Archive - Jun 2012

The housing market is sending mixed signals in 2012.

Ten days ago when presenting the live Reuters polling tracker we said, "just as the most actively watched live update on June 17 will be the Greek parliament seat map as voting is tallied, so each and every day from now until then, everyone's attention will be glued to daily update from Greek election polls." Well, as of end of day Friday, a moratorium to publish polls come into effect which means that for the next 2 weeks Europe will be officially in the dark, clueless as to how the political winds in Greece are blowing.

10 Questions ...

We have reached a point where the shepherd has shouted “wolf” one too many times, where the theatre goer has shouted “fire” one too many times and the crowd no longer believes the jargon and is standing pat. From one politician to the next in Europe the words are strikingly the same; “bold actions, courageous decisions, decisive plans” which are meant to stoke the propaganda machine and assure the world that all is well. We have had the bank stress tests; the first pockmarked by inaccurate data checked by no one and the second humiliated by an inaccurate construct which discredited it by its own shameless manipulation. We face a world where contingent liabilities, promises to pay and guarantees of debts are NOT counted and where asset guarantees, illusionary firewalls and unfunded rescue programs ARE counted and in some cases counted more than once. Europe has, in fact, provided a complex system of hoaxes, inaccurate data and false financial reports that have been for the most part believed but that belief system is now crumbling as every quarter presents new data that proves the inaccuracy of what we have been told.

True tales of Capitalist Cannibalism...

What would the weekend be without at least one rumor that Europe is on the verge of fixing everything, or failing that, planning for a master fix, OR failing that, planning for a master plan to fix everything. Sure enough, we just got the latter, which considering nobody really believes anything out of Europe anymore, especially not something that has not been signed, stamped and approved by Merkel herself, is rather ballsy. Nonetheless, one can't blame them for trying: "The chiefs of four European institutions are in the process of creating a master plan for the euro zone, the daily Die Welt reports Saturday, in an advance release of an article to be published Sunday. Suggestions targeting a fiscal, banking, and political union, as well as structural reforms, are being worked out..." Less than credible sources report that Spiderman towels (which are now trading at negative repo rates) and cross-rehypothecated kitchen sinks are also key components of all future "master plans" which sadly are absolutely meaningless since the signature of Europe's paymaster - the Bundesrepublik - is as usual lacking. Which is why, "the plan may well mean that the euro zone adopts measures not immediately accepted by the whole of the European Union, the article adds." So... European sub-union? Hardly strange is that just as this latest desperate attempt at distraction from the complete chaos in Europe (which will only find a resolution once XO crosses 1000 as we and Citi suggested two weeks ago and when the world is truly on the verge of the abyss), none other than George Soros has just started a 3-month countdown to European the European D(oom)-Day.

The precautionary principle is typically defined as “if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific evidence that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.”  In practice, the principle is utilized by government policy makers to ensure technological advances don’t pose too dire of an effect on the surrounding environment.  This may appear a noble goal if one accepts the premise that the prime function of government is the protection of life and property.  History proves otherwise as easily corruptible politicians have tended to grant exceptions to wealthy business interests which look to dump their waste in public-owned natural resources such as waterways.  It is also clear judging by historical cases that socialization often results in environmental degradation.  One look at the pollution in once-communist nations such as China or the former Soviet Union reveals that a lack of private property results in a type of moral hazard en masse as there is little incentive to preserve what you don’t officially own.

A Micro-Movie on denial and the dollar.

Dodge City, Kansas is a lovely place. The home to 26,101 people regularly enjoy old west casinos, old west rodeos and old west movies. Like we say – it is a lovely place. Yet years ago when it was still cool to be a cowboy, cowboys of all types were getting’ out of Dodge. And who could blame them - bullets flew around town on a regular basis. As we look across the globe today, Dodge City’s are popping up all over the place across America, Europe and Asia. However, within the World of financial markets, government sponsored economic policies are desperately trying to keep everyone in the 2012 financial version of Dodge. Today’s question of the century is which market is the equivalent of Dodge? One thing is for sure, financial bullets are flying fast and furious these days forcing every sane investor to keep their head down. For all other investors, be a good cowboy and be sure to have an exit plan – you never know when you’ll need it.

Excuse a rant...

Despite - or because of - years of ineffectual gyrations by the Fed

Back in December 2010 Zero Hedge was the first to point out what is easily the most troubling characteristic within America's evaporating labor force: its gradual transition to a part-time worker society. We elaborated on this back in February when we noted that the quality assessment of US jobs indicates that this most disturbing trend is accelerating. Finally, yesterday, the BLS' latest jobs report confirmed that our concerns have been valid all along: as of May, part-time jobs just as disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit an all time high, over 28 million! These are people who traditionally have zero job benefits, including healthcare and retirement, and which according to the BLS "work less than 35 hours per week." In other words, as little as one hour per week of "work" is enough to classify one a part-time worker. More disturbing: the increase in part-time jobs in May compared to April: 618,000, or the fifth highest on record. It gets better: when added with the 508,000 increase in part-time jobs in April, this is the largest two month increase in part time-jobs in history. Which means of course that full time jobs in May must have declined: sure enough, at a -266,000 drop in full time jobs, the quality composition of the NFP report was just abysmal and makes any reported "increase" in those employed into a sad farce.

The recent elections in Egypt now lead to a showdown between the two top vote getters on June 16/17. The protagonists, Ahmed Shaiq (former PM for Mubarak and candidate of the military) vs. Mohammed Mursi (Muslim Brotherhood), pits two candidates most of the population really doesn’t want in the first place. Kind of like Obama vs. Romney. Where’s Ron Paul on the ballot, right? The problem here is Egypt’s position on the timeline of revolution. Egypt has gone through the 1st Stage of a government loosing its justification to govern, and now the 2nd Stage of a caretaker, or provisional government, is now coming to an end. However, no accommodation has been created to correct the deficiencies that caused Egypt’s Spring Revolution, and that spells trouble.

To be clear, the Fed, indeed, Global Central Banks in general, have never had to deal with a problem the size of the coming EU’s Banking Crisis. I want to stress all of these facts because I am often labeled as being just “doom and gloom” all the time. But I am not in fact doom and gloom. I am a realist. And EU is a colossal mess beyond the scope of anyone’s imagination. The World’s Central Banks cannot possibly hope to contain it. They literally have one of two choices:

1. Monetize everything (hyperinflation)
2. Allow the defaults and collapse to happen (mega-deflation)

May is a month most would like to forget, especially those short IG 9-18 (and understandably so: in a world in which the virtuous cycle is now broken, and in which the only upside catalyst is central planner intervention, the money printers have been eerily silent). So just to remind readers of everything that happened in the past month, here are 95 slides from MS with the definitive summary of, well, everything that happened in the past month.