Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn explained that the value of an answer depends on the quality of the question.



“Have we learned our lesson? It depends what the lesson was,” Einhorn, the co-founder of New York-based Greenlight Capital, said at the Oxford Union in England on Wednesday.

..“If you took all of the obvious problems from the financial crisis, we kind of solved none of them,” Einhorn said to a packed room at Oxford University’s 194-year-old debating society. Instead, the world “went the bailout route.”

“We sweep as much under the rug as we can and move on as quickly as we can,” he said.

Just like a junkie, Wall Street won't admit there is a problem until it can no longer avoid it.

Two weeks ago I pointed out that not only has Wall Street brought back such products as synthetic collateralized debt obligations, they have created a new product, synthetic collateralised default swaps (i.e. 'derivatives of derivatives').

Synthetic collateralised default swaps isn't the only new Wall Street creation.

The financial industry has also created a new way to make predatory loans.



Peer-to-peer lending commenced in the US a decade ago when investors – now mostly hedge funds, banks, insurers, etc. – could lend directly to consumers via online platforms....Now the Cleveland Fed came out with an analysis that focused on the consumer end of the business, called the loans “predatory,” compared them to pre-Financial-Crisis subprime mortgages because they’re now showing very similar delinquency characteristics, and fretted what these P2P loans, given their double-digit growth rates, could mean for financial stability: Based on our findings, one can argue that P2P loans resemble predatory loans in terms of the segment of the consumer market they serve and their effect on individual borrowers’ financial stability. The 2007 financial crisis illustrated the importance of consumer finance and the stability of consumer balance sheets. Loan balances outstanding have soared 84% in four years, from $55 billion in 2013 to $101 billion in 2016, according to the study. Nearly 16 million US consumers had personal loans via P2P lenders at the end of 2016.



P2P loans can carry 30% interest rates.

Predatory P2P loans isn't the only subprime 2007ish trend. There is also auto loans.



Of the $282 billion in subprime auto loans outstanding, finance companies originated 74%, according to today’s data from the New York Fed. Banks and credit unions granted the remaining 26%.

The 90+ day delinquency rate for subprime auto loans originated by banks dropped after the Financial Crisis and has since remained fairly steady. In Q3, it was 4.4%, down from 7.1% at the peak of the Financial Crisis. So the subprime auto-loan fiasco is not going to topple the banks.

In contrast, the 90+ day delinquency rate for loans originated by auto finance companies has been soaring since 2013. In Q3 2017, it hit 9.7%.

This 9.7% is the highest delinquency rate since Q1 of 2010. And it first hit that rate on the way up during the Great Recession in Q3 2008, during the Lehman moment. A year later, it peaked at 10.9%

Let's be aware that these numbers and products are happening near the end of a credit cycle, with low unemployment, with the yield curve flattening, and record high stock, bond, and home prices.

What happens when the music stops?