As a regulator, what do you do when you have absorbed massive amounts of encumbered or otherwise distressed former CDO assets from a bunch of blown out former financial institutions? Well, if anyone here is old enough to remember the Resolution Trust Corporation, you already know. You make another CDO out of it, but this time you change the name, put the word “trust” in it, and offer up to 80% of seller financing. It’s a leveraged CDO. Oh, and you keep an equity tranche for yourself. Sound familiar now?
In essence, that’s what the RTC did with the sludge left over after the Savings and Loan Crisis. It’s already been tried in this particular crisis too (do we have an official name for it yet?) Lehman, among others, put together a private partnership, sold toxic assets into it and gave the buyer seller financing just a few months ago. (See how well that worked?)
Of course, the argument is that the incentives are better positioned to effectively liquidate the assets which you really don’t want the Fed et al hanging on to that long. But CDOing a CDO just rubs me the wrong way. So, when it comes out that Paulson is shopping around a similar idea, well….
I wonder what the partnerships will have for credit ratings.

Comments (39)

  1. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:28 PM

    too long. no read.

  2. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:28 PM

    Duh, they will be AAA as a wholly owned subsidiary of the US govt.

  3. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:29 PM

    1st

  4. Posted by Anal_yst | September 18, 2008 at 4:32 PM

    Wait, so where can I get me a piece of the super senior cdo^2?

  5. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:35 PM

    You knocked the holy CDO out of that dude!

  6. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:36 PM

    those “too long no read” loosers should get a life

  7. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:37 PM

    Its a CDO^3.

  8. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:37 PM

    @4
    good choice. the super senior is backed extra sham-wow subordination.

  9. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:38 PM

    CDO*6.02^23

  10. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:38 PM

    CDO*6.02*10^23

  11. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:39 PM

    It will be AAA by all major ratings agencies… until the Monday after a buyout is arranged on Sunday. Then they will nock it down to A-.

  12. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:41 PM

    @2 The US govt. not likely to be AAA very much longer at this rate

  13. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:41 PM

    @9–that should be CDO*(6.023*10^23)

  14. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:44 PM

    It’s all bs to stop the stock market fall. It will steady things for a couple of days.

  15. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:46 PM

    It’s all bs to stop the stock market fall. It will steady things for a couple of days.

  16. Posted by Anal_yst | September 18, 2008 at 4:47 PM

    avogadro’s number?
    Now I”m confused, hold me

  17. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:49 PM

    THose @6 should step in front of a bus.

  18. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:51 PM

    I think avogadro’s number is going to be the outcome of the model Hank the Tank is runnign to see how much this is going to cost to cover…

  19. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:53 PM

    @13 teh ratings mafia wouldn’t dare downgrade the gubmint and lose their monopoly
    Oh, and I fap to EP!

  20. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 4:57 PM

    @18
    Perfect

  21. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:03 PM

    I fear that with the takeovers of AIG and Fan/Fred, and now this RTC idea, the government’s finances will become a black box and opaque making it too difficult for the average citizen to understand just what the hell’s going on financially.

  22. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:05 PM

    It’s a CDO twice divorced

  23. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:15 PM

    Super-SIV Redux!

  24. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:52 PM

    Has anyone discussed the responsibility that Basel 2 has for the situation that we’re seeing now?

  25. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:55 PM

    This whole stinking mess is one phenomenal shit show.
    People, where the fuck were these high minded ‘regulators’ and ‘polly -ticians” when AIG, MER, MS, LEH, UBS GS, CS, and Cayne’s ganja hut were all falling over themselves to make bullshit “structures” up out of bullshit liar loans slipping S&P and Fitch a cool $250k per ‘rating’ and slicing off fat azzzed fees for themselves- to the tune of billions of dollars per year in “bonuses”???
    Oh, I see, the bonus is heads I win, tails you lose. The tax payer bails out numbnuts CEOs and CFOS who levered up their companies 30, 40 and 50 to 1 inflate their ROEs and collect fat checks for themselves.
    What a fucking joke, we should all take a moment of silence for capitalism, it just bit the fucking dust. These dimwits refuse to let the market do what it does best: find a clearing price.
    So upward and onwaerd Jimmy ‘Uptick’ Cramer, Scarecrow Henry (he lacks a brain) and Cowardly Ben, who most definitely lacks adny fucking courage.
    These aren’t markets, these are showtunes on Broadway- with all the evident certainty that in the end we will all feel good about ourselves as we stand and applaud what we knew would ineevitably come.
    This is too funny.
    Misty

  26. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 5:57 PM

    I see debt people.

