Archive - Jun 2011 - Story

Identify the common characteristic of these three statements:

1. The Federal Reserve will never let the stock market decline, i.e. the "Bernanke put"

2. The Chinese government will never let property prices decline

3. The European Central Bank will never let Greece default

The answer of course is moral hazard: a person who is insulated from risk will have an insatiable appetite for risky bets because any gains will be theirs to keep but any losses will be covered by the central bank or government. The global financial authorities’ success in propping up assets (stocks in the U.S., real estate in China, banks in Europe, etc.) over the past three years has strengthened this asymmetric disregard for systemic risk into a dangerously quasi-religious faith that central banks and governments have essentially unlimited power to keep asset prices aloft via printing money, manipulation of markets and financialization of their economies.

The most concise summary of this week's bullish and bearish events.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 24/06/11

It is time to restart the clock on the number of consecutive weeks decline in stocks. After last week broke the trend, the just finished one closed slightly down, as three days of taking the escalator higher on vapor volume then reverted to taking the express elevator down on a spike in panicked trading. Net result: about 10 million E-mini contracts in which billions in wealth was transferred, the overall market did not move, and nothing at all has been resolved regarding the global ponzi scheme.

Following what appears to be just the beginning of a major market flush which could well bring the S&P to triple digits in order to serve as a catalyst for QE3, the word inflation has become taboo: after all, it is expected that Bernanke will have snapped his fingers, and the 15 minute count down to deflation will start. Alas, no. There are at least three products in which inflation has proven to be particularly stubborn, all due to a unique set of factors. The first one is Coke (the drink, although probably not isolated thereto), which just announced plans to hike prices 3 yo 4% due to still surging commodity costs. The second is pasta, whose prices are also set to soar, this time due to adverse climatic conditions. Per Bloomberg, "Unrelenting rainfall may have slashed U.S. planting of durum wheat to the lowest level in more than 50 years, fueling a surge in the price of pasta and noodles as mills scramble for supply of the grain." And the last, and possibly most perverse price spike, is the one which will actually hike the CPI, due to an increase in the shelter, or rents, component, as more and more Americans forgo owning a home in exchange for renting, in the process pushing up the one component that accounts for 41% of core CPI. In this way we see three completely unrelated channels in which inflation will continue to push through even as stocks plunge: an event which most MMT theorists always perceive as inherently deflationary.

The Fourth Turnings that centered upon an external threat ended with a glorious High. The Civil War Fourth Turning resolution felt more like defeat, with the country exhausted, bitter and angry. All indications are this Fourth Turning will be mainly an internal struggle between the ruling class of bankers, business elites, and politicians and the downtrodden middle class. The lying, cheating, fraud, theft and other wrongs committed by those in power will need to be atoned for. The generational dynamics in place will drive the reactions of the country moving forward. We have been badly led. A vast swath of the populace has lived beyond their means. The existing system is unsustainable. The Boomer generation does not want to yield on their perceived entitlements. The Millenial generation will be saddled with un-payable debts. Generation X is caught in the middle of this generational struggle. The huge imbalances in our society have built up over decades like flood waters behind a weakening levee. When the levee breaks the existing order will be swept away in the raging torrent that will follow.

Just out:

• HOUSE REJECTS MEASURE TO ALLOW ONLY SOME SUPPORT ACTIONS
• HOUSE VOTES NOT TO RESTRICT U.S. MILITARY ROLE IN LIBYA

The vote was  238 to 180. So does this mean the president is now implicitly violating the War Powers Act? It is getting impossible to follow all the strands of the 5 war fronts that America is successfully finding itself into. Also, does it mean America is now officially at war with Libya? Or does it mean simply that America has unlimited funding to continue its pursuit of "humanitarian" light sweet?

Well not quite the CIA, but close enough. The good ex-spies of BIA Behavioral Intelligence Analysis have conducted another behavioral assay, this time targeting global overlord Ben Bernanke and specifically his Wednesday press conference, focusing not on the script but what was left unsaid between the lines. For those unfamiliar, "The BIA team represents a diverse mix of highly accomplished professionals from the national intelligence and business communities, who came together to create and deliver BIA’s ground-breaking solutions for our clients. Our intelligence experts average more than 20 years experience in interviewing, evaluating and collecting information across the globe and have been working with premier firms since 2001 to improve investing and business outcomes through application of our unique methodologies." In lieu of a lie detector being hooked up to the Chairman (Simpsons scene comes to mind), this may be one of the better analyses in interpreting what was said... and unsaid.

