Word: ls
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...late 1970s and early '80s, thrifts were struggling under the old rules because of inflation. Forced to pay high rates to attract deposits but dependent on low-interest, long-term home loans for revenue, the S&Ls saw their profits erode. Under constant pressure from thrift lobbyists, the old rules were felled one by one: in 1980 federal deposit insurance was increased from $40,000 to $100,000, money brokers were allowed to bundle massive deposits and thrifts were freed to make commercial loans...
Government investigators are now probing a complex network of companies and S&Ls that invested deeply in junk bonds, mostly handled by Drexel Burnham Lambert, and carried out elaborate deals to swap the bonds and other assets. Some of the bonds were used to artificially shore up ailing thrifts or were sold in multimillion-dollar lots to cooperating S&Ls. Federal investigators are giving particular scrutiny to Silverado, Charles Keating's Lincoln S&L in California, CenTrust Bank in Miami, and San Jacinto Savings in Texas. Each had extensive business dealings with Drexel and with one another...
Milken had profitably discovered that S&Ls could use junk bonds in two ways: to borrow money for expansion and to invest money for a high rate of return. M.D.C.'s Mizel, hard pressed by the economic downturn in Denver and kept afloat by insider swaps with Silverado, met the junk-bond king in Manhattan and became Milken's enthusiastic client. So too did the influential Norman Brownstein, an M.D.C. board member and Mizel's attorney, who lobbied in Washington in favor of the use of junk bonds by S&Ls...
...bailout faces the added specter of a slumping U.S. economy. A recession could raise the already astronomical price of the bailout by pushing more thrifts into bankruptcy and making it harder for the government to find buyers for seized S&Ls and their assets. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress last week that the Persian Gulf crisis has "introduced new and substantial risks" to the economy. Washington's latest measures of economic activity showed just how gloomy the outlook has become, as the Consumer Price Index rose 0.8% in August, equivalent to an annual rate...
NATION: Hold on to your wallet. The bottomless bailout of the S&Ls is getting costlier...