Once upon a time there were two countries separated by an ocean. One was called China and its people worked long hours to produce cheap goods.
The other was known as the United States. Once its people worked hard and it was the workshop of the world. But recently the US had not worked so hard and for every $100 of goods and services produced in its factories and offices, $106 was spent in its shopping malls. Instead of producing its own goods, the US bought them from China.
For many years this arrangement worked nicely. The Chinese people kindly spent the money they made exporting their TVs and toys to the US by buying shares in American companies and the bills issued by the US treasury to pay for its debts.
The US had a friendly cousin called Britain. It lived a similar lifestyle, spending more than it produced and borrowing to cover the difference. There were some who warned this state of affairs was too good to be true, but every day people in the US and Britain woke up to see the sun shining and the sky blue.
Wise people in both countries said the fine weather would last forever. It made sense for the people in China to produce goods cheaply and to invest the money they made from selling them in the US and Britain. By doing so they kept prices low around the world and allowed interest rates to come down.
Hungry
This encouraged people in the US and Britain to borrow more money to buy homes. And when the surge of people buying homes pushed up the prices of property, the people felt richer and borrowed even more.
But inflation stayed low and so did interest rates. Those parts of the US and Britain that sold shares and lent money — known as Wall Street and the City of London — did very well. They called this the GoldiÂlocks economy, because it was neither too hot nor too cold. Countries such as Britain and the US, they said, could go on eating all the porridge produced by China for ever.
It was then that the three bears arrived home. Baby bear came in the shape of rising oil and commodity prices. One thing overlooked by the friends of Goldilocks was that China was hungry for raw materials. Its factories were not energy efficient and by gobbling up oil and metals they sent the prices up.
Whereas in early 2003 it was possible to go to market and buy a barrel of crude oil for $25, by late 2007 a barrel cost well over $80 a barrel. But when baby bear roared GoldiÂlocks slept on.
Then mummy bear came home. She was worried about her house. What had happened — especially in the US, but also in Britain — was that prices of homes rose so quickly that young bears found it more and more difficult to raise enough money for a little cottage in the woods with roses round the door.
The reason property prices were so high was that interest rates were low and it was very cheap to borrow. So even though inflation remained at levels not seen for years, the inflation rate for real estate did go up. The people given the job of setting the cost at which people could borrow — the central banks of the US and Britain — started to worry about this and they raised interest rates because they were frightened that high inflation in the real estate market would spread to the rest of the economy. Mummy bear roared, but Goldilocks slept on.
Finally daddy bear came home and discovered that the only way the party in the housing market had been able to go on for some time was because some dark wizards from Wall Street and the City of London had brewed up potions that provided what looked like cheap money to those whose pockets were empty or full of holes. They accepted the loans and bought homes, expecting them to keep rising in value.
The dark wizards knew that this was bad medicine, so they covered their tracks by persuading the finely dressed courtiers of Wall Street and the City to buy the loans. The courtiers, both vain and greedy, were told that there was no risk and they would make lots of money.
But when interest rates went up, the pennies dropped from the eyes of those who had drunk deep from the cups of the dark wizards. They could no longer afford to pay the money lenders and the price of their home was not going up but coming down. They handed back the keys to their homes at exactly the same time as the finely dressed courtiers realised they too stood to lose their hand-made silk shirts.
Reckless
The dark magic was so powerful and secret that nobody knew how much they and their friends owed. It made the courtiers suspicious and distrustful; where once they were happy to lend each other money, they shut themselves away and rarely ventured to the market place. At this point, daddy bear roared and finally Goldilocks woke up.
As she opened her eyes, she could see the house was in a fine old mess. In the US, house prices were falling fast and mortgage firms were going out of business. In Britain, a bank called Northern Rock, a specialist in arranging home loans worth more than the value of the property, found it was treated as a pariah by its former friends in the City.
At this point a cry went up to the men running the central banks of the US and Britain. Help us, please, the courtiers said, or we are ruined.
Ben Bernanke, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, wagged his finger, but he was a soft-hearted man and gave in. He opened his treasure chest and made more cheap money available. As the Wall Street courtiers resumed the party, he warned: “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Mervyn King at the Bank of England took a different view. I warned this would happen, he sternly told the City’s courtiers. You have got yourselves into this mess through your own recklessness and if I write a blank cheque you will go straight back out and start again. Besides, some people in the City behaved wisely and properly; what sort of signal does it send them if you are rewarded for your stupidity. You are concerned about your own selfish interests; I have the good of the economy to think about.
The courtiers were furious at being treated like flying pickets in pin-striped suits. They blamed King for the crisis and called for him to be sacked. But King was not sacked and for Goldilocks life was never quite the same again.
Some say she escaped into the forest and found her way safely home. Others say this is just a fairy story and that a terrified five-year-old girl had no chance when faced with three ravenous bears.
You, gentle reader, must decide. — Â