Archive - Feb 20, 2012

While all eyes are on Europe and its Greek farce, Japan is advancing at an inexorable pace...

You read headlines that Greece is saved (in a carbon copy release from July 21). Now read the truth behind the lies - presenting the 9 page (so it's brief enough) Greek sustainability (or lack thereof) analysis.

Yeah, we had the same response as our readers when we saw that freak move in the EURUSD. Apparently, despite the fact that absolutely nothing has been resolved, Reuters just ran a headline that "Euro zone reaches deal on second Greek bailout package." And that is all it took for the EURUSD headline scanning algos to surge by 60 100 pips. That there nothing substantial in it, or that this is merely a rephrasing of the actual Bailout 2 announcement from before, is irrelevant. Here is what the actual Reuters report said.

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries..."--Brussels EURO Canard

The FT's Peter Spiegel has scoped up some additional details from the 10 page debt sustainability analysis that is at the basis of the latest Greek bailout talks. Some of the critical details:

• "even under the most optimistic scenario, the austerity measures being imposed on Athens risk a recession so deep that Greece will not be able to climb out of the debt hole over the course of the new €170bn bail-out."
• A German-led group of creditor countries – including the Netherlands and Finland – has expressed extreme reluctance since they received the report about the advisability of allowing the second rescue to go through.
• A “tailored downside scenario” prepared for eurozone leaders in the report suggests Greek debt could fall far more slowly than hoped, to only 160 per cent of economic output by 2020 – far below the target of 120 per cent set by the International Monetary Fund
  • Under such a scenario, Greece would need about €245bn in bail-out aid, nearly twice the €136bn under the “baseline” projections.
• “Prolonged financial support on appropriate terms by the official sector may be necessary,” the report said, a clear reference to the possibility that bail-out funds may be needed indefinitely.
• Even in best case scenario country will need at least €50 billion on top of €136 billion.
• A recapitalisation of the Greek banking sector, which originally was projected to cost €30bn, will now cost €50bn. A highly touted Greek privatisation plan, which originally hoped to raise €50bn, will now be delayed by five years and bring in only €30bn by the end of the decade.

Translated, this is yet another confirmation of what we have claimed all along - that Germany is no longer playing along.

Update 3: Conference begins now

Update 2: At this point the conference, if at all, will be held at 3:30 am CET. Probably would be better to just scrap it all, put a fork in Greece and go home. The second the 10 page Greek "sustainability" report hits the public it's lights out.

Update: 23:00 CET has come and gone. Next stop: midnight. As a reminder, the October 2011 official second Greek bailout announcement was delayed until 4 am.

According to a just released update on the website of the European Council, the much anticipated press conference "to end all press conferences" will take place at 23:00 CET, or 5 pm Eastern. What will then likely happen is another delay until midnight, then later, then finally when Europe is sleeping a few finance ministers will say that the Deal is virtually done, the terms of the PSI are agreed upon (except that "some" creditors, those who have a blocking stake, will vote no and force the use of CACs and thus trigger a default before March 20) with the exception of a few minor outstanding items, such as whose debt is cut to bring total Debt/GDP to 120% by 2020, which they hope to get resolved shortly. And so this latest and greatest meeting will come and go, and anyone who shorted the Belgian caterers will be broke when the market opens up tomorrow, when Belgian catering ETFs all go limit up.

American firearm sales and concealed handgun permit applications are at all-time highs since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. President Obama's perceived hostility towards gun owners has been one of the key factors behind the multi-year financial boom the firearms industry continues to enjoy. Ironically, said hostilityhas actually helped the firearms industry tremendously. Since the 2008 election, more Americans than ever before are purchasing firearms & ammunition. This has meant massive increases in sales by firearm & ammunition makers, billions more in federal and state tax collections related to guns & ammo, increased membership in the NRA, and hundreds of thousands of new Americans carrying concealed handguns. Therefore, should the firearms industry support President Obama for a second term or not?

A massive 150bn euro bill exclusively reserved for the EU-IMF funding of the "official" (OSI) and the private (PSI) sector participations in the Greek writedown on Greek debt may be the key factor behind the ongoing delays in the eurozone finance ministers' approval of a second bailout for Greece. This factor remains concealed behind media hysteria about the supposed failure of Athens to comply with a brutal austerity diktat by the EU-IMF-ECB 'troika'....The question is how will the Eurogroup approve these PSI participation costs that far exceed the supposed gain from the 100bn euro "haircut" but also leave nothing to cover Greece's debt servicing obligations for 2012-2014 of at least another 70bn euros to say nothing of possible budget deficits due to the collapse of public revenues in the fifth consecutive year of a Greek depression. All the histrionics about forcing Greece to set up a separate “escrow account that would give legal priority to debt and interest payments over paying for government expenses”, is nothing but a smokescreen for piling massive sums of fresh public debt on Greece's shoulders without lending a single penny to make up for the economic catastrophe meted out on the country.

