Kevin Duffy on the Fiduciary Rule

If we’re going to pass a law against conflicts of interest, shouldn’t there be a law against lobbying the government when such a conflict exists?  (Which is always, of course.)  How can John Bogle not admit that he and his friends benefit from the Fiduciary Rule?

The irony, of course, is that indexation needs discovery agents, and this legislation will put more obstacles in their path.  Without price discovery (e.g., interest rates set by the market) and discovery agents (active investors, short sellers, upstart entrepreneurs), there is no vibrant economy that generates the returns Mr. Bogle’s customers covet.

It can’t be a coincidence that the government only recently discovered the merits of high-liquidity low-fee investing after a tripling of the S&P 500 in 8 years and a 35 year bull market in bonds.  Should we be thanking them for ringing the bell yet again?

~ Kevin Duffy, April 11, 2017

WSJ: Did friends of Countrywide get preferential treatment on loans?

Countrywide Financial Corp. makes mortgage loans through a vast network of offices, brokers and call centers. But a few customers have gotten their loans a special way: through Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo.

These borrowers, known internally as "friends of Angelo" or FoA, include two former CEOs of Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of Countrywide's mortgages, say people familiar with the matter.

One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee. Another was Franklin Raines, a onetime Clinton administration budget director, who left Fannie Mae amid an accounting scandal in 2004.

There is nothing illegal about a mortgage firm treating some borrowers better than others. But if Fannie Mae officials received special treatment, that could cause a political problem for the government-sponsored, shareholder-owned company.

Its code of conduct, a spokesman said, "requires the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and prohibits acceptance of substantial gifts, including loans with preferential terms, from an organization seeking to do business with the company without prior review and approval by the company." The spokesman said the code has been in effect since the early 1990s.

~ The Wall Street Journal, "Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans," June 7, 2008, by Glenn R. Simpson and James R. Hagerty

Jeremy Grantham on Fed bailouts and $300,000 speaking engagements for former Fed chairmen

Even Fed chairmen get bullied and have their faces slapped if they stick to their guns, which will, not surprisingly, be rare since everyone values his career or does not want to be replaced à la Volcker. So, be as optimistic as possible, be nice to everyone, bail everyone out, and hope for the best. If all goes well after all, you will have a lot of grateful bailees who will happily hire you for $300,000 a pop. By the way, that such payments to prior Fed officials are in themselves a moral hazard and an obvious conflict of interest that could moderate their prior behavior, is apparently too crude an accusation even to have surfaced yet. Well it should surface. Selling services to financial interests whose fates have been in your hands should simply not be tolerated as acceptable or ethical behavior by a former Fed Chairman.

~ Jeremy Grantham, "Immoral Hazard," GMO Quarterly Letter, April 2008