Archive - Jun 2012

“A new breach in the dam”

... and Regulators Have Become “Cops On the Take”

With so much hollow and pointless discussion over the past week, month and year over such fundamentally trivial things as who will inject more money faster, who will be bailed out first, who will go back to their own currency before everyone else, it is easy to forget that reality actually matters. And the reality is not who has their CTRL-P macro stuck, but what does the future of the world truly hold when one sidesteps such idiotic flights of fancy that debt may be cured with more debt. In order to completely change the topic from what has become trivial and generic - i.e., the various encroaching forms of central planning: Fed, SCOTUS, G-8 through G-20; European Finance Ministers, and now, with the ESM passing German parliament, the German Constitutional Court, we focus on something few have discussed, yet all have a morbid fascination with: Robots... And China. And why the combination of the two just may be the most dangerous thing for China's several hundred million strong migrant labor force, which, on the margin may just be the deciding factor defining the engine of global growth for the next decade. Oh, and did we mention global structural unemployment which will only get worse as increasing automation leaves more and more millions collecting their 99 weeks of extended unemployment benefits.

The most recent decade of 2000 to 2010 has seen the fastest rate of change in the global economic balance in history. During this period, a recent McKinsey research article notes, the world's economic center of gravity has shifted by about 140km per year - about 30% faster than in the period after World War II when global GDP shifted from Europe to North America. The world’s center of economic gravity has changed over past centuries. But since the mid-1980s, the pace of that shift—from the United States and Europe toward Asia— has been increasing dramatically as China is urbanizing on 100 times the scale of Britain in the 18th century and at more than 10 times the speed. One has to wonder what the difference would be were it not for the flawed economic model adopted since the 1980s that relied on debt and asset price inflation to drive demand (as opposed to wage growth linked to productivity growth).

UPDATE: Added 'The Post-FOMC Window-Dressing Roadmap' - or high-beta-rescue...

Stocks opened around 2% gap higher this morning after the late-night headlines from Europe made many think that the tooth-fairy and Santa are real once again. S&P 500 e-mini futures saw some selling into the open but then stabilized amid a very narrow range for much of the rest of the day - leaking higher on low volume-driven short-covering. The news from Germany of ESM ratification was greeted with absolutely no price movement as an indication of just how insane things are but the need to drive stocks up in the last few minutes was crazy. Into the close, volume exploded as ES rose 10pts in minutes from absolutely nowhere. Average trade size was very heavy during this period and delta skewed notably to block selling into the ramp though it is never that obvious. ES closed above its 50DMA back to its highest since 5/8. Everyone enjoyed the day's window-dressing escapades aside from JPM which dropped 3% from its opening levels and closed in the red. The main takeaway is that most risk assets recovered to last week's highs but stocks turned the amplifier of insanity to 11 and pushed back to near two-month highs not to be outdone into quarter-end (wink wink).

Journalism is about asking questions that corporations, governments and establishments don’t want to answer. It’s about reporting the full-story, no matter how many toes you step on. It’s about opening up power to real scrutiny. And that is something that the propagandists in big media are often incapable of — which of course is why big media is slowly dying. We need to know the depth and width of Fast and Furious and the programs which preceded it: how was it authorised, how was it designed, how did it go wrong, who was to blame for it going wrong. We need to know whether or not the widely-spread allegation that the Obama administration has sold guns directly to Los Zetas is true. We need to know whether or not El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel are working with the DEA and the Mexican government. (Both of these allegations are widely accepted as fact in Mexico). We need to know why Obama has chosen to continue the failed drug war, even in spite of overwhelming evidence that the illegality of drugs is the very thing that empowers the criminal cartels, and in spite of the fact that Obama is a former drug user.

How should we say this: we are shocked, shocked, that the DOJ won't prosecute itself.

BREAKING: DOJ says it won't prosecute Attorney General Holder after the GOP-led House voted to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress - Fox

And now, back to the far more important news of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes divorcing.

With everyone scrambling to buy into the bathsalts rally, and shorts rushing to cover with a panic bordering on a QE-announcement, it is somewhat ironic that today's voice of muted reason comes from none other than Liebor expert extraordinaire: Barclays, whose suggestion is simple: lock your profits: "We remain bearish on EURUSD, expecting it to grind slowly down to 1.15 over the next 12 months. We therefore suggest investors look to fade this morning's European currency strength versus the USD and non European commodity currencies such as the AUD and CAD." Why? They have their listed reasons. The unlisted ones are the same that every other bank has for becoming bearish recently (we have recently listed Citi, Goldman, SocGen and DB to name but a few): for a real fiscal and monetary policy intervention to take place (i.e., a rescue package that lasts at least a few months, as opposed to today's several day max rally): the market has to be tumbling. That, as we have explained repeatedly, is the only way to get a powerful response. Everything else is (quarter end) window dressing.

