It Was Not an 'Act of God', Part II

Part One

WE ALREADY HAD A 'SUBPRIME' MORTGAGE CRISIS, THIS IS THE SECOND IN A ROW

In his recent op-ed, Paul Krugman wonders aloud about our "Ponzi era", about how we all could have not noticed, basically, about financial services in general. He concludes, in essence, that we lived an era of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, regarding those looking the part in money management. {But read the comments section for the good stuff}

Many others, including the ever-readable Martin Wolf, have looked in detail at how "we" missed it, how the latest junk-credits from Wall Street went undetected until it was too late.

Greenspan himself has indicated that he relied on the collective wisdom of market participants, ending up shocked that they failed to secure the (long-term?) interests of shareholders.

For my own part, I initially underestimated what would become the full scope of the problem. I think it is because I didn't imagine that Green Tree Financial had left the collective conscience.

REMEMBER GREEN TREE FINANCIAL?

Well apparently, not too many people do. I remember it vividly, however.

Did the quantitative people in the departments at the ratings agencies (Moody's, S&P) have more than a degree? Did someone from the "real" credit area take an elevator down to look over the shoulder of their proverbial CDO Queen? Was there a risk-policy committee? God knows, the implication of Green Tree made it to the radar screen of leading economists (and, as best I recall, Greenspan's purview. Update: yes, see here).

There should be more hearings, right?

Anyway, here is the story of Green Tree Financial and the manufactured housing bust.

I've pulled some quotes, that make it rather plain just how much it looks like the very same sub-prime crisis that eventually grew to $700-1,800 billion.

The question becomes, how did we have two sub-prime crises in a row, in rapid succession, even?

A Boom Built Upon Sand, Gone Bust

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From 1991 to 1998, annual sales of manufactured homes more than doubled, to 374,000 from 174,000.

One company, one man and one accounting rule drove that growth.

The rule, a rarely used accounting convention called ''gain on sale,'' encouraged Green Tree to make as many loans as possible and allowed it to report more than $2 billion in profits that never existed.

In their rush to lend, Green Tree and its rivals made loans to borrowers who had little chance of paying them back. Tens of thousands of those people have already defaulted and have been evicted. Conseco alone has repossessed 25,000 homes so far this year, after a record 28,466 in 2000. By the time the industry's hangover ends later this decade, hundreds of thousands more low-income borrowers will lose their homes. They will wind up with huge debts and ruined credit because their homes are worth far less than what they owe.

Securitization provided Green Tree with ready access to capital from the bond buyers, and that enabled it to finance as many loans as it wanted. At the same time, gain-on-sale accounting allowed Green Tree to record income from every loan that it made.

On April 28, 2000, with the company's shares at $5.63, Mr. Hilbert quit. He received a $72 million severance package, including the right to use Conseco's private jet up to 20 times a year. All told, Mr. Hilbert's pay from 1993 to 2000 was $530 million.

Mr. Coss did not do quite as well. His pay, tied to Green Tree's reported profits, totaled about $200 million from 1993 to 1998, including a $30 million severance package.

More references:
April, 19998:

• THE MARKETS: Market Place; Conseco and Green Tree, an Improbable Merger
  
  [This one reads like a bad omen for the Bank America and Merrill "merger", yes?]

April, 2000:

• Founder Resigns Conseco Post, Under Pressure of Falling Profits

December, 2002:

• Conseco Files for Bankruptcy Protection

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