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Arraya.
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October 12, 2008 at 8:57 PM #286905October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM #286583
TheBreeze
Participant[quote=arraya]
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.[/quote]This confuses me a bit. Couldn’t this be solved by some type of escrow system where actual cash money is put into an account and the cash is released when the goods are delivered? Why would a bank have to be involved at all for this type of transaction? To me, this seems more like a trust problem than an actual “credit” problem.
It seems like someone could make some decent money by starting up an escrow company that does these types of transactions for a fee. This would likely increase the cost of the transaction, but I don’t see why the whole world would have to shut down just because one insolvent bank refuses to lend to another insolvent bank.
Instead of trying to bail out the existing commercial paper market, which is probably chock full of derivatives of crappy mortgages which have been sliced into two-month or whatever term chunks, the solution is to start a new market with good paper. Let the old commercial paper market burn as it is full of junk.
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM #286877Participant[quote=arraya]
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.[/quote]This confuses me a bit. Couldn’t this be solved by some type of escrow system where actual cash money is put into an account and the cash is released when the goods are delivered? Why would a bank have to be involved at all for this type of transaction? To me, this seems more like a trust problem than an actual “credit” problem.
It seems like someone could make some decent money by starting up an escrow company that does these types of transactions for a fee. This would likely increase the cost of the transaction, but I don’t see why the whole world would have to shut down just because one insolvent bank refuses to lend to another insolvent bank.
Instead of trying to bail out the existing commercial paper market, which is probably chock full of derivatives of crappy mortgages which have been sliced into two-month or whatever term chunks, the solution is to start a new market with good paper. Let the old commercial paper market burn as it is full of junk.
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM #286894Participant[quote=arraya]
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.[/quote]This confuses me a bit. Couldn’t this be solved by some type of escrow system where actual cash money is put into an account and the cash is released when the goods are delivered? Why would a bank have to be involved at all for this type of transaction? To me, this seems more like a trust problem than an actual “credit” problem.
It seems like someone could make some decent money by starting up an escrow company that does these types of transactions for a fee. This would likely increase the cost of the transaction, but I don’t see why the whole world would have to shut down just because one insolvent bank refuses to lend to another insolvent bank.
Instead of trying to bail out the existing commercial paper market, which is probably chock full of derivatives of crappy mortgages which have been sliced into two-month or whatever term chunks, the solution is to start a new market with good paper. Let the old commercial paper market burn as it is full of junk.
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM #286921Participant[quote=arraya]
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.[/quote]This confuses me a bit. Couldn’t this be solved by some type of escrow system where actual cash money is put into an account and the cash is released when the goods are delivered? Why would a bank have to be involved at all for this type of transaction? To me, this seems more like a trust problem than an actual “credit” problem.
It seems like someone could make some decent money by starting up an escrow company that does these types of transactions for a fee. This would likely increase the cost of the transaction, but I don’t see why the whole world would have to shut down just because one insolvent bank refuses to lend to another insolvent bank.
Instead of trying to bail out the existing commercial paper market, which is probably chock full of derivatives of crappy mortgages which have been sliced into two-month or whatever term chunks, the solution is to start a new market with good paper. Let the old commercial paper market burn as it is full of junk.
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM #286925Participant[quote=arraya]
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.[/quote]This confuses me a bit. Couldn’t this be solved by some type of escrow system where actual cash money is put into an account and the cash is released when the goods are delivered? Why would a bank have to be involved at all for this type of transaction? To me, this seems more like a trust problem than an actual “credit” problem.
It seems like someone could make some decent money by starting up an escrow company that does these types of transactions for a fee. This would likely increase the cost of the transaction, but I don’t see why the whole world would have to shut down just because one insolvent bank refuses to lend to another insolvent bank.
Instead of trying to bail out the existing commercial paper market, which is probably chock full of derivatives of crappy mortgages which have been sliced into two-month or whatever term chunks, the solution is to start a new market with good paper. Let the old commercial paper market burn as it is full of junk.
October 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM #286588ParticipantAdding a little more to my above post … If I were to draw the above transaction, the picture would show two solvent parties on each side of the Tx trying to do business through two insolvent parties. The solution seems pretty simple — remove the two insolvent parties (the banks) in the center. Now, I’m sure this will cause some short-term pain, but this is by no means an intractable problem. Either the two solvent parties do business directly with each other or the two solvent parties find another solvent party or two to act as intermediaries.
I don’t know, I’m just not seeing how this is so difficult to solve, unless, three or more of the four parties are insolvent as opposed to just the two banks being insolvent. That may be what is really happening, in which case, the sole solvent party needs to find another party to deal with.
