Archive - Mar 4, 2013

Paul Krugman just did something mind-bending. In a recent column, he cited Minsky ostensibly to defend Alan Greenspan’s loose monetary policies. Krugman correctly identifies the mechanism here — prior to 2008, people forgot about risk.  Macroeconomic stability bred complacency. And the longer the perceived good times last, the more fragile the economy becomes, as more and more risky behaviour becomes the norm. Stability is destabilising. The Great Moderation was intimately connected to markets becoming forgetful of risk. And bubbles formed. In endorsing Minsky’s view, Krugman is coming closer to the truth. But he is still one crucial step away. If stability is destabilising, we must embrace the business cycle. Smaller cyclical booms, and smaller cyclical busts. Not boom, boom, boom and then a grand mal seizure.

The European Commission is a little embarrassed over a leaked email that warns EC staffers of the threats of traveling in Europe (and most specifically Greece). As The WSJ reports, the note, among other things; encourages staffers to invent a fake life story; warns them not to stand near windows during a protest so as not to provoke “an aggressive reaction” from demonstrators: admonishes officials to avoid bringing sensitive documents to bars or restaurants; and observes that “even the mildest reaction can be misinterpreted by protestors.” The email, published on the To Vima website, has led to an uproar, with some in the Greek press accusing the Commission of scare-mongering and insulting Greek citizens. Seemingly taking a page out of a James Bond novel, the rage against the Troika appears very real as officials warn: people you meet "don't have to know that you work for the [troika], when asked, talk about your previous profession or the one of your best friend." Troika, shaken but not stirred.

The rise of cross-border investing in recent decades is not the first time the world has seen a significant burst of financial globalization. Indeed, the Second Industrial Revolution coincided with a new era of capital mobility that extended roughly from 1860 to 1915. Foreign investment assets rose to 55 percent of GDP in the major European economies. But the ending of the first age of financial globalization provides a cautionary tale. Two world wars and a global depression not only brought this period of integration to a halt but also ushered in six decades of tightly restricted capital flows and pegged foreign exchange rates. Today it is unclear whether financial globalization will rebound or whether we will enter a similar period of more insular national financial markets.

Obama’s nominee to head the SEC, Mary Jo White, is just another gatekeeper appointed to make sure no one ever goes after the Wall Street crime syndicate.  As I have written about many times in the past, Obama does not nominate anyone to a high position of power in government who will not behave like a good little lapdog for Wall Street. Despite Obama’s propagandist statement about how “you don’t want to mess with Mary Jo,” her background implies she will function as a useful servant to the financial oligarchs.  Forget for a second about that fact at her recent firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP her clients included the usual suspects such as such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), and UBS AG, but she is actually known as the prosecutor who popularized the “slap Wall Street on the wrist” approach.

Yet again, the Greeks are coming down hard in a very un-American manner, on the body politik's misbehavior. Following our comments last week on the life sentence for the Greek Mayor who embezzled EUR 17mm, eKatherimini reports, former Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos has been sentenced to eight years in jail for failing to declare his assets properly over the last few years. While not on the same scale as the mayor's fraud, The ex-minister failed to declare 47,000 euros of assets in 2006, 33,000 in 2007 and 20,000 in 2008. The property has been seized and Akis is not allowed an appeal but the story doesn't end there for he also faces a separate trial for embezzlement of taxpayers' money.

Europe's VIX limped sideways and broadly speaking European stock markets also did the same on a relatively slow day. Intriguingly Spain's equity market was the best performer today (some high beta grab?) as Italy's was the worst -0.75% as the disconnect between the two grows in CDS markets also. Italian bond spreads pushed 8bps wider to 346bps over Bunds - a new three-month high. Credit and equity markets are moving in lockstep but chatter is that activity is quite mutes ahead of the EC meetings and their streams of useless anecdote due anytime. EURUSD is holding its lows as Europe closes - back under 1.2990.