The EU summit to save the Euro (the nineteenth, or thereabouts) has, quite remarkably, agreed to do something to try and save the Euro. As UBS' Paul Donavan notes "As ever with a Euro summit there are unanswered questions. Grandiose statements are what heads of government specialise in – the details are left to later" - it is one of the reasons why Maastricht produced a monetary union that was flawed from the outset. Once “create a single currency” had been agreed, politicians lost interest. The statement from the summit itself was woefully inadequate, but below UBS lays out what additional questions need to be answered. Always keep in mind though, "Going into this summit we had a monetary union in Europe that clearly did not work. Coming out of this summit we have a monetary union that still does not work."

Say what you will about JPM's soon to be former employee (once the IG trade complex is fully unwound... sometime in 2013) Bruno Iksil, but you don't get to run up a several hundred billions notional CDS book (and blow it up) by being stupid. No, Bruno was certainly not stupid. In fact, he has reportedly exhibited precisely the very same brilliant trait that Europe's also very smart central-planners, as well as all other people in positions of power under the current status quo regime, demonstrate day in and day out: "Baffle With Bullshit."

Initially presenting the potential problems of our current healthcare environment, the creator of 'the bears that explained Quantitative Easing' provides much food for thought on the unintended consequences of Obamacare (in all its 2700 page glory). For everything you need to know about how it devolved to this ("To understand healthcare in America, you have to think about bananas") and how to think about the new tax's potential implications (e.g. lower quality of service, capped hiring rates among employers), seven minutes well spent.

Last week it was Merkel promising she would die before she allowed Eurobonds (technically this has not been refuted: all she has done is allowed... uhmm... err... we don't really know - lots of confusing headlines out there, lots of chatter, a big short squeeze and no actual details). And now, here comes...

• GERMAN FINANCE MINISTER SCHAEUBLE SAYS NO EURO BONDS IN HIS LIFETIME EITHER WITHOUT COMMON FINANCIAL POLICY

And by common financial policy of course they mean "joint sovereignty" or at least all European gold pledge at Geld4Gold. Time to send Goldman's ambassador to Germany to investigate.

Everyone knows that Italy's unelected PM, Mario Monti, is a former Goldman Sachs International 'advisor.' As such, it is only natural that being part of the banking cartel he would do everything in his power to promote an inflationary agenda, one that seeks ECB bond monetization intervention, (another central bank headed by a former Goldmanite of course), perpetuates the status quo, and one that naturally contravenes everything that German citizens have been pushing for in their desire to avoid the risk of another hyperinflationary episode. Especially if, as is well-known, resolving Europe's problems, however briefly, facilitates an Obama re-election campaign because as conventional wisdom is also catching on, should Europe implode before November, Obama's reelection chances plunge accordingly. And yet, even as Goldman's tentacles had spread all over Europe (as seen here), conventional wisdom was that Goldman's influence in Germany was relatively muted.

Wrong.

Following a 3-sigma fall yesterday, WTI crude has rebounded exuberantly amid the European ecstacy and the Iran Oil Embargo. Up almost 9% from late yesterday's lows (a 6-sigma jump), it appears yet another squeeze is in play (perhaps from demand-pull on the back of Hillary's unyielding national policy - oh yeah apart from China and Singapore). While the WSJ notes: "There's no material price premium from the Iran issue", it seems the potential for an epic short-squeeze - as Iran's largest importer of Oil (cough China cough) is now exempt (and continuing to hoard) leaving refiners potentially tight on supply - as macro tail-risk is seemingly removed from the downside by the 'nothing' summit we just experienced.

This week may very well go down as 'connect the dots' week. Things have been moving so quickly, so let's step back briefly and review the big picture from the week's events. When you connect the dots, the next steps lead to what may soon be regarded as an obvious conclusion: the system, as it exists right now, is crumbling. No amount of self-delusion can make this go away. Rational thinking and measured action, on the other hand, can make the consequences go away... turning people from victims into spectators of the greatest bubble burst in modern times.