In 2007, investments in risky US mortgages went sour as homeowners struggled to pay. Funds run by Bear Stearns, BNP Paribas and other banks either had to freeze the ability of investors to take out their money, or liquidate the funds completely.
These problems were the canaries in what proved to be a very deep financial coal mine. As nervousness spread, even banks eventually stopped lending to each other for fear of not getting their money back, creating a so-called “credit crunch”. That caused a global financial crisis.
Fast forward to today.
Several funds which lend money have declared losses or restricted investors’ ability to take out their money. BlackRock, Blackstone, Apollo and Blue Owl have all faced demands for billions of withdrawals from private credit funds - institutions that provide an alternative to traditional banks.
It’s very obvious that we are very likely headed towards a global recession, driven by the problems Trump has created in the gulf.
Of course financial institutions are preparing for the eventuality, and that alone can cause a financial crash if it accelerates.
It’s extremely difficult to estimate the risk or chance, but the fact that (almost) everybody is aware, makes the risk bigger, because for some weird reason, everybody preparing for a financial crisis doesn’t make it less likely because people are prepared, but instead makes it more likely because nobody does anything when the uncertainty passes a certain threshold. And at that point the economy collapses.
Yeah, Trump didn’t help, but I think it’s more to do with a decade of private equity dropping trillions of dollars into industries that never return any value.
…or just raping them for the assets.
It’s because everyone is primarily concerned with making sure they’ll turn out okay, or is too committed to the failing investments that they keep doubling down. Consider the story of the big short: guys who saw the crash coming said it was coming, and when no one listened they made bets on how bad it would be.
Our best case scenario is that we survive and get something like a worldwide Glass-Steagall act that prevents investment banks from also being retail banks.
Why would it be a good thing to separate retail banks and investment banks?
When the banks were combined prior to the Great Depression they would use deposits from the retail side to fund investments. When investments lose money, and customers come to withdraw funds, the bank is unable to cover its obligations and can fail. When you combine that with banks lending money to each other, a single bank (if it’s big enough) can start a cascading failure.
Glass-Steagall was passed in 1933. Prior to that the US had had a financial crisis every decade or so. 1933-2000 was an incredibly stable period financially speaking, there were a number of small banking scandals but nothing that threatened the whole economy. In 1999 congress repealed it and Clinton signed the repeal, and 9 years later was the 2008 financial crisis. And we’re back on track for one every decade again.