  27. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 6:16 PM

    @21 yeah cuz this is the thing that will make the average american not understand what is going on financially. Not the fact that most of us are too dumb, fat, and lazy to even try to think for ourselves, we just listen to the moving picture box and repeat what it says.

  28. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 6:22 PM

    Remember when everyone was making fun of Albania because the whole country had turned into a gigantic pyramid scheme.

  29. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 7:00 PM

    like it @24 – our basle 2 gurus said buy loads of aaa rmbs for your books – its great for rwa and you get a pick up over senior – nice!

  30. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 7:03 PM

    @25, spot on.
    This is all about a huge leverage fuck up. The structured products themselves are not to blame. Most of those depressed prices will bounce back. It just may take a few years.
    Now because a bunch of greedy fucks levered up and ignored the fact that like hurricanes liquidity events are inevitable, taxpayers could be stuck bailing out an entire industry.
    This just happened 10 years ago with LTCM. You would think the market would have learned. But nobody (or almost nobody) priced liquidity risk into their models. Fuck them.

  31. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 9:32 PM

    THE SCAM
    1. Worldwide financial institutions jigger loaned CDO assets back on their books from central bank pawnshops ie. market fraud
    2. Newly formed Resolution Trust corporation buys these toxic CDOs outright at a much higher valuation then they’re actually worth, putting phony cash assets back on worldwide financial institution balance sheet. (charged directly to taxpayers)
    3. Government RTC corporation turns around and sells CDOs back to worldwide institutions at a loss.
    A double Con.

  32. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 9:41 PM

    RTC – ROAD TO WAR
    The difference between the first RTC bailout and this one, is that the 2008 economy is NOT coming back. Employment statistics show fraud.
    How many $50,000 jobs remain? Department of Labor statistics on jobs by industry are totally bogus. Check it out for yourself.
    We are already in a post 1933 situation. The Playbook reads stagflation until War looms (McCain).
    They’ve got nothing else to offer us dead country walking.
    Michaelzstillman@yahoo.com

  33. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 9:43 PM

    RTC – ROAD TO WAR
    The difference between the first RTC bailout and this one, is that the 2008 economy is NOT coming back. Employment statistics show fraud.
    How many $50,000 jobs remain? Department of Labor statistics on jobs by industry are totally bogus. Check it out for yourself.
    We are already in a post 1933 situation. The Playbook reads stagflation until War looms (McCain).
    They’ve got nothing else to offer us dead country walking.

  34. Posted by guest | September 18, 2008 at 10:20 PM

    @33 I guess you and your sister fucking friends with grade seven educations who blog for moveon.org in bumblefuck Michigan are in for it.
    Plenty of 50K + jobs for those with at least a high-school education. Screw your head on straight, 1933 was the bottom of the depression if that is true now things can only get better from here and we dont even need a good ol fashioned World War.
    Just curious fucko who who play, Hitler Stalin and Hirohito….oh thats right Bush II b/c he is the most evil man in the history of the world ever….I guess in your mind one “robbed” election = 6 million dead jews….get a fucking life and while your at it take Michael Moore’s/Noam Chompsky’s cock out of your ear and out it in your mouth…. got to shut you up somehow.
    Warm Regards,
    An American in Paris

  35. Posted by michange | September 19, 2008 at 5:19 AM

    Misty read my comment here :
    Capitalism is Dead, United National-Socialist States of America under way…
    http://lacrisepourlesnuls.blogspot.com/2008/09/lincendie-du-reichstag-amricain.html

  36. Posted by michange | September 19, 2008 at 5:24 AM

    @EP btw the name of the crisis is ‘Credit Crunch’, but you can’t say that on TV.
    Credit Crunch will be followed by ‘The Second Great Depression’ (or maybe they’ll call it ‘The Big Failure’).

  37. Posted by michange | September 19, 2008 at 5:27 AM

    ‘The Greater Depression’ ?

  38. Posted by guest | September 19, 2008 at 1:59 PM

    @34 American In Paris
    Are you really THE JACKAL?

  39. Posted by guest | September 24, 2008 at 9:27 PM

    http://www.securitization.net/pdf/Nomura/CDO-Squared_4Feb05.pdf
    “Synthetic CDOs-squared offer investors higher spreads than single-layer CDOs but also may present additional risks … If
    the actual performance of the reference credits deviates substantially from the original modeling assumptions, the CDO-squared can suffer unexpected losses.”

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