Archive - May 20, 2015

"A senior government official says that among the proposals discussed with the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund is the imposition of a levy on bank transactions, whose exact rate will depend on the exemptions that would apply. The aim is to collect 300-600 million euros on a yearly basis," Kathimerini reports. Meanwhile, parliamentary speaker Nikos Filis has a message for the IMF.

According to Goldman, "low gas prices should have boosted Q1 consumption growth by 0.5-1pp, reinforcing the Q1 disappointment. However, the models also imply that only one-fourth to one-half of the eventual consumption impact should have been felt by Q1, suggesting plenty of remaining upside in coming quarters." Here is the one problem with that assumption...

UBS will pay $545 million, plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, and go on DoJ "probation" for three years for its role in forex manipulation. The market's assessment of how things turned out for the bank: "It couldn't have been better."

• Clinton aides sometimes blocked release of documents requested under public-records law (WSJ)
• House Benghazi panel subpoenas former Clinton White House aide (Reuters)
• Cash Crunch, for Many, Is a Monthly Woe (WSJ)
• Doubts over Greece add to euro's ECB-driven frailty (Reuters)
• For Many American States, It's Like the Recession Never Ended (BBG)
• Japan debt plan needs BOJ to keep rates low for years (Reuters)
• Euro Continues to Fall; European Bonds, Stocks Broadly Steady (WSJ)
• Los Angeles gives preliminary approval to $15 minimum wage (Reuters)

The only remarkable macroeconomic news overnight was out of Japan where we got the Q1 GDP print of 2.4% coming in well above consensus of 1.6%, and higher than the 1.1% in Q4. Did it not snow in Japan this winter? Does Japan already used double, and maybe triple, "seasonally-adjusted" data? We don't know, but we do know that both Japan and Europe have grown far faster than the US in the first quarter.

"Even though this is just front-loading, it is effectively an increase in the size of quantitative easing, even if just for a short period of time", one strategist tells WSJ, regarding the ECB's leaked decision to increase PSPP purchases ahead of the summer "lull." Of course this means the opposite is true as well. That is, anytime supply is net negative, the ECB will taper QE.

“When you have anti-English, pro-European nationalists in Scotland and anti-European, pro-British nationalists in England, spiced up with a few anti-English, pro-European nationalists in Wales and of course, the anti-each-other, pro-whatever your having yourself, British and Irish nationalists in that blissfully incoherent chunk of Ulster – Northern Ireland, you know you’re not in the old UK." Welcome to new Britain, Europe’s 21st century version of the Balkans!

Do you remember what happened when Cyprus decided to defy the EU?  In the end, the entire banking system of the nation collapsed and money was confiscated from private bank accounts.  Well, the nation of Greece is now approaching a similar endgame.  At this point, the Greek government has not received any money from the EU or the IMF since August 2014.  As you can imagine, that means that Greek government accounts are just about bone dry.