Government Uses Law As a Sword Against Dissent

As the Franco-German divide grows wider (as we have noted here and here), it would appear the glaring differences being played out in public over monetary, fiscal, and sovereignty policies are spilling over into daily life in Germany. For the 11th month in a row German new car registrations of Peugeot (the large French car manufacturer) have plunged year-over-year. Now down over 40% in the last 12 months, registrations of the French car by German citizens is at its lowest since August 2009. Furthermore, since total new registrations of the otherwise stable German car market also posted a 10% drop, it is unlikely that any patriotic Germans will "pick French" any time soon. Perhaps this is why the effervescent French Industry minister Montebourg is so anxious to get Draghi to talk the EUR down to 1.10 to 'give oxygen to European economy' in order to juice his nation's non-European exports (though maybe not to the Japanese)...

Are we running out of time?  For the last several years, we have been living in a false bubble of hope that has been fueled by massive amounts of debt and bailout money.  This illusion of economic stability has convinced most people that the great economic crisis of 2008 was just an "aberration" and that now things are back to normal.  Unfortunately, that is not the case at all.  The truth is that the financial crash of 2008 was just the first wave of our economic troubles.  We have not even come close to recovering from that wave, and the next wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching.  Our economy is like a giant sand castle that has been built on a foundation of debt and toilet paper currency.  As each wave of the crisis hits us, the solutions that our leaders will present to us will involve even more debt and even more money printing.  And each time, those "solutions" will only make our problems even worse.  Right now, events are unfolding in Europe and in the United States that are pushing us toward the next major crisis moment.  I sincerely hope that we have some more time before the next crisis overwhelms us, but as you will see, time is rapidly running out. The following are 12 things that just happened that show the next wave of the economic collapse is almost here...

Will the Italian election impact ECB policy ?

Business as usual here perhaps - President Obama is set to announce some new nominations - but will he have a rant about sequestration?

Italian debt jumped in 2012 to 127 percent of gross domestic product from 120.8 percent a year earlier. As Bloomberg notes, that's the most since 1924, when Mussolini won 64 percent of the popular vote in elections that opposition members said were marked by irregularities. While the only irregularities in the current election were the electorates dismissal of the status quo - as Monti’s policy mix prompted 25 percent of voters to back the anti-austerity stance of comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which was the single most voted party in the country - it appears people have misunderstood the concept of austerity as spending has risen almost 3% in the last three years and taxes have not kept pace.

While the mainstream financial media continues to trumpet the wonders of stocks closing in on all-time highs, larger, more sophisticated players are preparing for a financial meltdown in a much larger market: bonds.

Central bankers have been counting on "the wealth effect" to lift their economies out of the post-2009 global meltdown slump. The wealth effect concept is simple: flooding the economy with credit and zero-interest money boosts the value of assets such as housing, stocks and bonds. Those owning the assets feel wealthier, and thus more inclined to borrow and spend more money. This new spending creates more demand which then leads employers to hire more employees. Unfortunately for the bottom 90% who don't own enough stocks to feel any wealth effect, the central bankers got it wrong: wages don't rise as a result of the wealth effect, they rise from an increased production of goods and services. Despite unprecedented money-printing, zero interest rates and vast credit expansion, real wages have declined.

Grillo refers to Berlusconi as “the psycho dwarf.” Grillo’s vision of Bersani is a “dead man walking.” In an interview that Grillo had with the New York Times over the weekend he said he would support neither side and that doing so “would be like Napoleon making a deal with Wellington.” He went on to say that, “We can change everything in the hands of respectable people, but the existing political class must be expelled immediately.” He has called for a nationwide referendum on Italy’s participation in the European Union and indicated that while Italy will pay its debts; it might be done in Lira. Do not underestimate this man. Do not assume that Italy will go on as usual and that this is just a split between the Left and the Right because this is not the case. Grillo’s call is for a new order, a new way of doing business and a new spirit for the Italians.