A comparison between equity and Subordinated CDS (inverted scale) levels on STD (that would be Spanish mega bank Santander) indicates that while stocks are still balls to the wall in hopium, credit is getting far more concerned about both recovery and viability prospects of the bank which is considered by many as the gateway to a full blown Spanish sovereign funding crisis. Where STD goes, so goes Spain. And the last time we checked, equities were right at the expense of credit... never. Is it time to just say not to STD? The CDS certainly says so.

An inescapable double-bind has emerged for Germany: If Germany lets its weaker neighbors default on their sovereign debt, the euro will be harmed, and German exports within Europe will slide. But if Germany becomes the "lender of last resort," then its taxpayers end up footing the bill. If public and private debt in the troubled nations keeps rising at current rates, it's possible that even mighty Germany may be unable (or unwilling) to fund an essentially endless bailout. That would create pressure within both Germany and the debtor nations to jettison the single currency as a good idea in theory, but ultimately unworkable in a 16-nation bloc as diverse as the eurozone. Be wary of the endless "fixes" to a structurally doomed system.

A snapshot of the US Afternoon Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.

The world's premier euroskeptic, Nigel Farage, just held a funeral procession for the Euro after Europe now has just 10 days left in which to save its battered currency. ND at the rate Europe is imploding, Nigel won't have long to wait to get confirmation that all his concerns about the flawed European experiment were not only grounded but outright optimistic. And yet Europe, caught up in its own historic ponzi, refuses to do the right thing which is to impair banks with a 50%+ haircut, and instead will kick the can down the road, in the process destroying any residual liquidation value of hundreds of trillions of impaired assets, which as has been pointed out on numerous times before, are concurrently the liabilities of other banking institutions, therby making the entire central banking plan of debt inflation pointless. Farrage summarizes this best: "European banks are going to take a hit at some point anyway, if you are a bank owed a great deal of money it's better to get 50% of it than none of it. Down the path we are going now is heading for a total bust." Probably a good analogy is that if Bernie Madoff was stopped in the 80s or ever 90s, much of his capital would have been recovered. Alas, waiting until he himself cried uncle, guaranteed no recoveries for anyone. It is sad that Europe, and the entire "developed world" has decided to pursue this path.

The Great Recession has now earned the dubious right of being compared to the Great Depression. In the face of the most stimulative fiscal and monetary policies in our history, we have experienced the loss of over 7 million jobs, wiping out every job gained since the year 2000. From the moment the Obama administration came into office, there have been no net increases in full-time jobs, only in part-time jobs. This is contrary to all previous recessions. Employers are not recalling the workers they laid off from full-time employment. The real job losses are greater than the estimate of 7.5 million. They are closer to 10.5 million, as 3 million people have stopped looking for work. Equally troublesome is the lower labor participation rate; some 5 million jobs have vanished from manufacturing, long America's greatest strength. Just think: Total payrolls today amount to 131 million, but this figure is lower than it was at the beginning of the year 2000, even though our population has grown by nearly 30 million...The inescapable bottom line is an unprecedented slack in the U.S. labor market. Labor's share of national income has fallen to the lowest level in modern history, down to 57.5 percent in the first quarter as compared to 59.8 percent when the so-called recovery began. This reflects not only the 7 million fewer workers but the fact that wages for part-time workers now average $19,000—less than half the median income.

When unsure, blame the speculators:

• MARKET WATCHDOG SAYS REVIEWING TODAY'S BANK DECLINES
• CONSOB OFFICIAL: STOCKS PLUNGE IN PART DUE TO STOP-LOSS TRADES
• CONSOB OFFICIAL CAN'T RULE OUT MANIPULATION TRIGGERED DECLINES
• CONSOB OFFICIAL SPEAKS BY PHONE        

Alternatively they are spot on, and someone is doing their darnedest to spread the contagion finally to the last PIIGSy.

As vacuum tubes slowly realize they were all cheated by the great European fraud headline and soundbite machine, the scramble into the relative safety of Uncle Sam's paper is once again reaching a crescendo. At last check, the 1 month Bill was trading 0.000/-0.005, whereby people pay Tim Geithner to prevent them from investing in the worthless asset class known as stocks.