Archive - Nov 2011

It must be at least a few days since the last one because CitizenLink is currently webcasting yet another GOP presidential debate this time the Thanksgiving Family Forum in Iowa which is hosting a round table for the candidates not to be confused with the pumpins generously strewn around, and in which Ron Paul is not unexpectedly projected to potentially win.

The consequences of excess debt are now facing the leaders of Europe head on, and a monumental decision must be made whether explicitly or implicitly. Excess debt leads to a long chain of D words: Deleveraging in an attempt to retire debt results in a depressed economy and declining asset prices. The depressed economy breeds private debt defaults that in turn produce distressed banks. The chain then runs through depositor flight from the banks, producing a financial crisis and in turn a devaluation of the currency as capital flees. When foreign goods become more expensive there is a declining standard of living as import prices rise faster than wages. Then in an effort to stop the government debt trap, there is a default on promised entitlements under an austerity program leading to the swift defeat of the political leaders. But ultimately there is a sovereign restructuring or a default of the government debt. Most, if not all, the D words are visiting Europe at the moment and its leaders are falling by the wayside. There is not a precise science that tells us when the debt trap begins the downward spiral that takes the ship down, but there are some rough guidelines. Reinhart and Rogoff (This Time is Different) have found to the extent one can generalize when a country’s debt-to-income ratio reaches the 90 percent level the ship of state begins to list and currently the OECD aggregate of 30-country gross debt-to-income ratio is 105 percent.

See for yourself, I've made it easy for you...

There are now only two REAL outcomes: 1)   The ECB prints (and Germany walks) resulting in the Euro losing at the minimum 30-40% of its value, or...2)   Massive defaults and debt restructuring accompanied by systemic failure in Europe.

An interesting and succinct compare-and-contrast (by MEP Daniel Hannan) of the U.S. Constitution and its European equivalent (Lisbon Treaty) presented with little comment except to note in the last week we have discussed how the Irish view their German masters, how the French/Italians/Spanish will do pretty much anything in order that the Bundesbank will enable ECB monetization, and perhaps more critically the exodus of capital not merely from peripheral European debt markets but from the core also. We suspect the status quo cannot exist much longer (Keynesian Endgame?) and regimes (fiscal/monetary/political) will change as tail risk becomes the only risk.

When back in May 2010 Greece was bailed out for the first time, the corrupt authorities and the conflicted media said this is the beginning of a new beginning, and soon everything would be fixed. Nothing has been fixed and everything has gotten far worse. Back then we were among the few to point out that the "bailout" was a travesty and that you can't fix an excess debt problem with more debt, yet that has been precisely the methodology of every bailout ever since the first. Unfortunately, the world is caught in a Keynesian paradigm where this is the only recourse to kick the can, unfortunately the strength of every kick is getting weaker and weaker until one day, the can refuses to move, and it is game over. Looking back at this historic period which sealed the fate of the Keynesian system, nobody has caught the paradoxes of the current broken economic and financial model better than Kyle "Nickels" Bass. Below, for everyone's must read pleasure, we once again present his May 11, 2010 letter titled "The Pattern is Set ? Betting the Bank on a Keynesian Free Lunch" which fuses everything that has happened in Europe since then on the fiscal side, and is about to happen on the monetary one. "From now on, it seems everything will be deemed to be a liquidity crisis that will be met with more "bail?outs" and debt financed spending. This will eventually break traction in a violent way and facilitate severe inflation or even hyperinflation. The one thing the EU taught us this weekend is that paper money will be worth less (maybe much less) in the future." And indeed it will, because more than anything, money is increasingly and rightfully seen as the symbol of the free lunch that Keynesian economics promises, after that "just one final debt hit." Is there much or any hope? Not really, but being prepared while watching the inferno blazes get higher and higher is the best we can all do.

Capital controls are coming to Europe. What does that mean?

Time to start stocking up on those long term, OTM armageddon puts yet?