October 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM #286882ParticipantAdding a little more to my above post … If I were to draw the above transaction, the picture would show two solvent parties on each side of the Tx trying to do business through two insolvent parties. The solution seems pretty simple — remove the two insolvent parties (the banks) in the center. Now, I’m sure this will cause some short-term pain, but this is by no means an intractable problem. Either the two solvent parties do business directly with each other or the two solvent parties find another solvent party or two to act as intermediaries.
I don’t know, I’m just not seeing how this is so difficult to solve, unless, three or more of the four parties are insolvent as opposed to just the two banks being insolvent. That may be what is really happening, in which case, the sole solvent party needs to find another party to deal with.
October 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM #286899ParticipantAdding a little more to my above post … If I were to draw the above transaction, the picture would show two solvent parties on each side of the Tx trying to do business through two insolvent parties. The solution seems pretty simple — remove the two insolvent parties (the banks) in the center. Now, I’m sure this will cause some short-term pain, but this is by no means an intractable problem. Either the two solvent parties do business directly with each other or the two solvent parties find another solvent party or two to act as intermediaries.
I don’t know, I’m just not seeing how this is so difficult to solve, unless, three or more of the four parties are insolvent as opposed to just the two banks being insolvent. That may be what is really happening, in which case, the sole solvent party needs to find another party to deal with.
October 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM #286926ParticipantAdding a little more to my above post … If I were to draw the above transaction, the picture would show two solvent parties on each side of the Tx trying to do business through two insolvent parties. The solution seems pretty simple — remove the two insolvent parties (the banks) in the center. Now, I’m sure this will cause some short-term pain, but this is by no means an intractable problem. Either the two solvent parties do business directly with each other or the two solvent parties find another solvent party or two to act as intermediaries.
I don’t know, I’m just not seeing how this is so difficult to solve, unless, three or more of the four parties are insolvent as opposed to just the two banks being insolvent. That may be what is really happening, in which case, the sole solvent party needs to find another party to deal with.
October 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM #286930ParticipantAdding a little more to my above post … If I were to draw the above transaction, the picture would show two solvent parties on each side of the Tx trying to do business through two insolvent parties. The solution seems pretty simple — remove the two insolvent parties (the banks) in the center. Now, I’m sure this will cause some short-term pain, but this is by no means an intractable problem. Either the two solvent parties do business directly with each other or the two solvent parties find another solvent party or two to act as intermediaries.
I don’t know, I’m just not seeing how this is so difficult to solve, unless, three or more of the four parties are insolvent as opposed to just the two banks being insolvent. That may be what is really happening, in which case, the sole solvent party needs to find another party to deal with.
October 12, 2008 at 11:38 PM #286593CA renter
ParticipantTB,
That’s a good idea, and I’m not sure why it’s not already being done.
Used to work in import/export, but that was a long time ago. We used Letters of Credit, and I can see how this could be a problem if banks don’t trust each other.
Additionally, why not start up a full-reserve bank that can work as an escrow company in all types of transactions like this?
Anyone here with more current experience know why/if this is not being done?
A business idea for us Piggs??? 😉
October 12, 2008 at 11:38 PM #286887ParticipantTB,
That’s a good idea, and I’m not sure why it’s not already being done.
Used to work in import/export, but that was a long time ago. We used Letters of Credit, and I can see how this could be a problem if banks don’t trust each other.
Additionally, why not start up a full-reserve bank that can work as an escrow company in all types of transactions like this?
Anyone here with more current experience know why/if this is not being done?
A business idea for us Piggs??? 😉
October 12, 2008 at 11:38 PM #286904ParticipantTB,
That’s a good idea, and I’m not sure why it’s not already being done.
Used to work in import/export, but that was a long time ago. We used Letters of Credit, and I can see how this could be a problem if banks don’t trust each other.
Additionally, why not start up a full-reserve bank that can work as an escrow company in all types of transactions like this?
Anyone here with more current experience know why/if this is not being done?
A business idea for us Piggs??? 😉
October 12, 2008 at 11:38 PM #286931ParticipantTB,
That’s a good idea, and I’m not sure why it’s not already being done.
Used to work in import/export, but that was a long time ago. We used Letters of Credit, and I can see how this could be a problem if banks don’t trust each other.
Additionally, why not start up a full-reserve bank that can work as an escrow company in all types of transactions like this?
Anyone here with more current experience know why/if this is not being done?
A business idea for us Piggs??? 😉
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