The first details of the Greek bond deal are leaking out via Reuters, and we now learn the reason for the Greek bond sell off in recent days:

• UNDER GREEK DEBT SWAP, PRIVATE SECTOR WILL GET 3% COUPON ON BONDS FROM 2012-20, 3.75% COUPON FROM 2021 ONWARDS [2021... LOL]
• PRIVATE SECTOR WILL ALSO GET A GDP-LINKED ADDITIONAL PAYMENT, CAPPED AT 1 PCT OF THE OUTSTANDING AMOUNT OF NEW BONDS [If it appears that nobody gives a rat's ass about this bullet point, it's because it's true]
• GREEK BANK RECAPITALISATION NEEDS MAY NOW BE AS MUCH AS 50 BLN EUROS-DEBT SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS

Which in turn explains the sell off in pre-petition Greek junior triple subordinated bonds (i.e., those held by private unconnected investors, which are subordinated to the Troika's bailout loans, to the ECB's SMP purchases, to the Public Sector bonds and to UK-law bonds in that order). With the EFSF Bill "sweetener" amounting to about 15 cents (and likely less), the fact that bondholders will receive a 3% cash coupon, a cash on cash return based on Greek bonds of 2015 trading at just 20.7 cents on the euro, indicates that investors are expecting to collect 1 cash coupon payment, and at absolute best 2, before redefault, as buying a 2015 bond now at 20.7 of par, yields a full cash return of 21 (15+3+3), thus the third coupon payment is assured not to come. And since there is a substantial upside risk premium kicker to bond buyers, in reality the investing market is saying that Greece will last at best about a year following the debt exchange (if it ever even happens) before the country redefaults.

Originally published on Slope of Hope last month, I thought it was worth bringing over here to ZH....

If you're like most Americans, you hadn't heard of James Stockdale until he showed up for the 1992 Vice Presidential debates and made this famous line.......

Once we see what Europe is really going to do, not what they have told us they might do, the real show gets underway. Everything up till now was just a preamble, a mincemeat of words flowing like a unsubstantiated river from mouths full of fluff, orated by the deceptors and laid out on a table where cheese was pointed to as Prime Rib and where radishes were sworn to be asparagus but these days end tomorrow and as sure as the sun rises in the East; tomorrow will arrive.  There is the collateral for Finland, the CDS trigger, the “Collective Action Clause, who is really represented by the IIF, the $20Bn budget shortfall, the contribution of the IMF, the methodology for handing Greece the money, possible further notions that Greece has not met its commitments, law suits on the way for the ECB’s subordination of private bond holders and for the “haircut” coercion where different classes of investors have been retroactively applied and for the retroactive implementation of some “CAC”. All of these things are forthcoming regardless of what we find in Europe’s pronouncements so that the lens laid over today’s sun will tomorrow be removed and the glare of the light will be startling in its clarity and reflection.

The latest report from Morgan Stanley's Graham Secker can be summarized simply as follows: i) in January everything has disconnected as traditional linkages between asset classes have broken down, ii) also in January every major asset class (equities, treasurys, gold, oil) was up materially, iii) such a phenomenon has been seen only 5 times in the past 5 years, iv) a double digit decline followed 3 of the past 4 such surges. Then again, as Bob Janjuah lamented earlier, when a bunch of bespectacled economists who have never held a real job in their academic careers since transplanted with banker blessings to various central bank buildings, and who continue to plan the fate of the world in secrecy (a fate that can be summarized as follows: CTRL+P), as the only marginal decision makers, who really cares anymore?

The ECB and Fed seemed to have pushed Roubini and others into the capitulation. As a rough guess, only about 3 of the up days this year had anything to do with earnings and economic data (the NFP day being the most obvious). The rest were all induced by some political or central bank action. Frankly I’m surprised we weren’t up more in Europe today with the Chinese Bank Reserve Ratio getting cut. At any moment we should get details of all the next steps for the Greek bailouts. We will get to see the ECB swap, the PSI proposal, and retroactive collective action clauses. It will be interesting to see how that works. After the Greek default (yes, bondholders giving up 50% of their notional is a default), it will be interesting to see how Greece does. Hopefully they will actually spend some time trying to figure out alternative ways to finance themselves than the ever more onerous bailout packages from the Troika.

While it has been well-documented by now, that even as the campaign of Mitt Romney continues to be funded exclusively by Wall Street legacy firms, that of Ron Paul is largely in the hands of the US military. Yet when it comes to the recently infamous SuperPAC, things have changed. Because as Politico reports, of the roughly $3.4 million total in cash raised by the pro-Paul group Endorse Liberty since its founding on December 20, none other than PayPal cofounder and Clarium Capital chief Peter Thiel has donated $2.6 million. So as the renegade financier, whose opinion on Ben Bernanke and the gold standard is well-known to Zero Hedge regulars emerges as a primary backer of all that is wrong with the status quo, and the Ben Bernanke way of monetary suicide, we wonder who is next? Actually, scratch that: Bill Gross has already made his opinion well known vis-a-vis Ron Paul's candidacy. Isn't it about time the Newport Beach multibillionaire reached into his back pocket and put his money where his mouth is, especially following his tongue in cheek endorsement of Ron Paul for president?