Archive - Jul 3, 2015

Earlier this week the embattled Greeks delivered still more body blows to the rotten regime of Keynesian central banking and the crony capitalist bailout state to which it is conjoined. By defaulting on its IMF loan, walking away from the troika bailout program and taking control of its insolvent domestic banking system, Alexis Tsipras and his band of political outlaws have shattered a giant illusion.

Having bounced midweek on 'hope' of a deal and 'faith' in Draghi's containment, European stock markets are tumbling back to the post-Greferendum lows of Tuesday. Italy and Spain are now down 5.5 to 6% and as the European close nears - and the realization thanks to The IMF that the vote is a simple Yes/No to debt haircuts - stocks are being sold and volatility is picking up. Bond spreads are leaking higher but it is clear that what Draghi really 'contained' was EURUSD which remains only marginally lower on the week.

European risk has never traded at such an extreme level relative to US risk... ever. But when looking for the best bang for your Greferendum-trading buck - are you better off buying higher vol in Europe or lower US vol? Or, as Goldman Sachs explains below, what are the highest payouts on bets for a rebound...

There’s no there there. Europeans are completely clueless about what’s happening here in Athens. They can’t see to save their lives that their silence protects and legitimizes a flat out war against a country that is, just like their respective countries, a member of a union that now seeks to obliterate it. Europeans need to understand that the EU has no qualms about declaring war on one of its own member states. And that it could be theirs next time around. Where people die of hunger or preventable diseases. Or commit suicide. Or flee. All Europeans on their TV screens can see the line-ups at ATMs, and the fainting grandmas at the banks, the hunger, the despair. How on earth can they see this as somehow normal, and somehow not connected to their own lives?

• WHEN ARE RESULTS DUE?
  
• WHAT ARE GREEKS BEING ASKED TO VOTE ON?
  
• WHAT DO THE POLLS SHOW?
  
• WHAT IF IT’S YES?
  
• WHAT IF IT’S NO?
  
• HOW WILL MARKETS REACT?

The Greece impasse set to culminate on Sunday continues to have a massive impact on at least one stock market, unfortunately it is the wrong one, located on a continent which is mostly irrelevant to the future of the Greek people (unless that whole AIIB bailout does take place of course). We are, of course, talking about China which as noted earlier, started off horribly, plunging over 7% with over 1000 stocks hitting 10% limit down, then in the afternoon session mysteriously recovering all losses and even trading slightly higher on the day, before the late selling returned once more, and the Shanghai Composite plunged to close down 5.8%: an unimaginable 20% total roundtrip move!

... at this very moment, politicians from Spain's Podemos to Italy Five Star movement are drafting memos demanding that the IMF evaluate their own debt sustainability. Or rather unsustainability.

We don’t have a “capitalist” economic system. What we have, instead, is a perversion of capitalism. This pseudo-capitalism is a suicidal model of pure, economic exploitation, combined with a plethora of nonsensical dogma and policies.

As Stalin said, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Earlier this week the FISA court ruled the NSA can continue the bulk collection of phone metadata until November 29. This comes after Congressional gridlock allowed for Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the legal cover for the collection program, to expire on June 1. 

When a message needs to be sent by the powers that be, the German press can always be relied upon to send it, no matter how divisive (as they did here, here, and here). So it is no surprise that with the stakes appearing to have never been higher, Handelsblatt unleashes the following...