Archive - Jan 28, 2012 - Story

When the first revision of the second Greek bailout to the tidy round number of €130 billion was announced, we scoffed, mockingly. Because a country which then had a 7% budget deficit, and now has a deficit that will be well in the double digits, and not to mention a banking system that is now hollow following tens of billions in deposit withdrawals as month after month the Greek bank run gets worse, would obviously need much more liquidity (but banish the thought that it is a solvency crisis...) Sure enough, earlier today Der Spiegel broke the news that the second bailout, which has yet to be re-ratified, and absent Greece meeting demands to cede fiscal sovereignty, is likely a non-starter, would be increased to €145 billion "citing an unidentified official from the so-called troika." So whether or not this is true is irrelevant: what matters is that Spiegel released the article in the same series of posts in which it explained just why Germany has full right to demand (via European enforcement mechanisms or however) virtually anything in exchange for the ongoing endless bailout (such as: Merkel macht Wahlkampf für Sarkozy and Griechenland sträubt sich gegen EU-Aufpasser). Which means one thing only: the great propaganda spin machine is now on, and its only purpose is to provide Germany a buffer of "having done everything in its power" to prevent the now inevitable Greek default. Which, incidentally, means that a Greek default is inevitable. Because at this point once the default floodgates open, the question will be not where the bonds will trade, but just how big the impairment on the European DIP (aka Troika bailout package) will be.

While it is hardly necessary to provide commentary to one of F.A. Hayek's timeless observations from his book, The Road To Serfdom, rereading the chapter titled The Great Utopia, in this year of what could possibly be the most important election in the history of the United States, in which the US public will be promised nothing short of utopia by virtually every candidate except the one who really knows that fixing America would require pain and sacrifice, is everyone's duty. Courtesy of the Center for Economic Liberty we recreate it below in its entirety, and urge all readers, regardless of political persuasion of economic beliefs to consider what F.A.Hayek was saying some 70 years earlier, and how very applicable it is to our current situation.

Following yesterday's frankly stunning news that the Troika politely requests that Greece hand over its first fiscal, then pretty much all other, sovereignty to "Europe", here is the Greek just as polite response to the Troika's foray into outright colonialism:

• GREEK GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN DECLARES THAT THE BUDGET IS SOLELY ITS RESPONSIBILITY - DJ

What is interesting here is that unlike the highly irrelevant IIF negotiations which will end in a Greek default one way or another, the real plotline that should be followed is this one: because unless Germany, pardon the Troika, gets the one condition it demands, namely "absolute priority to debt service" and "transfer of national budgetary sovereignty", as well as a "constitutional amendment" thereto. there is no Troika funding deal. Furthermore, since as a reminder the PSI talks are just the beginning, the next step is ensuring compliance, as was noted yesterday ("[ceding sovereignty] will reassure public and private creditors that the Hellenic Republic will  honour its comittments after PSI and will positively influence market access"), any refusal to implement such demands is an automatic dealbreaker. Which means anything Dallara and the IIF say, as representatives of a steering committee that at this point probably constitutes of one bondholder, with the bulk having shifted to the ad hoc committee, is irrelevant. Germany just got its answer. And the next step is, as Zero Hedge first suggested, an epic LTRO in precisely one month, whose sole purpose will be to prefund European banks ahead of the Greek default with enough cash to withstand Europe's Bear Stearns. Although as a reminder, in the US, Bear Stearns only led to Lehman and the global "all in" gambit to preserve the financial system by shifting bank insolvency risk to the sovereigns (a chart showing bank assets as a percentage of host countries' GDP can be found here). But who will bailout the world's central banks which already collectively hold over 30% of global GDP in the form of "assets", or as this term is better known these days, debt?

Back in the 1930's, Irving Fisher introduced a concept called the 'debt supercycle.' Simply put, it posits that when there is a buildup of too much debt within an economy, there reaches a point where there simply is no other available solution but to let it rewind. We are at that point in our economy, as are most other major economies around the world, claims John Maudlin, author of the popular Thoughts from the Frontline newsletter and the recent bestselling book Endgame: The End of the Debt Supercycle and How It Changes Everything. For the past several decades, excessive and increasing amounts of credit in the system have allowed us to live above our means as both individuals and nations. We've been able to have our cake and eat it, too. Now that the supercycle has ended and the inevitable de-leveraging cycle is staring us in the face, we will be forced to set priorities in a way that has been foreign to our society for over a generation.

Just one recursive headline to fool them all, and in the darkness run away.

In this week's chartology from Goldman's David Kostin there is the usual plethora of useful data, but two slides deserve a very special mention because with 39% of the S&P already reporting Q4 data, the implication is quite dire. If Kostin is correct, then the corporate margin juggernaut, which recently hit an all time high in Q3 of 2011, and which has for all intents and purposes been the one offset to deteriorating economic conditions, recurring Fed stimuli to the economy aside, has officially peaked and is now rolling over. This has huge implications for virtually everything, as it means that after 3 years of layoffs, corporate America has finally cut through all the fat and is now officially chopping into muscle with every additional layoff. It also means that going forward no matter how many workers are laid off, the corporate margin rate wil not increase. Furthermore, if Bernanke or Draghi officially launch another inflationary easing episode which more than anything exports inflation to China, which in turn reexports it back to America in the form of rising COGS, margins will compress even more. In other words, the US economy, which sadly has been "defined" as the Russell 2000 and/or the DJIA, is tipping over. And with companies posting a near record low positive earnings surprise ratio, we are once again amazed how yet another Goldman team may have well called the absolute peak in the market with its long Russell call from two days ago.