Tag Archives: Janet Yellen

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Dear Secretary of the Treasury: OK, I Give Up

Dear Secretary Yellen (and Joe, too),

Invest in Series I Savings Bonds, your Treasury Department says. “Series I savings bonds are a low-risk savings product,” it says. “During their lifetime they earn interest and are protected from inflation.” With an initial interest rate on new Series I savings bonds now at 9.62 percent., they’re a good deal. 

So I tried to buy some.  Fuggedaboutit.

How hard can it be to set up a website to invest in I Bonds that’s consumer friendly and easily navigable? You’d think the Biden administration could at least do this one simple thing right, but no. 

Now bear with me.

Treasury’s website, www.TreasuryDirect.gov, is a jumbled mess, a relic of old timey confusion from when Biden was a senator. When I finally got into the section for creating an investment account, diligently filled everything out and clicked on “submit”, I was advised that there was an error. And my application was on hold.

What was the error? No clue. How could I fix it? By filling out a paper, yes, paper,TreasuryDirect Account Authorization form, getting it certified by my credit union, and snail-mailed , yes, snail-mailed, to Treasury Retail Security Services, Minneapolis, MN.

The length of time Treasury Retail Security Services might take to respond? Up to 13 weeks, I was advised. That’s right, three months.

Several weeks later, not 13 thank God, I got an email saying the hold had been removed from my account and that I could now access it. Now I’m on a roll, I figured. 

But no. When I tried to get into my account to make an investment, I made a spelling mistake in a security question response and I was locked out again.  

“If you encounter any problems during the initial log in process, you may contact us at 844-284-2676, between 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.,” I was advised. “Follow the menu prompts for Individual and TreasuryDirect. A customer service representative will assist you.”

OK, that sounded simple. It was a nightmare. 

On my first call I was on hold for 3 hours and finally told that there were too many people ahead of me for my call to be answered before the office closed. For my second call, I got up at 5AM and sat on hold for 2.5 hours before connecting with an agent. It took just a couple minutes to clear up the security question issue and I was again cleared for access to my account.

I filled out an online form to make an investment . On June 21, an email came back. “Dear William:
A purchase has been scheduled in your TreasuryDirect account on 6/21/2022. For more details, go to the History tab and click Security History. If you have a question about this activity, please call (844) 284-2676. Thank you for using TreasuryDirect.”

I sat back in celebration.

Too soon.

On June 27, I received an email canceling my investment: “Dear William, We’re sorry, but your purchase request or reinvestment IAAAA was canceled. While trying to collect payment from your bank, they returned our debit. Please check the Investor InBox section of your TreasuryDirect account for more detailed information. Thank you for using TreasuryDirect.”

Now what?  I went to the Investor InBox section of my TreasuryDirect account and discovered that Treasury had sent the debit request to an incorrect bank account, not the one submitted with my purchase request. Of course the debit attempt bounced. Argggh!!!

I went back into the TreasuryDirect website and found that to get Treasury’s mistake corrected I would have to print out another paper form, get it certified at my bank, send it in, by snail mail again, and wait some more. When I tried to access the form by clicking on a link, I got a grey screen. Good grief!

You win, Janet and Joe. I give up. I’m done.

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Clinton, Trump and the housing crisis: a different perspective

Hillary Clinton and her surrogates think they have found something to damage Donald Trump, statements he has made about opportunities to profit from a housing market crash.

But have they? A deeper look suggests Trump was prescient in his analysis of the housing market.

Ten years ago Trump was recorded saying, “I sort of hope that (a housing market crash) happens because then, people like me would go in and buy” and “If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money.”

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At a campaign rally on Tuesday, Clinton jumped on the quotes, accusing Trump of wishing for a financial crash so he could “make some money for himself.”

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) piled on, saying in a press release that Trump “cheered on” the collapse of the housing market. The DNC also observed that the housing crash devastated minorities such as Hispanics and African-Americans (who happen to be a key part of Hillary’s base).

“Donald Trump’s lack of concern for the economic well-being of hard-working families shows that he doesn’t have the judgment and temperament to occupy the Oval Office,” wrote DNC spokesperson Luis Miranda.

But another way to look at it is Trump was being pretty smart and perceptive—and if the Clintons had been smart, they could have made some money, too (not that they needed any more).

The 2008 financial crisis was triggered to a significant degree by subprime mortgages, loans made to people with poor credit or with little documentation to back up their financial fitness. These mortgages were transformed into toxic financial products by investment specialists who made a bundle when the products were sold.

The danger these subprime mortgage products posed wasn’t foreseen by Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

“While a tightening of credit to the subprime sector and foreclosures on existing properties have the potential to deepen the housing downturn, I do not consider it very likely that such developments will have a big effect on overall U.S. economic performance,” Yellen said well into the foreclosure crisis. ” I say this, in part, because these mortgages represent only a small part of the overall outstanding mortgage stock.”

Yellen went on to misread the economy, saying, “I think that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable growth with a gradual ebbing of inflation over time.”

The danger these subprime mortgage products posed also wasn’t foreseen “by the chief executives of America’s premier banks,” said a New York Times book review of the best-selling book, The Big Short. “It was not foreseen by government regulators, by Treasury officials or by the Fed. It was foreseen, however, by a handful of investors, who were aghast at the madness they saw on the Street and who used their prescience to make a fortune off the financial system’s calamitous meltdown.”   

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Trump should fire back at Hillary by pointing out that she’s made some contentious allegations her supporters might resent. For example, she laid some of the blame for the housing crisis on greedy, dishonest homeowners.

“…certainly borrowers share responsibility as well,” Clinton said in a speech at NASDAQ headquarters. “Homebuyers who paid extra fees to avoid documenting their income should have known they were getting in over their heads” and people across the country “…who were busy buying two, three, four houses to sell for a quick buck don’t deserve our sympathy.”

Nothing’s simple, is it?