Glick Report
  • September 18, 2008 06:19 PM EDT by Alexis Glick

    RTC: Some Saw it Coming, but is it a Good Idea?

    On September 9th, I wrote a blog called “Bailout and the Taxpayer: Where Do You Stand?” In that blog, I posted an interview with former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros who recommended bringing back the Resolution Trust Corporation, a government-owned asset management company established in 1989 to help liquidate housing inventory, mortgage loans and financial assets that were taken over or inherited due to the failure of so many thrifts. Cisneros was the first person to suggest the Resolution Trust on my shows and I took note. Since then, I have seen articles everywhere. This morning, I asked him to return to the show. A lot had changed in nine days. I wanted to know if he still thought the RTC was a viable solution given what has happened. Look at what he said. So far he's been ahead of the curve.

    It is now 6 p.m. and every network is talking about the Resolution Trust Corporation. Late this afternoon, rumors circulated from a deputy within the Treasury Secretary’s office, that Paulson was considering a “modernized version of the RTC.” It caused the market to rally over 400 points today.

    Here’s the problem: we don’t know what it will look like. It will help banks and broker dealers take risk of their balance sheets but won’t it simply offset that risk to the taxpayer? Do we need more risk or are we at a point where the government has no other choice?

Justin

Stop the bail outs!!! How can anyone in their right mind think that printing money to buy securitized bubble mortgage debt is the solution to our problems? Heck, if printing money was the answer to all of our problems, why not just send a million dollar stimulus check to every American citizen. Then I suppose we could become the next Zimbabwe. Everyone there is loaded with cash.

September 18, 2008 at 7:38 pm

Greg

All this euphoria about a modernized RTC is foolish. It is more smoke and mirrors. Why? At what value will the Class 3 assets transfer? Anything less than par means that the bank, investment bank, or insurance company that currently holds the Class 3 asset will have to take a loss and they will need capital to absorb the loss or they will fail...ala 1980s...and guess what? No one wants to get diluted...there is no more capital. If the assets transfer at par, we taxpayers are taking the loss. Either way someone loses. Either we still have a credit problem in the financials in the equity market or we are providing a bailout to the people who took the risk. Either way, we still have a very serious problem. It is foolish to think that this is a solution.

September 18, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Irene Heath

RTC is inevitable, somebody(=public) has to pay. But, since somebody's loss is somebody's gain, we have this question: What was the total sum of bonuses paid just last year for the excellent performance in the industry which will be covered by RTC? I read there were 5.4 billion dollars of bonuses in Lehman Brothers alone, with top management receiving 100-200 millions. So you make a mess for a gain which covers you till the end of your life and others pay for it.

September 19, 2008 at 4:39 am

Dana Swan

The BIG problem with the Government buying ALL the bad debt is they don't the money to do this. The only way that this can be done is to MONETIZE the debt That means the Government must use FIAT money that comes from this air This was done in Argentina and Germany with hyperinflation as the result.......

September 19, 2008 at 10:54 am

mark

i did not make this mess, why am i paying for the corruption and greed of others. the Democratic congress likes pointing the finger at the administration for this mess. the congress sat on their asses for the last 4 years ---especially the last 2 with their heads up their rearends.

September 19, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Clint Lovell

The crippling effects of a banking system designed to benefit the few at the expense of the majority are not being felt throughout the world. The banking system has been designed and refined to benefit bankers at the expense of everyone else. Isn't that special? It's time for a new banking system. One that creates opportunity by fostering opportunity (instead of limiting opportunity to the lucky top 5%). The question is whether or not our Congress is smart enough to do this. If they are, then the opportunity for growth is truly unlimited and the need to rely upon taxation to fund government programs (including those grotesquely expensive entitlement programs) can be phased out in less than ten years. The question is whether or not America is for all of us, or just those who flirt with the top 5%.

September 19, 2008 at 12:25 pm

harveydawabbitt

i guess all our e-mails to senators and the whitehouse and to news agencies and to anyone who we thought would make a difference fell on deaf ears. wasted phone calls wasted time and energy and wasted tears heartache and sleepless nights trying to get our so called leaders to look at this problem years and years ago. just imagine if the peoples voice had been heard 5 years ago 6 years ago we could have dealt with this before it got to this level. no we all were tin foil hat wearing lunatics that were pissed off because our investments lost their value. thats pretty much how we were treated by our leaders. mostly ignored by news agencies such as fox until a few months ago when bear failed. there was some frenzy about this "naked short selling" conspiracy. guess what people we all were right and you ignored us. patrick byrne was/is right on the money. sen. mccain was spot on as well for calling for cox to be fired. i however would go further and fire cox paulson bernanke pelosi rangle dodd schumer reid mack fuld etc etc etc..... strip them all of their wealth prosecute them for stupidity then prosecute them for allowing this massive fraud perpetrated upon the american people. ok imma stop now because what i want to say won't go well here....

September 19, 2008 at 12:52 pm

chuck

Question will this RTC2 work? Will it keep homeowners from losing homes? banks from from foreclosing due to bad mortgages and bad investment thinking? This plan should've been implimented months ago or when trouble first peaked on the horizon.

September 19, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Shawn

The consumers of these loans are to blame first. 100%- 125% loans are exactly what they seem to "good to be true". I have a ninth grade education and when I looked around and saw these loans, I knew how risky for everyone these exotic loans were! Government knew these loans were being pushed and that the risk was too much for these companies to absorb if things went south. However, everyone who was making their cut wern't going to pull the plug. Now, we are putting this bailout on credit. Poor management and greed is to blame. How can you oversight that? They had a chance and did/could not. And they never will. We will pay the piper and it will cost good people much more then they are predicting.

September 19, 2008 at 3:35 pm

B Scott

Dana Swan is 100% right on,better buy a wheelbarrow,yer gonna need it once bread goes to $500 a loaf.

September 19, 2008 at 6:19 pm

about this blog

  • Alexis Glick is an anchor for FOX Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, Glick served as a correspondent for the Today Show and co-anchored the third hour of that program. Before her stint at NBC News, she was the senior trading correspondent for CNBC and reported from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

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