavoidable. Other economies will also be pulled down as the US contagion spreads.
To mitigate the effects of a US recession and global economic slump, the Fed and other central banks should be cutting rates much more aggressively, rather than relying on modest liquidity injections that are bound to fail. The Fed's 25-basis-point cut this month was puny compared with what is needed.
Similar cuts by the Bank of England and Bank of Canada do not even begin to address the increase in nominal and real borrowing rates that the sharp rise in Libor rates has induced. Central banks should have announced a coordinated 50 basis-point reduction to signal their seriousness about avoiding a global hard landing.
Likewise, the European Central Bank's decision not to cut rates -- deluding itself that it may be able to raise them once the allegedly "temporary" credit crunch is gone -- is mistaken.
With deflating housing bubbles, high oil prices and a strong euro already impeding growth, the ECB is virtually ensuring a sharp euro-zone slowdown.
In any case, the actions recently announced by the Fed and other central banks are misdirected. Today's financial markets are dominated by non-bank institutions -- investment banks, money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage lenders that do not accept deposits, so-called "structured investment vehicles" and even states and local government investment funds -- that have no direct or indirect access to the liquidity support of central banks. All these non-bank institutions are now potentially at risk of a liquidity run.
Indeed, US legislation strictly forbids the Fed from lending to non-depository institutions, except in emergencies. But this implies a complex and cumbersome approval process and the provision of high-quality collateral. And never in its history has the Fed lent to non-depository institutions.
So the risk of something equivalent to a bank run for non-bank financial institutions, owing to their short-term liabilities and longer-term and illiquid assets, is rising -- as recent runs on some banks, such as Northern Rock, money market funds, state investment funds and distressed hedge funds suggests.
There is little chance that banks will relend to these non-banks the funds they borrowed from central banks, given these banks' own severe liquidity problems and mistrust of non-bank counterparties.
Major policy, regulatory, and supervisory reforms will be required to clean up the mess and create a sounder global financial system. Monetary policy alone cannot resolve the consequences of inaction by regulators and supervisors amid the credit excesses of the last few years. So a US hard landing and global slowdown is unavoidable. Much greater and more rapid reduction of official interest rates may at best affect how long and protracted the downturn will be.
Nouriel Roubini is chairman of RGE Monitor, an economic consultancy, and professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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