Monday, November 10, 2008

GM is not Lehman

I’m generally in favor of bailing out the US auto industry, mostly because such a bailout would be a relatively inexpensive form of fiscal stimulus. Compare the cost of bailing out the auto industry to the cost of trying to replace the lost jobs by means of government hiring. (There will be multiplier effects on both sides of the equation, which should roughly balance out.) Bailing out the auto makers, by just lending to them at below-market interest rates, is clearly cheaper. In fact, the interest rates should still represent a positive, or at least neutral, spread to Treasury rates, so there need not be any cost at all to the bailout unless the bailees eventually do default.

However, comparisons between GM and Lehman Bros. are overblown. The lost jobs at GM could be replaced by means of a fiscal stimulus, albeit an expensive one; the financial impact of the Lehman bankruptcy cannot be undone, though the government is doing its best to mitigate that impact.

An industrial company is simply not the same as a financial company. Yes, the auto companies do have creditors, and those creditors will lose out if the auto companies go bankrupt, and this may have significant adverse indirect effects. And yes, such bankruptcies will somewhat reduce confidence in US industrial companies in general and make it a bit harder (though probably not a lot harder) for them to obtain financing.

But a financial company doesn’t just have creditors, it’s in the business of having creditors. The indirect impact of a major failure – by forcing creditors, and creditors of creditors, and so on, to deleverage themselves – is huge. And a loss of confidence in financial companies doesn’t just make it harder for them to find financing; it instigates a chain reaction of additional deleveraging on a grand scale. And as we have seen, this can make it impossible for many companies (and households) to find financing at all, and such tightening of credit can result in many more job losses than the collapse of a few large industrial companies.

So, yes, I do support an auto industry bailout. But let’s not allow the auto companies to bamboozle us by claiming that their failure would be as disastrous as the Lehman failure. The public should not consider itself to be in a terribly bad negotiating position with respect to the auto industry. Bail them out, but bail them out on our terms, not theirs.

24 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remember when Circuit City was a favorite in "Good to Great" by Jim Collins? Remember when we thought being big like GM gave you clout with customers and vendors to produce long-term returns (Michael Porter's 5 Forces Model)? It's time we recognize that the old approach to management doesn't work in a rapidly shifting competitive world. There are winners in today's market, but they follow a different approach. Read more at http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com

Mon Nov 10, 04:18:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that they should give/lend the automobile industry funds to retool and make fuel efficient cars and electric cars. Isn't that Obama's idea? I like it!
But how much more of a deficit can we go into? According to an IMF report, the US needs an improvement in its (government budget) primary balance of 7 percent of GDP in order to be fiscally sustainable. My back of the envelope calculations say that this is equivalent to an increase in taxes and/or other government revenues of 20% with no change in expenditures, or a significant decrease in expenditures. How can this be done, while at the same time stimulating the economy?
I wouldn't want to be in Obama's shoes right now, although I'm very pleased that he got elected. The politics and economics of this total mess are rather scary.

Mon Nov 10, 09:52:00 PM EST  
Blogger knzn said...

I don't think the concept of fiscal sustainability applies during a potentially deflationary recession. The deficits that the US ran during the 30s and 40s were certainly not sustainable by the standards the IMF would apply today, and yet the subsequent decades were among the most prosperous in US history, and the debt-to-GDP ratio fell to a normal level.

If the economy has slack resources, we can spend a virtually infinite amount (as we did on World War II), and it has no real resource cost. The cost exists only in financial statements. And that cost is largely an illusion: the Chinese authorities are willing to accept tiny returns on their dollar assets, while future US taxpayers will be earning much higher returns and won't have much trouble paying out if it ever comes to that.

And when the Treasury bill interest rate is at zero (as it roughly is now, and will almost certainly be precisely in the future), the Fed has essentially unlimited ability to monetize the fiscal deficit, since any amount of money it creates cannot lower the interest rate further. In that case, there is not even a financial cost to the deficit; you just print money to cover it, and it doesn't cause inflation because nobody spends it. (If it did cause inflation, that would be a sign that the recession was over, and you could withdraw the fiscal stimulus.)

Mon Nov 10, 11:45:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

knzn, from a policy standpoint you may favor bailing out GM/F/Chrysler, which part(s) of the capital structure are hurt? You claim it would be a relatively cheap form of fiscal stimulus.

