Archive - Dec 2012

Nothing but smiles today in Europe's ivory tower...

Need a quick and amusing pick up to start off another dreary, centrally-planned week? Well... "You asked for miracles, Theo, I give you the full of pomp and circumstance ceremony of the European Union receiving the Nobel Peace Prize."

Many Kids and Suicidal Teens are Terrified of the Bogus 2012 Hype.  This Post Is a Public Service Announcement to Set the Record Straight ...

If anyone needs a definitive confirmation that when it comes to predicting the future, "expert economists" are not only completely clueless but always approach the future with a baseline of endless and unquestioned bullishness, which in the past decade has ended up being humiliatingly wrong, we present the following charts from Deutsche's Jim Reid, showing the jawdropping cumulative error rate in GDP forecasts in the past decade among those countries that make the headline news every day. What do the charts show: in the 9 years since the first forecast in October 2003, these 6 countries are 20.5% (Italy), 16.9% (Spain), 10.4% (France), 3.7% (Germany), 11.3% (UK), and 15.8% (US) behind on a cumulative basis what economists forecast back in 2003! This forecasting error has become more severe since the crisis begun. Since October 2007 (i.e. for the 5 years between 2008-2012) we are 16.4% behind cumulative forecasts in Italy, 18.1% in Spain, 10.6% in France, 7.0% in Germany, 14.7% in the UK and 10.6% in the US.

Greece failed to persuade enough of its bondholders to complete the buyback that is so politically mandated by the Troika and so instead of admitting defeat, they have extended the deadline (til tomorrow at 12pm London). Current participation is around EUR26bn vs the EUR30bn target. The bottom line is that the buyback has created an upsurge in price for long- and short-dated GGBs as the 'Greater Fool' theory comes fully into play. Of course, with the Troika making the GGB (and its buyback) now the fulcrum security for Europe's 'break-up' risk, holding out for bigger and better offers seems the game for hedgies at least - there is always the Greatest Fool of EU leaders ready to step in. The paradox, of course, is that the more bonds are being bought the longer the buyback lingers on hopes Greece will keep on bending and keep rising the repurchase price; culminating with these being bought at par and replacing 30bn in old debt with 30bn in new debt. The buyback process has driven prices up dramatically - backfiring considerably on any real gains for the Greek people - but that's hardly the point eh?

The hoaxes remain and grow more cumbersome and obvious every day - and yet, the headline-reading machines and self-referentially-biased managers of stocks justify just one more BTFD episode. To wit, Mark Grant discusses the Greek buyback debacle with its political (and entirely not economic) mandate, noting "Mr. Draghi knows the truth and Ms. Lagarde knows the truth and their credibility is whacked once again;" Berlusconi's potential return in Italy and the hoax of any pretense of an entente cordiale re-emerging between north and south flies out the window; the 'tax the rich' hoax as a solution for years of profligate spending and the 'then vs us' meme that is increasingly spewed forth from DC; and the ultimate hoax of Bernanke's money printing morasse. Happy Monday.

If two people are dying from liver disease, one 25, the other 65, and there’s only one liver available for transplant, the old one dies.

We now have something of a capital freeze occurring in the US at the very same time that the primary pillar of EU stability (Germany) will very likely begin to pull back from providing additional aid (case in point, Greece is still waiting on receiving proposed aid from six months ago).

Regular readers are aware that one of our favorite data series when it comes to demonstrating the quality aspect of the American "recovery" (the quantity is sufficiently taken care of with part-time workers filling in positions without benefits and job security in the New Normal) is that showing the annual average hourly earnings growth in nominal terms, which in November posted the tiniest bounce from its all time low print of 1.2%, rising to 1.3%. The problem as noted above, is that this is nominal wage growth. It therefore excludes the impact of inflation which according to the CPI, rose by 2.2% in October, or, in other words, wage growth was negative in real terms. But it wasn't negative only in October and November. When one takes the Y/Y change in average hourly earnings and subtracts the Y/Y change in CPI one gets a very troubling picture: wages have risen below the rate of inflation for 22 consecutive months, with real wages printing their last positive number back in January 2011 and negative ever since!

Or why rumors of a triumphal Berlusconi (head of the PdL party) return to the Italian Prime Ministerial post are greatly exaggerated.

• Central Banks Ponder Going Beyond Inflation Mandates (BBG)
• Bloomberg Weighs Making Bid for The Financial Times (NYT)
• Hedge Funds Fall Out of Love with Equities (FT)
• Obama and Boehner resume US fiscal cliff talks (FT)
• Italy Front-Runner Vows Steady Hand (WSJ)
• Spanish Bailout Caution Grows as Business Lobbies Back Rajoy (BBG)
• Japan sinks into fresh recession (Reuters)
• China economic recovery intact, but weak exports drag (Reuters)
• Greece extends buyback offer to reach target (Reuters)  ... but on Friday they promised it was done
• Basel Liquidity Rule May Be Watered Down Amid Crisis (BBG) ... just before they are scrapped
• Irish, Greek Workers Seen Suffering Most in 2013 Amid EU Slump (BBG)

In a perfect trifecta of disappointment, overnight we had reality reassert itself with a thud as first Japan reported weaker than expected GDP which contracted for a second consecutive quarter and which technically sent the country into yet another recession, merely the latest one in its 30+ year deflationary collapse. Which isn't about to get better: "Analysts expect another quarter of contraction in the final three months of this year due to sluggish exports to China, keeping the Bank of Japan under pressure to loosen monetary policy as early as this month." Of course, there is hope that the new, old PM, Abe will restore money trees and unicorns and get Japan to a 3% inflation target, without somehow destroying bank and insurance co balance sheets in the process, all of which are loaded to the gills with JGBs set to collapse should inflation truly return. Then after Japan, China reported miserable trade data, which flatly refuted all hopes of an economic pick up both in the mainland and across the world. Perhaps the reason China can not openly fudge its trade data, unlike its GDP, inflation, retail sales, industrial production and all those other indicators that none other than the incoming head of government Li Keqiang said are for "reference only" (a fact conveiently ignored when they are all going up, and duly noted when China is self-reportedly sliding) because other countries report the counterparty data and it is very easy to catch China lying in this particular case. And finally there was Europe...

Christmas Greetings from EURO-land