gustonomics podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\nat the beginning of the year, wilke said most of her economist friends were convinced a recession was inevitable, but she wasn\u2019t as pessimistic. \u201clabor market numbers are at best drifting sideways, and consumers are spending so much money that they’re really like the wind beneath the wings.\u201d further, she believes the \u201cjacked up interest rates\u201d are doing precisely what fed chair jerome powell is counting on to keep inflation under control without derailing the economy.<\/p>\n
from where i sit, that\u2019s reassuring. still, i\u2019m sure many of your business owner clients are concerned about the regional banking crisis and seeing their access to credit potentially choked off. wilke said it could have been worse than imagined since the amount of money wrapped up in the three failed regional banks was equivalent to the total assets held by all the failed banks during the 2008-09 financial crisis. but she said the fdic and the fed did their job with all the banking controls and governance standards established by the dodd-frank act. \u201cwe are learning a lot of lessons from the 2008-09 financial crisis, so we just didn\u2019t see the fallout that we saw in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n
instead of chaos as we saw 15 years ago, the fed said, \u201cdon’t worry. we know how to solve this,\u201d related wilke. \u201ceverybody’s going to get their money back. and that really helped to calm the fear and prevented a contagion from starting.\u201d the fed quietly transferred failed banks into receivership and found a buyer for them so we could all return to normal. \u201ci don’t think the fed got enough credit for dealing with the situation as smoothly as it did,\u201d noted wilke.<\/p>\n
while this may be reassuring to your clients, like many non-economists, i still have to wonder if the underlying cause of the regional banking crisis — the fed\u2019s aggressive rate-tightening policy \u2013 could still drag down more banks. wilke conceded that risk is still present since many small and regional banks put assets on their balance sheet when interest rates were at rock bottom, particularly commercial real estate. \u201cthat\u2019s the elephant in the room,\u201d said wilke. \u201cit really depends on how much the fed wants to step in every single time a bank gets into trouble and induces more mergers and acquisitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
so, as bigger banks get bigger and buy up the struggling, smaller banks, will that get the balance sheets in order?<\/p>\n
wilke said one of two things is likely to happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
either small and community banks will fail and go into receivership due to their real estate loans, or they\u2019ll have to undergo the same stringent stress testing that only the largest banks must do today. many will find that stress testing makes it too hard to serve their customers, and they\u2019ll choose to be acquired by a larger bank.<\/p>\n
as a small business owner myself, i agree with wilke that smbs are not going to have the same close relationship with big banks like wells fargo that they have with their local banks. community banks understand the local market for your business, work closely with you on lending, and keep a close eye on how you\u2019re doing, said wilke, especially if you’re in a small town or rural area. that\u2019s not going to happen with a global bank. no one knows for sure how that\u2019s going to play out, but it likely won\u2019t be good for small businesses and their customers if the current trend continues.<\/p>\n
so, from my perspective, it shows the profound ripple effect of interest rates and how we manage them. wilke told me she\u2019s not convinced that our old models and our traditional economic thinking are still valid. \u201cwe\u2019re in uncharted territory,\u201d noted wilke. \u201cthe magnitude of the change resulting from the pandemic, all the retirements, the huge surges of entrepreneurship, all of the changing industry needs and the digitalization that happened during covid, is still playing out.\u201d<\/p>\n
wilke said that normally, jacking up interest rates so aggressively would cause the economy to slow down and cost many more people their jobs. but that hasn\u2019t happened. \u201cif i were the fed, i would actually be kind of happy about the resilient labor market we\u2019re seeing because it means i need to turn the screws more on inflation and interest rates,\u201d said wilke. \u201cit\u2019s likely we\u2019ll have high-interest rates for a while. we might get a couple more bumps, but now that we’re seeing inflation, cool, my best guess is that they’ll probably think, let’s keep it here for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
my hunch is that this is one area in which you can advise your clients \u2013 helping them plan for a sustained period of elevated interest rates and borrowing costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
so, let\u2019s go back to the banks. for two decades, they enjoyed cheap, almost free, money. they took cheap money from the fed, loaned it out to businesses and real estate, and it was easy to make a profit. but now, when money costs them 5.5 percent (the federal funds rate as i write this), their margins are much thinner.<\/p>\n
wilke said that can be problematic for most smaller and regional banks that have significant amounts of commercial real estate debt on their balance sheets that were financed at super-low interest rates and now must be refinanced at today\u2019s elevated rates. unlike a conventional 30-year mortgage, commercial real estate loans are only financed between five and ten years, with a balloon payment due at the end. seven years is typical. with more painful balloon payments coming due, you have fewer profitable real estate projects, and we expect banks to take substantial losses. they hold many of these loans on their books at historical values, so they haven\u2019t been marked to market. that could be a landmine. we don\u2019t know how much these values could shrink.<\/p>\n
according to wilke, office rates are down 20 percent to 30 percent in some areas since the pandemic began, especially in big cities where highly remote office workers live in the suburbs and only come into the office one or two days a week. and we\u2019re seeing \u201cjingle mail\u201d again for the first time since the global financial crisis. except this time, it is office owners, not homeowners, throwing up their hands, stopping payments, and mailing the keys back to the bank.<\/p>\n
banks don\u2019t want to own commercial real estate outright, but wilke said one thing in their favor is that most were savvy enough to have a diversified portfolio of loans. warehouses, retail, and even hotels are doing well, so that helps offset the losses from office space.<\/p>\n
wilke said we might see bridge programs or other protections put in place for commercial real estate in which the interest rate on your specific loan can never go up by more than a certain amount \u2013 similar to the protections on variable-rate home mortgages that were put in place in the aftermath of the financial crisis.<\/p>\n
finally, wilke believes the talent shortage facing many businesses, including accounting firms, is more than just a temporary hangover from the pandemic. skilled workers are going to be scarce for the foreseeable future. we will have to figure out how to train, retain and develop people. it\u2019s quite possible we\u2019ll face a \u201cforever talent shortage\u201d and maybe \u201cforever interest rates,\u201d said wilke. and if potential hires can\u2019t qualify for a mortgage or are unwilling to sell their homes, they will stay put. that means remote work policies will remain essential for attracting top talent.<\/p>\n
these transitory shifts are challenging, especially when everything seems counterintuitive to what we learned in school. but you can lend significant value by helping clients lean into these changes instead of pining away for the good old days.<\/p>\n
like this on facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li> share on linkedin<\/span><\/a><\/li> tweet this item<\/span><\/a><\/li> email this<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div> <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
gustonomics’ liz wilke “bullish on a soft landing.”<\/strong> \n <\/a> \nby blake oliver<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5147,"featured_media":117451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3120,3002,2764],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outlook","category-pro-member-exclusive","category-special","category-video"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n'uncharted' economic outlook for accountants - 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n