But the bailouts' winners and losers morph within the capital strcture with each new rescue. Consider:

Bear: senior debtholders, trading counterparties, preferred holders, bailed out. Common destroyed.

FNM and FRE: senior and sub debtholders bailed out, preferred and common destroyed.

WM: depositors and FDIC bailed out; sr, sub, pfd and common destroyed.

I could continue with BAC/CFC, BAC/MER, WB/WFC, or even Buffett/GS.

My point is that an Obama GM bailout could be as harsh for markets as a guarantee of UAW employees' pensions, a "golden share" of control in exchange for debtor-in-possession financing, and zero for GM and GMAC creditors, senior on down. What would GMAC bondholders, to name a group, do in that case? A lawsuit against the government?

Thoughts are springing forth.... Could the government take a >79.9% stake and consolidate, since the assets are less than liabilities? Hhmm..

I'm still thinking the UAW guarantee is the cleverest, as the contract is with the union, not GM, so GM can be allowed to fail without major political repercussions. Suppliers who fail can be bailed out with a TARP v2, or with lavish "job re-training programs."

Tue Nov 11, 02:31:00 AM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks knzn for the macroeconomics insights. You've convinced me. As for the auto companies, I do think they need to be helped in retooling, but the gov't can't get itself in a situation where it has to permanently support them, particularly if people are going to drive fewer cars.
I support a big infrastructure stimulus as the infrastructure is crumpling. In particular, this is time to invest in public transit. Some of the auto workers could be retrained to move from making autos to working in public works and public transit. Particularly the younger ones, and they will the first to be laid off.
The government could also consider buying up some of that cheap and unused housing for public housing.

Tue Nov 11, 08:27:00 AM EST  
Blogger Denis Drew said...

If the $25 billion auto bailout loan goes to retooling to build almost fuel-free cars like the Volt, the savings on foreign oil purchases alone could pay back many multiples of the principle -- ever year! -- leaving T. Boone Pickens' program for freedom from foreign oil dependence in GM's dust.

Free upgrade to plug-in hybrid?

Reported by Tom Krishner, AP Auto Writer Monday, July 21, 2008: ..."lithium-ion battery packs needed to power even a small car now cost in excess of $10,000..."

A couple of years ago, I came up with the fun dollar-savings equation that: if America needed only half as much imported oil (meaning 5 million bbl/day then) and if we needed to pay only half the price ($30/bbl then) due to said lowered demand, then, we could save $165 billion a year (by spending only 5,000,000 bbl/day X 365 days X $30 instead of 10,000,000 bbl/day X 365 days X $60 = a saving of $164,250,000,000/year)...

...or, exactly enough to subsidize buidling the 16.5 million cars and trucks we manufacture every year as LITHIUM, PLUG-IN hybrids -- at $10,000 per vehicle!

Now, with oil recently approaching the $150/bbl range, we could be shipping $500 billion more a year overseas; potentially justifying any form of subisidy for the manufacture of lithium plug-in hybrids.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/07/21/financial/f184312D31.DTL&type=autos
******************

For 30 years it has been known that building lithium ion batteries with silicon wires (instead of carbon wires) could yield ten times the power holding ability but, because silicon wires expanded and contracted too much as they cycled, they quickly destroyed themselves. The development of silicon nano wires – about a thousandth of the width of a sheet of paper -- has solved that drawback -- while potentially making lithium ion batteries more stable (safer) at the same time!

Near term, only the anode side of the batteries will be manufactured with nano wires, yielding the quadruple jump (up powering GM’s Volt to go 160 miles on one charge instead of 40?). Long term, manufacturing the cathode side with silicon nano wires is expected to reach the ten multiple target (introducing hybrid, long distant trucks?).

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html

Tue Nov 11, 09:08:00 AM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bailing out GM has nothing to do with jobs. Let me say that again, bailing out GM will not save jobs. GM has to stop the bleeding whether it gets gov't money or not, the only way to do that is to shrink to fit its market. If GM goes bankrupt it will have to shrink to fit, if it gets a bail-out it will have to shrink to fit. A gov't bail-out is only bailing out shareholders and creditors, not workers. Knzn, you should know better.

Tue Nov 11, 09:12:00 AM EST  
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