PAUL VOLCKER ISSUES DIRE WARNING : ECONOMIC SLUMP HAS METASTASISED

Volcker issues dire warning on slump also OPPOSES BIG 3 BAILOUT!
Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has warned that the economic slump has begun to metastasise after a shocking collapse in output over the past two months, threatening to overwhelm the incoming Obama administration as it struggles to restore confidence.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 10:39PM GMT 17 Nov 2008

"What this crisis reveals is a broken financial system like no other in my lifetime," he told a conference at Lombard Street Research in London.

"Normal monetary policy is not able to get money flowing. The trouble is that, even with all this [government] protection, the market is not moving again. The only other time we have seen the US economy drop as suddenly as this was when the Carter administration imposed credit controls, which was artificial."

His comments come as the blizzard of dire data in the US continues to crush spirits. The Empire State index of manufacturing dropped to minus 24.6 in October, the lowest ever recorded. Paul Ashworth, US economist at Capital Economics, said business spending was now going into "meltdown", compounding the collapse in consumer spending that is already under way.

Mr Volcker, an adviser to President-Elect Barack Obama and a short-list candidate for Treasury Secretary, warned that it is already too late to avoid a severe downturn even if the credit markets stabilise over coming months. "I don't think anybody thinks we're going to get through this recession in a hurry," he said.

He advised Mr Obama to tread a fine line, embarking on bold action with a "compelling economic logic" rather than scattering fiscal stimulus or resorting to a wholesale bail-out of Detroit. "He can't just throw money at the auto industry."

Mr Volcker is a towering figure in the US, praised for taming the great inflation of the late 1970s with unpopular monetary rigour. He is no friend of Alan Greenspan, who replaced him at the Fed and presided over credit excess that pushed private debt to 300pc of GDP.

"There has been leveraging in the economy beyond imagination, and nobody was saying we need to do something," he said. "There are cycles in human nature and it is up to regulators to moderate these excesses. Alan was not a big regulator."

Even so, he said the arch-culprit was the bonus system that allowed bankers to draw forward "tremendous rewards" before the disastrous consequences of their actions became clear, as well as the new means of credit alchemy that let them slice and dice mortgage debt into packages that disguised risk. READ
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WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Tuesday that the administration remains firmly opposed to dipping into the government's $700 billion financial bailout fund for a $25 billion rescue package for Detroit's Big Three automakers, no matter how badly they need the help.

"There are other ways" to help them, Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee as the bailout bill clung to life support on Capitol Hill.

Committee members grilled Paulson on the administration's stance that the $25 billion must come from separate legislation passed in September that Congress designed specifically to help auto manufacturers retool their factories so they can make more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The $700 billion bailout plan enacted by Congress in October and signed into law by President George W. Bush did not envision that the program would be used to help rescue nonfinancial companies, Paulson said. "I believe the auto companies fall outside of that purpose."

At the same time, he testified, "I think it would be not a good thing, it would be something to be avoided, having one of the auto companies fail, particularly during this period of time."

Paulson said that solving the financial problems of the automakers should be done in a way "that leads to long-term sustainable viability" for the industry.

Auto executives, backed by leading Democrats, insist they need another $25 billion in emergency bridge loans _ on top of the $25 billion already approved and being administered by the Energy Department _ to avert a collapse of one or more of their companies. That would bring the total federal help for the industry to $50 billion this year.

Paulson cited this Energy Department program several times. "I urge you to modify that" to help automakers, he said.