Archive - May 9, 2012

All is (once again) failing. What to do? Much more of the same of course. Only this time whip out the nuclear option: the Helicopter Money Drop. This is the logical next step that Citigroup's Willen Buiter sees as "Central Banks should also engage in 'helicopter money drops' to stimulate effective demand" - temporary tax cuts, increases in transfer payments, or boosts to exhaustive public spending - all financed directly by the willing central bank accomplice in the monetization gambit. In his words: "This will always be effective if it is implemented on a sufficient scale." It is not difficult to implement, would likely be politically popular (nom, nom, nom, more iPads), and in his mind need not become inflationary. He does come down to earth a little though from this likely-endgame scenario noting that "helicopter money is not [however] a solution to fiscal unsustainability." It is just a means of providing a temporary fiscal stimulus without adding to the stock of interest-bearing, redeemable public debt. Any attempt to permanently finance even rather small (permanent) general government deficits (as a share of GDP) by creating additional base money would soon – once inflation expectations adjust to this extreme fiscal dominance regime - give rise to unacceptably high rates of inflation and even hyperinflation. His estimate of the size of this one-off helicopter drop - beyond which these inflation fears may appear - is around 2% of GDP - hardly the stuff of Keynes-/Koo-ian wet dreams. The fact that this is being discussed as a possibility (and was likely always the end-game) by a somewhat mainstream economist should be shocking as perhaps this surreality is nearer than many would like to imagine.

Things are getting interesting. Despite earlier headlines that the €5.2 billion EFSF payment to Greece would be made as expected, money which would go to pay European banks and the ECB, it now seems there is more than meets the eye, and the Eurozone will in fact hold back €1 billion of the money until Monday in what is a major escalation in the relationship between the anarchy-controlled country and bankster oligarchy.

• EUROZONE HOLDS BACK €1 BILLION FOR GREECE TO MONDAY ACCORDING TO A EUROPEAN SOURCE -Dow Jones
• EFSF SAYS 4.2 BLN EURO TO BE DISBURSED MAY 10 - BBG
  
• EFSF SAYS REMAINING FUNDS 1 BLN EURO NOT NEEDED BEFORE JUNE - BBG
• EFSF SAYS REMAINING 1 BLN EURO DISBURSED DEPENDING GREECE NEEDS - BBG

May there forever reign in Europe;

Misplaced faith and bankrupt justice;

And austerity for the people;

In an a monetary Never Never Land

Mitt Romney's theory goes that by buying U.S. currency (so far they have accumulated around $3 trillion) and treasuries (around $1 trillion) on the open market, China keeps demand for the US dollar high.  They can afford to buy and hold so much US currency due to their huge trade surplus with America, and they buy US currency roughly equal to this surplus.  To keep this pile of dollars from increasing the Chinese money supply, China sterilises the dollar purchases by selling a proportionate amount of bonds to Chinese investors.  Supposedly by boosting the dollar, yuan-denominated Chinese goods look cheap to the American (and global) consumer.  What Romney is forgetting is that every nation with a fiat currency is to some degree or other a currency manipulator. That’s what fiat is all about: the ability of the state to manipulate markets through monetary policy. When Ben Bernanke engages in quantitative easing, or twisting, or any kind of monetary policy or open market operation, the Federal Reserve is engaging in currency manipulation. Every new dollar that is printed devalues every dollar out in the wild, and just as importantly all dollar-denominated debt. So just as Romney can look China in the face and accuse them of being a currency manipulator for trying to peg the yuan to the dollar, China can look at past U.S. administrations and level exactly the same claim — currency manipulation in the national interest.

In one of his most passionate speeches (which says a lot), UKIP's Nigel Farage, on the May 9th celebration of the Euro, tells his European Parliament colleagues of his grave concern at the recent elections - which are very reminiscent of the elections in Germany in 1932. He warns that Europe faces the very real prospect of mass civil unrest and even revolution as the Euro project itself could even be the cause of (in it perfect irony as the initial solution to) a rebirth of national socialism in Europe. Farage pulls no punches but in three minutes provides a clear picture of just how concerned anyone who is not merely a head-in-the-sand status-quo muddle-through'er should be with regards Europe: "It is a European union of economic failure, of mass unemployment, and of low growth"

Just because the market is totally insane, the fact that the upsized $24 billion 10 year priced at the lowest yield on record, or 1.855% (just inside of the 1.86% When Issued): a glaring indication of fleeing from all risk and into safe-ish collateral in a world of reyhpothecated junk, will likely send stocks higher. The fact that the bid to cover came at 2.90, or the lowest since November's 2.64 will be ignored. In terms of the internals, the Dealers took down 45.5%, Indirects: 38.7%, and Directs 15.8%, all more or less in line with average. The algos will now process the headline, be completely confused, and buy the S&P even as total US debt crosses $15.7 trillion.

There has been much speculation about how the Greek endgame will play out, but precious little from the perspective of Germany. Until today. Courtesy of a three part series from Handeslblatt (here, here and here) we now know precisely what the next steps are as visualized by Europe's piggybank, which now is telegraphing it is set to cut Europe's most wayward child loose.

