Suddenly sexy central bankers

Their nicknames evoke visions muscle-bound television wrestlers prancing around in too-tight spandex shorts and menacing each other with comic book-like scowls.

There is the Undertaker, Steady Eddie, Helicopter Ben and Mr. Fifteen Minutes.

In fact, these colourful monikers are attached to that most boring of public servant — the central banker.

But, in a world dominated by the worst financial crisis in a decade, these keepers of the monetary Holy Grail, with or without their street names, just might be the most important officials there are.

The central banks of the industrialized nations, whether the Bank of Canada, the U.S. Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank, are basically the economy's firefighters, trying to stamp out the current recession before it becomes a full-blown depression.

To accomplish this task, they have a few, powerful weapons in their arsenal.

Liquidity cop

In past economic downturns, central banks relied upon their ability to influence activity through interest rate hikes and cuts.

Wim Duisenberg — The former head of European Central Bank was known as 'Mr. Fifteen Minutes' when he was chief of the Dutch national bank because of his penchant for immediately following whatever course the German authority took.

Sir Edward George — The ex-chief of the Bank of England received the nickname 'Steady Eddie' because of his ability to keep a steady hand on the monetary tiller.

This time around, however, the Bank of Canada and its institutional cousins in other countries are relying heavily upon one of their other basic tools, acting as lender of last resort, to get the global economy growing again.

"With money markets seizing up, many institutions found it difficult to obtain necessary liquidity. So the Bank of Canada, like other central banks, made it clear that institutions could access our regular liquidity facility when required," said then-governor of the Bank of Canada David Dodge in a speech in the summer of 2007.

David Dodge was head of the Bank of Canada from 2001 to 2008.(Canadian Press)

That was a year ago.

Now, central banks from the United States to Singapore have opened the money spigots even further in a bid to get enough cash sloshing into the credit system that borrowers can figure on borrowing and lenders will want to lend.

In this role, central banks act like backstops for private-sector banks and other high-level financial institutions.

In addition, the central authorities have guaranteed various bank deposits hoping to reduce worries among depositors that they will not be able to access their money quickly.

What the banks are trying to do is short-circuit a shortage of confidence.

By guaranteeing bank deposits and lending more money, the central monetary authorities want to convince individuals and corporations that the chartered institutions are sound and thus eliminate the need to remove their cash from these same companies.

Lehman mistake

The current crisis of faith in financial companies stems from the bankruptcy of Wall Street investment house Lehman Brothers. Initially, the U.S. government wanted the financial marketplace to sort out good companies from bad.

Instead, almost every company with any outstanding debt was shoved into the stock market penalty box as investors abandoned these share issues in droves.

Fomer U.S. Fed Chair Alan Greenspan was nicknamed 'The Undertaker' by novelist Ayn Rand.(CBC)

Critics now blame former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, the man credited with the phrase 'irrational exuberance during the 1990's stock boom, for not clamping down on the asset-backed commercial paper market early enough to prevent the housing sector stumble.

Those analysts, however, do not understand what the central bank should and should not do, experts said.

"I don't think the bank has any role in dampening the housing market in the U.S.," said Robert Lucas, an economic professor at the University of Saskatchewan and long-time central bank watcher.

"The idea that the bank should reduce a price bubble is very problematic since a bubble is usually discovered after the fact."

Interest rate engineer

In recent years, central bankers were usually concerned about heading off rising inflation rather than increasing available liquidity to stop a depression.

Current Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is known as 'Helicopter Ben' because of a remark he made about dropping money from a helicopter to head off a depression(Associated Press)

"That was the sexy part of central bank policy. That was where the focus was," Lucas said.

To some extent, it still is.

All of the major central banks have chopped their interest rate targets in the recent financial crisis with some now at extremely low levels. But, they are still keeping one eye on resurgent inflation.

Official central bank rate (%)Canada 2.25United State 1.50Europe 3.75United Kingdom 4.50Source: Various central banks

While the rates are headed in the same direction, the different levels reflect the fact that economies face different risks in the current crisis.

"What we are in is a storm. We're not all in the same boat. But, we're in the same storm," said Livio Di Matteo, an economics professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Canada, for instance, has sounder financial institutions than other countries and thus is focusing its policies on economic growth rather than systemic solvency, experts said.

Thus, the interest rate cuts are an example of the Bank of Canada using its best economic growth lever to kick-start the economy — or at least keep Canada from falling further.

Regulating the wild west

Where critics of central bankers might have more legitimacy, experts said, is when they complained about the lack of regulation concerning the financial instruments fuelling the housing bubble.

Especially in the United States, groups selling bundles of mortgages in asset-backed commercial paper were able to eliminate any default risk and thus did not have much incentive to ensure that borrowers were financially solvent.

"Since the originators were immune from default risk once the loan was securitized and sold, they often lacked the proper incentives to adequately assess the creditworthiness of the borrower," Dodge said in a 1997 speech.

Bank watchers said that government regulators, such as the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions in Canada, need to ensure that the banks do not invest so much in dubious instruments to risk their financial insolvency.

Singing the same song

This time around, the major central banks were able to coordinate their actions, including making more financial assets available to borrowers and lenders and cutting interest rates to help economic growth.

The fact that central bankers are following the same policies reflects a convergence among governments about the role of the public monetary authorities.

"There has been a remarkable convergence of thinking. If this was 1978, these banks would be all over the map [in terms of policies]," Lucas said.

Now, bankers believe they can change price growth, not economic growth, he said.

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