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"How's the Superfund going?"

Tapping lightly on the table, Paulson's brow furrowed even tighter. He could naturally hear Bernanke's digression, although the Fed is doing its best, but now it seems that the Treasury Department will not be able to intervene. Although the United States prides itself on being a market economy country, and many classical economists strongly advocate that the government should not interfere in the operation of the market itself, how can the Treasury Department really stay out of the situation at such a time?

As he is talking about now, the "super fund" is led by the US Treasury Department, and the top institutions on Wall Street have funded a $100 billion fund to buy mortgage bonds in distress. Of course, in order to avoid the pressure of public opinion, there is no direct contribution from the Ministry of Finance.

As soon as they heard this, the faces of the CEOs of Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase suddenly changed, as the giants of commercial banks, they are mainly responsible for these matters, which means that they have to take real money out of their pockets. For commercial banking giants, these funds are not much, and it is not a problem for each family to divide one equally, but the problem is that now that the crisis is getting worse, no one knows when it will end, so it is the best policy to set aside more cash as insurance.

Seeing that the other two CEOs were there, with a posture of indifference, Kenneth. Lewis had to stand up and say, "Mr. Secretary, $50 billion has been raised so far, and there are still $30 billion in cooperation intentions. I believe that it will not be long before the corresponding account will be entered. Speaking of this, he cooperated with a look of embarrassment, "But Mr. Minister, what we can do is really limited. I am afraid that this money will not be able to buy mortgage bonds in the market. If I count on these funds, I'm afraid ......"

"I see what you mean!" Paulson waved his hand impatiently and stopped. "Frankly, of course I understand your difficulties. However, because the Ministry of Finance is not convenient to intervene, it is borrowing your name to intervene in the market. I can also tell you that Mr. President and the Secretary of State are discussing a massive tax rebate stimulus policy that would total $100 billion. And this plan will soon be submitted to Congress, and I believe there will not be much resistance. ”

The so-called tax rebate policy, as the name suggests, is to refund taxes to businesses and the general population to stimulate consumption and increase employment. According to the principle of the Laffer curve in economics, when the tax rate exceeds a fixed value. At this time, the fiscal revenue obtained by the tax is decreasing, because the excessive tax burden suppresses the vitality of the economy, and the total social and economic volume becomes smaller. Now the president and his team of economic advisers apparently believe that the previous tax burden may have been too heavy, so they want to stimulate the economy in this way.

Since the tax refund, then as a large tax payer is naturally the most profitable party, the CEOs or chairmen present at the moment have a happy face, which is indeed a very good news for them.

"But Mr. Minister, even if the president does a massive tax break. But it's still a drop in the bucket for individuals. At this moment, Freddie Mac's CEO, David. Moffett stood up. "Even a $200 billion tax rebate program is only a few thousand dollars per household, which is not a big deal for a mortgage, let alone a real impact on the current housing market," Paulson said. Therefore, for our real estate market, we need more policy support. ”

"David is right!" Daniel. Mulder also stood up in time and said. "We should give people who want to pay for their homes but don't have the means to give them a buffer time to get the lender and them to re-sign a repayment agreement, rather than just taking the house back for auction."

Saying, Daniel. Mulder took out a thick stack of papers from his briefcase. He delivered it to Paulson and continued, "Of course, we don't intend to do that to all homeowners. Only those who earn more than $50,000 a year and have a good credit history are eligible for our policy. In addition, if the owner of the property is more than 90 days or more past due on the payment, a certain buffer period will be given after contacting the mortgage lender. ”

"Ruthless!" Everyone present was a good person, and they immediately understood that this was a self-help measure for large real estate companies to prepare to divest subprime mortgages. For those who earn more than a certain amount of money can afford to repay the loan, and now, in addition to giving them time, it is possible to renegotiate the price, so that the chances of them abandoning the property are likely to be greatly reduced, and with a constant supply of home buyers, the mortgage and the corresponding bonds and derivatives are fully guaranteed.

But there is an obvious problem with such a policy: those who do not meet the policy are easily excluded, and there is no second way for them to leave their homes off for auction but to put them up for auction. Often, such people are the middle and lower classes who have difficulty in having a fixed income, and the resulting mortgages are also the ones with a high default rate, which is what people call "subprime mortgages". In this case, the situation is divided into two ways, with the subprime mortgage market completely collapsing, and the strong man with broken wrists retaining the loan recovery and customers with higher ratings.

Artificially cutting the entire market apart has to be said to be a way to save yourself at a critical time. One arm is rotten and can only be discarded, but if it is forcibly kept, I am afraid that it will endanger other intact parts of the body and even life.

Paulson's eyes flickered, and he couldn't make up his mind even after a long time of silence. He is well aware of the pros and cons, if this is a self-help measure between real estate companies, then what they give up is not as simple as a subprime mortgage market, including the subprime mortgage bond market, and the corresponding credit default swap market will also be abandoned by them, and this will involve the corresponding insurance market.

For a moment, Paulson couldn't make up his mind at all, and the stakeholders involved were too large.

"Mr. Minister, you should make up your mind!" This time it was none other than Henry. Paulson's old rival, John Brown. Mark, I saw him say slowly, "Even if you don't do these things because of other forces, they will still face losses." So instead of dragging everyone to the end together, it is better to throw away some of them and let the whole market survive. ”

"This plan is like a lifeline, although it can only save some people, it is better than letting everyone die. We should give the opportunity to escape to those who work hard and have the ability to live a better life, and as for the rest, they can only give up! There was a pause and left to Henry. Paulson digested a little time after John. Mark continued.

John. As soon as Mark spoke, Henry. Paulson immediately understood that whether the other party admitted it or denied it, the Stanley Company was deeply involved in this so-called "lifeline" plan, but he didn't know whether his old club was involved. Thinking of their secret energy, Henry. Paulson smiled wryly, it seems that the lead is a few real estate companies, and the plan may have been designed by investment banks, but the giants of these commercial banks did not change their faces when they heard similar plans, and it was obvious that they had already known about the situation. Paulson even suspected that they were just telling themselves to go through the motions, and even if they didn't, they might have found a higher-ranking official to approve the plan.

"That's good!" As soon as Paulson thought of this, he simply stopped thinking about it, and closed the text with a "snap", "I personally agree in principle with this plan called 'lifeline', but I still need to report it to Mr. President." Gentlemen, please be patient. (The novel "The Financial Son of the Great Era" will have more fresh content on the official WeChat platform, and there will also be a 100% lottery gift for everyone!) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner to "add friends", search for the official account "qdread" and follow, hurry up! (To be continued......)

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