The dulcet tones of Jim Grant provided much food for thought on Tom Keene's Bloomberg Radio show this morning. While the interest rate observer did not change his tack on the extreme experimentation of world's central banks, he did have some new perspective on the incredible moral hazard (or unintended consequence) that is being created. One of his main criticisms is the incredible arrogance and conceit of a central banking system that believes it can see the future and thwart things before they come to pass, as he notes "I blame the central bankers for confusing the black art of central planning with the traditional art of central banking". He fully expects more easing by the Fed and its friends as he awaits their response to this latest stumble in the markets but what is most evident to him is that "The Fed owns the stock market" since they have financially repressed all investors into risky assets they now have been forced to have a moral responsibility to keep us safe in those assets - incredibly! The Fed is more likely than not to intervene with still more money-printing in any effort to keep this bubble afloat. What Jim focuses on is the morality in economics and the current immoral policies that have very bad consequences.

As we pointed out yesterday when we correctly summarized that "Spain Appears Unsure What A "Bank Bailout" Means", we said "Spain is to require its banks to set aside more provisions (between EUR20 billion and EUR40 billion) in an effort to overhaul the country's financial sector. This additional need for reserves (or provisioning) puts yet more pressure on the banks' balance sheets as it comes on top of the already EUR54 billion that has been set aside from February. Interestingly the EUR20-40 billion still falls dramatically short of Goldman Sachs' estimate of an additional EUR58 billion that is needed to cover reasonable loss assumptions. We can only assume that the game is to create as large a hole as is possible without tipping the world over the brink and then fill it with the state funds a la TARP (as Rajoy has indicated will be the case)." Well, as it turns out there was no ulterior motive behind the stupidity which is merely ad hoc improvisation of the worst kind that we saw back in Greece in the summer of 2011. Because according to IFR, not only is the bailout going to be woefully insufficient, but also, will be a 100% dud, as "Spain is likely to offer some banks the chance to opt out of some of the reforms set to be announced on Friday following heavy lobbying from the industry, according to two people familiar with discussions." In other words an insufficient bank sector nationalization, which will affect on some, but not those who actually need it, in what is now so clearly just another exercise (think stress test) to give the impression that the Spanish banking system is solvent. In the meantime, absolutely nothing will happen with the hundreds of billions of underwater mortgages carried by the big banks, which will merely fester until they finally become the Fed's problem.

If you're not familiar with the concept of "Cost Shifting", the deadly (to your competition) effect of negative margins or believe that Google is search engine or ad co., then this article/video is a must read/see.

What we have is a Central State and an economy that has borrowed and squandered trillions of dollars on consumption and malinvestment in unproductive "stranded" assets. The debt and risk pile up, while the labor that results from consumption is temporary and does not create wealth or permanent employment. Figuratively speaking, we're stranded in a McMansion in the middle of nowhere, a showy malinvestment that produces no wealth or value, and we're wondering how we're going to pay the gargantuan mortgage and student loans. Debt and the risk generated by rising debt create a death-spiral when the money is squandered on consumption, phantom assets, speculation and malinvestments. Sadly, that systemic misallocation of capital puts the job market in a death spiral, too.

Remember that very disappointing Q1 GDP print of 2.2%? Well, Goldman just dragged it even lower.

Back in the middle of March, when all was sunshine and unicorns in the post-LTRO world of recovery and another sustainable recovery, we were vociferous in our noting that nothing has been fixed and LTRO3 is not coming. Sure enough, here we are a few weeks later and the encumbering stigma that we were the first to point out (and call Draghi out on) is now wider than at any time since the LTRO program began with the banks that took LTRO loans now trading wide of pre-LTRO levels (fully stigmatized despite all that extra liquidity). Today saw the Stigma spread between LTRO and non-LTRO banks jump its most in 2 months to over 160bps (its highest in almost six months). There is however a troubling conundrum facing the ECB. The banks that need another LTRO (or liquidity) no longer have performing collateral to pledge and other banks that would like liquidity will not take it since they now understand the encumbrance and stigma that is attached to that decision. The ECB is snookered (and so is it any wonder that Draghi is playing for time) and perhaps this is why we are seeing the EUR leak lower against the USD as markets anticipate some more direct monetization mandate-busting action by the ECB (shifting the Fed/ECB balance and implicitly the flow between the two that we have also pointed out as critical). Either way, there is no LTRO3 coming anytime soon and together with this morning's jumps in liquidity funding costs, the vicious circles are ramping up again in Europe.

Remember the headline frenzy from last summer. It's baaaaaaaack. From Athens News:

A shocking and possibly groundbreaking turn of events. According to Net television, Pasok head Evangelos Venizelos has agreed to sign a letter related to the memorandum with Syriza chief Alexis Tsipras. What that letter will say is as yet unknown, but Net are standing by their sources. The temperature in the coalition room just spiked up.

This could go either way: if spun as pro-bailout, expect a 100 pip surge in the EURUSD. If not - don't, especially if it turns out to be an "agreement" with changes any of the terms of the Greek bailout, something Germany will not take too kindly to.

The latest out of the doomed continent:

• EURO ZONE DEBATING DELAY OF EUR5.2B MAY 10 PAYMENT TO GREECE - DOW JONES
• SOME GOVERNMENTS CONCERNED ABOUT MAKING A PAYMENT TO GREECE AMID POLITICAL TURMOIL

And so the check bounces, which is ironic, because as we repeatedly explained, the Greek bailout is not about Greece: it is merely to allow Europe to bailout its banks via ECB and Troika funded interest payments and using Greece as a passthru vehicle. Luckily, that particularly aggravating farce may soon be ending.