Oversight of Financial Crisis: Elizabeth Warren Interview (2010)

The US Pension Protection Act of 2006 included a provision which changed the definition of Qualified Default Investments (QDI) for retirement plans from stable value investments, money market funds, and cash investments to investments which expose an individual to appropriate levels of stock and bond risk based on the years left to retirement. The Act required that Plan Sponsors move the assets of individuals who had never actively elected their investments and had their contributions in the default investment option. This meant that individuals who had defaulted into a cash fund with little fluctuation or growth would soon have their account balances moved to much more aggressive investments.

Starting in early 2008, most US employer-sponsored plans sent notices to their employees informing them that the plan default investment was changing from a cash/stable option to something new, such as a retirement date fund which had significant market exposure. Most participants ignored these notices until September and October, when the market crash was on every news station and media outlet. It was then that participants called their 401(k) and retirement plan providers and discovered losses in excess of 30% in some cases. Call centers for 401(k) providers experienced record call volume and wait times, as millions of inexperienced investors struggled to understand how their investments had been changed so fundamentally without their explicit consent, and reacted in a panic by liquidating everything with any stock or bond exposure, locking in huge losses in their accounts.

Due to the speculation and uncertainty in the market, discussion forums filled with questions about whether or not to liquidate assets[4] and financial gurus were swamped with questions about the right steps to take to protect what remained of their retirement accounts. During the third quarter of 2008, over $72 billion left mutual fund investments that invested in stocks or bonds and rushed into Stable Value investments in the month of October.[5] Against the advice of financial experts, and ignoring historical data illustrating that long-term balanced investing has produced positive returns in all types of markets,[6] investors with decades to retirement instead sold their holdings during one of the largest drops in stock market history.

During the week ending September 19, 2008, money market funds had begun to experience significant withdrawals of funds by investors. This created a significant risk because money market funds are integral to the ongoing financing of corporations of all types. Individual investors lend money to money market funds, which then provide the funds to corporations in exchange for corporate short-term securities called asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP). However, a potential bank run had begun on certain money market funds. If this situation had worsened, the ability of major corporations to secure needed short-term financing through ABCP issuance would have been significantly affected. To assist with liquidity throughout the system, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank announced that banks could obtain funds via the Federal Reserve's Discount Window using ABCP as collateral.[1][7]

On November 25, 2008 the Fed announced it would buy $800 billion dollars of debt and mortgage backed securities, in a fund separate from the 700-billion dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was originally passed by Congress.[14] According to the BBC,[15] the Fed would use the fund to buy the following: up to $100bn in debt from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up to $500bn in mortgage-backed securities

The fund would also be used to loan up to $200bn to the holders of securities backed by various types of consumer loans, such as credit cards and student loans, to help unfreeze the consumer debt market. According to a Des Moines Register editorial, it is not clear whether bodies that oversee the TARP will oversee Paulson's control of the Fed's $800 billion loan and bond actions.[16]

As of December 24, 2008, the Federal Reserve had used its independent authority to spend $1.2 trillion on purchasing various financial assets and making emergency loans to address the financial crisis, above and beyond the $700 billion authorized by Congress from the federal budget. This includes emergency loans to banks, credit card companies, and general businesses, temporary swaps of treasury bills for mortgage-backed securities, the sale of Bear Stearns, and the bailouts of American International Group (AIG), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Citigroup.
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