Archive - Aug 5, 2013

Are American workers paid enough?  That is a topic that is endlessly debated all across this great land of ours.  Unfortunately, what pretty much everyone can agree on is that American workers are not making as much as they used to after you account for inflation.  Back in 1968, the minimum wage in the United States was $1.60 an hour.  That sounds very small, but after you account for inflation a very different picture emerges.  Using the inflation calculator that the BLS provides, $1.60 in 1968 is equivalent to $10.74 today. According to the Social Security Administration, 40.28% of all workers make less than $20,000 a year in America today.  So that means that more than 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.  That is how far we have fallen.

While Europe, and especially Germany has been understandably "displeased" with having to provide billions in bailout upon bailout funding to Greece every year starting in 2010, all the more so following recent news that Greece has already spent some 75% of its bank bailout cash with no discernible improvement in its economy to show for it, Europes' taxpayers will unlikely be any more pleased to learn that as of the end of June, a whopping €60 billion in past due taxes (an all time record) was owed by Greek businesses and individuals to the state. This is an amount that is 20% greater than the entire external cash handed over by the Troika to keep Greek banks afloat, and represents nearly 30% of imploding Greek GDP.

So, somehow the US economy is roaring back in a big way? Hard to see. Over 70% of the economy is consumer spending. And spending is driven by incomes. And incomes are… falling.

The American Petroleum Institute said last week the U.S. oil and natural gas sector was an engine driving job growth. Eight percent of the U.S. economy is supported by the energy sector, the industry's lobbying group said, up from the 7.7 percent recorded the last time the API examined the issue. The employment assessment came as the Energy Department said oil and gas production continued to make gains across the board. With the right energy policies in place, API said the economy could grow even more. But with oil and gas production already at record levels, the narrative over the jobs prospects may be failing on its own accord.

With PMIs picking up across Europe, the nations' 'leaders' are spreading the good word that the worst is over (again) and its all sunshine and unicorns from here. But it's not. As Cyprus' Anastasiades glibly comments on small improvements in their capital controls - amid collapsing deposits, bluntly ignoring the reality of a record implosion in the nation's home prices, the facts for the man on the street are dismal. The number of jobless people in the smallest EU nation jumped 32% year-over-year to its highest in the 19 years data has been collected.

In 2001, the Patriot Act opened the door to US government monitoring of Americans without a warrant. It was unconstitutional, but most in Congress over my strong objection were so determined to do something after the attacks of 9/11 that they did not seem to give it too much thought. Civil liberties groups were concerned, and some of us in Congress warned about giving up our liberties even in the post-9/11 panic. But at the time most Americans did not seem too worried about the intrusion. This complacency has suddenly shifted given recent revelations of the extent of government spying on Americans. What is even more important, though, is for more and more and more Americans to educate themselves about our precious liberties and to demand that their government abide by the Constitution. We do not have to accept being lied to – or spied on -- by our government.

The bankruptcy of Detroit, though long-anticipated, has unleashed a wave of speculation about the health of other cities in the U.S., and indeed, in the world - for example, China. Despite the visible importance of urban centers and cities for thousands of years, it seems our understanding of their dynamics is still incomplete. Nonetheless, the dramatic decline of Detroit and other industrial cities makes us wonder if there are dynamics that we can identify that could enable us to predict which cities will thrive and which will decay.

Please do not worry...

Remember the "Greekovery"? For those who may have forgotten, it is a scene straight out of Breaking Bad.

It would appear that in the order of who knows what when, in the case of JCPenney, it is C-level executives first, credit markets second (was Goldman's line a pre-DIP?), and equity shareholders (Ackamn included) last. With the torrent of executve departures in the last year, credit market investors led the equity over the past two weeks as credit lines were (allegedly) pulled. Today's 50bps rise in JCP's 5Y CDS pushes the company's risk of bankruptcy to its highest ever (arguably higher than 65% over the next few years given the secured assets). JCP's stock is down 2% on the day but still holding above its April (and 2009) lows (for now).

Today, we have not one but two quotes of the day courtesy of Dick Fisher:

• FISHER SAYS MEXICAN GOVERNMENT BETTER RUN THAN U.S. GOVERNMENT
• FISHER SAYS MEXICO GOV'T ANTITHESIS OF U.S. GOV'T ON FISCAL, BUDGET

Brilliant, 100% accurate and absolutely hypocritical. Because the only reason the US government is the epitome of disorganized confusion, record partisan bickering and sheer chaos is because it has the Federal Reserve to pick up the pieces for its failure to come together on any one fiscal issue. And the Fed is perfectly happy to accommodate the same dysfunctional Congress by enabling it to do nothing not for one, two, or three but four years running now, and likely will continue into 2014 and further, in the process continuing an unprecedented wealth transfer from the poor to the uber rich. The same Fed that Dick just happens to be part of.

"This is a delicate moment. The Fed has created a monetary Gordian Knot.  Whereas before, our portfolio consisted primarily of instantly tradable short-term Treasury paper, now we hold almost none; our portfolio consists primarily of longer-term Treasuries and MBS. Without delving into the various details and adjustments that could be made (such as considerations of assets readily available for purchase by the Fed), we now hold roughly 20 percent of the stock and continue to buy more than 25 percent of the gross issuance of Treasury notes and bonds. Further, we hold more than 25 percent of MBS outstanding and continue to take down more than 30 percent of gross new MBS issuance. Also, our current rate of MBS purchases far outpaces the net monthly supply of MBS. The point is: We own a significant slice of these critical markets. This is, indeed, something of a Gordian Knot."

"Financial markets may have become too acustomed to what some have depicted as a Fed put," Dallas Fed's Fisher warns, causing "serious misallocations of capital."

• *FED'S FISHER SAYS U.S. INVESTORS CAN'T RELY ON A FED 'PUT'
• *FED'S FISHER RECOMMENDS TAPERING STARTING 'THIS FALL'
• *FISHER: FED MUST AVOID 'MARKET HAVOC' IN BOND-PURCHASE TAPERING

Once again, the non-voting 'feral hog' caller is a voice of some reason amid the calls for moar...

First it was the TBAC's May presentation "Availability of High Quality Collateral" piggybacking on reasoning presented previously by Credit Suisse. Then JPM's resident "flow and liquidity" expert Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou rang the bell on regulatory changes to shadow banking and how they would impact the repo market and collateral availability (and transformation) in an adverse fashion. Now, it is the turn of Barclays' own repo chief Joseph Abate to highlight a topic we have discussed since 2009: the ongoing contraction in quality collateral as a result of transformations in shadow banking and the Fed's extraction of quality collateral from traditional liquidity conduits (i.e., QE's monetization of bonds). To wit: "Several recent regulatory proposals will increase the pressure on banks to reduce assets that carry low risk weights. Repurchase agreements are a large source of banks’ low-risk assets, and we expect banks to reduce their matched book operations in response to these proposals."

Tepco is struggling to contain the highly radioactive water that is seeping into the ocean near Fukushima. The head of Japan's NRA, Shinji Kinjo exclaimed, "right now, we have an emergency," as he noted the contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier and is rising toward the surface - exceeding the limits of radioactive discharge. In a rather outspoken comment for the typically stoic Japanese, Kinjo said Tepco's "sense of crisis was weak," adding that "this is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone" to grapple with the ongoing disaster. As Reuters notes, Tepco has been accused of covering up shortcomings and has been lambasted for its ineptness in the response and while the company says it is taking actions to contain the leaks, Kinjo fears if the water reaches the surface "it would flow extremely fast," with some suggesting as little as three weeks until this critical point.