Pick the odd one out of the following 7 banks, while in the process pointing out what they have in common: Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Jefferies Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. As it so happens 6 of the 7 are Bank Holding Companies, and have access to the Fed's various emergency facilities. The seventh, Jefferies, which a few years ago, boasted that it is now the largest remaining true investment bank after all its competitors had converted to BHC status, may soon regret it said that and did not join its peers. Why? For the same reason why on November 1, the day after MF Global filed for bankruptcy, we tweeted: "Here is why Jefferies is in deep doodoo: http://1.usa.gov/uNBhzq" The reference of course is to the now legendary prospectus for the MF Global 6.25% notes of 2016 that had the infamous Corzine key man event: "interest rate applicable to the notes will be subject to an increase of 1.00% upon the departure of Mr. Corzine as our full time chief executive officer due to his appointment to a federal position by the President of the United States and confirmation of that appointment by the United States Senate prior to July 1, 2013." At this point the only appointment Obama may give Corzine is that of a presidential pardon for a criminal felony offense (assuming of course Corzine brings a sleeping bag to Zuccotti square: the only offense for which he may ever be arrested). Alas, Jefferies, and the 6 other banks, do not have that luxury: as of late this afternoon, all six were sued by pension funds "who said the bonds' offering prospectuses concealed problems that led to the futures brokerage's collapse." Precisely as Zero Hedge expected. And unfortunately for Jefferies, this may well be the final nail in the coffin - because while the market had punished the bank for its Exposure, the biggest unknown in the past 2 weeks was whether and when it would be sued precisely for its MF Global liability. That time is now: next up - every single entity that was impaired in part or in whole as a result of the MF Global bankruptcy will follow suit and sue the same 7 banks... of which only Jefferies does not have the benefit of an infinite backstop.

Everywhere you look these days, it seems that ZIRP, or the Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policy, is the panacea to all the world's problems. In fact, ask any tenured economy Ph.D. what inflation is and you will get a stare down, be told you are a moron, that banks need to print more, more, more and that we are really roiling in deflation, with some latent mumblings about buying their economics textbook for the inflationary price of $124.95. Everywhere, that is except the Fed itself. Because in an extremely ironic twist, it is none other than the San Francisco Fed, which operates the "Be Fed chairman for a day" simulation, where you try to keep both unemployment and inflation within the "price stabeeleetee" barriers, that reveals the reality of ZIRP. The laughter really begins when one recreates precisely what the Fed is doing: namely the policy of Zero Interest Rates, now well in its third year, that things take a turn for the surreal. We challenge any reader to play the Fed simulation game, and to do what Bernanke has done: namely lock the Fed Funds rate at the legal minimum: between 0.00% and 0.25%. In our personal experience, we were dismissed as Fed Chairman after annual inflation literally went off the charts and hit 38.36% following 4 years of ZIRP. And according to the Fed, inflation would now, 2.5 years into ZIRP, realistically be running at about 17%. Which incidentally is exactly where it is, at least for those who have not mutated sufficiently to be able to metabolize iPads and fly to and from work using their own pair of wings. Of course, every hyperinflation has a silver lining: US unemployment will be just 1.5%. Granted everyone will be making pitchforks and rope, but they would be employed.

Just in time to make you feel better about holiday travels: airport security scanners that use X-rays are acknowledged to cause cancer. No problem in the US; but now they’re banned in the EU.

It may not be quite the entire 1% but it is close. In his presentation to Bank of America on Tuesday, when discussing "talent (or tentacle) retention, Lloyd Blankfein disclosed this whopper: "Almost 300,000 individuals applied for full-time positions at Goldman Sachs for 2010 and 2011. We hired fewer than 4% of that population, and, though most had multiple offers, nine out of ten people offered a job with us accepted." In other words, it is more difficult to get into Goldman than Harvard. As a reminder, the US labor force has 140 million people at last count (or, coming from the BLS, rough propaganda guess). In other words, more than 0.2% of the entire US employed workforce (because let's face it, Goldman won't hire anyone without prior experience) applied to work at Goldman Sachs. And by the retention rating, it seems that the number one dream for every job seeker in the US is to get the fat letter from Goldman HR. Speaking of training, we also get this pearl from Lloyd: "This year, we expect to provide 800,000 hours of training to our people, an average of 25 hours per person." Just what is it that these people are taught so intensely?

Police state violence ... move along, citizen ... don't look

The global dominant narrative about China is wrong, claims Gordon Chang. Don't expect it to be the 'pocketbook of last resort' that will rescue world markets from their current malaise. And don't expect its remarkable economic growth to continue. In fact, expect a "hard landing" for China - and soon. Gordon sees the first real signs of slowdown in China's economic growth looking at the year-over-year numbers for the past several months as the inevitable harbingers of a coming collapse in China due to excessive stimulus policies the government undertook starting in 2009. The bubbles and malinvestment created by this stimulus have not been addressed, and increasing weakness and transitions inside the political system are making it less likely they will be before market forces intervene.

Presenting, with little comment but complete and utter bewilderment, the latest margin hike and ETF changes. Direxion ETFs just changed the 'fund' mandates from 2x to 3x on a number of their more popular products - which of course, given the extra vol, will mean significant margin hikes from any broker you trade with...curiouser and curiouser.