Archive - Dec 2012 - Story

Talks on the fiscal cliff have resumed, but as of this writing there is not yet an agreement. The current negotiations focus on the income threshold under which tax cuts should be extended, among other topics. As we have noted, the sides seem as far apart as ever, and as Goldman notes, while it is still possible that an agreement will be reached by year end, a retroactive deal in January looks more likely. The eventual resolution still looks likely to be a scaled down agreement that addresses only the policy changes scheduled for year-end and omits other issues, such as an increase in the debt limit or longer-term fiscal reforms. The greatest area of uncertainty is whether the spending cuts scheduled under the sequester will be addressed. The fiscal policy timeline below shows how we are rapidly approaching the more ominous debt ceiling debate and Goldman's Q&A asks and answers provides context for where we are from both an economic and ratings agency impact basis.

Keynesian economists believe, regardless of logic and data, that economies can be managed from the top down. In their world, economies are little different than machines. Change some inputs here, speed them up over there, add some lubrication, etc. and the machine will respond in the fashion desired. Output can be “managed” to whatever level needed purely by adjusting the parts of the machine. Austrian economists on the other hand do not see a machine. They see millions of individuals all making decisions to improve their own lives. The price system provides the coordination among these separate pieces, performing a function no human, supercomputer or government could ever accomplish. For Austrians, economics is a bottom up approach. To effect change, you must change the incentives and disincentives that individual decision makers are afforded. “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana. Ideology is powerful, capable of masking unpleasant facts. Whether we recognize it or not, we are all slaves to ideology.

While EURUSD is flat, there is one market open (free of manipulation - perhaps) that offers some insights into traders' perceptions of reality - however 'cautiously', 'modestly', 'surreally' optimistic the powers that be proclaim. InTrade's "debt ceiling by Dec. 31st" odds have plunged to around 2%. A week ago, when we continued to urge readers to short the contract, it was at 10% (and at 30% when we initialy said on Novermber 13th no deal would occur) - even as everyone and their pet rabbit was convinced a deal was going to be cobbled together. The 'debt ceiling' odds are implicitly the 'fiscal cliff' odds given Harry Reid's insistence of the 'bundling' to remove every possible point of leverage from the Republicans:

“We would be somewhat foolish to work out something on stopping us from going over the cliff and then a month or six weeks later Republicans pull the same game they did before and say, 'We're not going to do anything — unless this happens, we're not going to agree to increasing the debt ceiling,’ ” Reid said.

 

“I agree with the president, it has to be a package deal,” he added.

At around 2% odds, this still seems like money good for shorts...

The second update of the day is here, and this one is far less jovial and optimistic than that coming from the seemingly quite cluless Lindsey Graham:

• REID SAYS HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO COME UP WITH COUNTEROFFER
• REID SAYS `WE'RE APART ON SOME PRETTY BIG ISSUES'
• REID SAYS `I WISH THEM WELL' REGARDING MCCONNELL-BIDEN TALKS
• MCCONNELL SAYS HE CALLED BIDEN TO TRY TO `JUMP START' TALKS

Nothing like the fate of the nation in the hands of Joe Biden, who may or may not still be laughing.

For the fourth year in a row we continue our tradition of summarizing what you, our readers, found to be the most relevant, exciting, and actionable news of the year, determined simply by the number of page views. Those first eager for a brief stroll down memory lane of prior years can do so at their leisure, by going back in time to where the top articles of 2009, 2010 and 2011 are recapped. With that out of the way, here is what readers found to be the most popular posts of the past 365 days..

If earlier media speculation that the cliff debate was seeing some progress would have sent stocks higher (assuming it was not a Sunday), the speaker's just released response to Obama's Meet The Press appearance would have deflated all hope of any progress. Remember: all is fair in political circus and Beltway theater.

More GOP-bashing, more scapegoating, more "we need to raise taxes to cover a few days of spending" (and pray America's rich have never heard of Belgium), more hope and optimism, in other words more of the same, yet nothing on the last minute executive order hiking Federal spending, nothing on the myth of what really constitutes the spending "cuts", or why it is all really all about preserving the lie of a fair and efficient market: as if more than 10% of the US population actually cares where the DJIA closed on Friday. The full Obama Meet the Press interview below.

As largely expected, Sunday would be a day marked by rumors, anti-rumors, denials, counter-denials, and much more groundless speculation if zero facts, however without an open market reacting to every single headline like a collocated stung dog. Sure enough, in the first such rumor of the day, we just had Republican Senator - a long time opponent of the Norquist tax pledge - Lindsey Graham, pushing for his agenda in the same way that the Greek finance ministry would unleash perfectly wrong rumors to the FT and Reuters, who said on Sunday that chances for a small "fiscal Cliff" deal in the next 48 hours were "exceedingly good" and that President Barack Obama had won: i.e., taking an opinion and making it fact - something seen so often in the European negotiating tactics. "I think people don't want to go over the cliff if we can avoid it," Graham said on Fox News Sunday. Of course, how Graham views the world, and how potentially filibustering Senators do, not to mention the majority of Congress do, is a totally separate matter.

The politicization of central banking continues unabated. The resurrection of Shinzo Abe and Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party – pillars of the political system that has left the Japanese economy mired in two lost decades and counting – is just the latest case in point. He argued that a timid BOJ should learn from its more aggressive counterparts, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. But will it work? Unfortunately, it appears that Japan has forgotten many of its own lessons – especially the BOJ’s disappointing experience with zero interest rates and QE in the early 2000’s. Not only is QE’s ability to jumpstart crisis-torn, balance-sheet-constrained economies limited; it also runs the important risk of blurring the distinction between monetary and fiscal policy. Massive liquidity injections carried out by the world’s major central banks – the Fed, the ECB, and the BOJ – are neither achieving traction in their respective real economies, nor facilitating balance-sheet repair and structural change. That leaves a huge sum of excess liquidity sloshing around in global asset markets. Where it goes, the next crisis is inevitably doomed to follow.

Surprise! As we all wait on tenterhooks for tomorrow's messianic 'Meet the Press' appearance, The Hill reports that a Senate aid with knowledge of the talks said late Saturday afternoon there is "no major progress." The rare weekend negotiations continue with the sticking point still taxes - which will come as no surprise to any who read/listened to Ron Paul's clear analysis of the idiocy taking place - but differences on other issues, including spending cuts, linger. Reid has scheduled a Democratic caucus meeting for Sunday afternoon to give his colleagues a chance to weigh in on a potential deal. McConnell has said he would do the same. "I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities – as long as these leaders allow it to come to a vote," Obama said in his weekly address. "If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that’s their prerogative – but they should let everyone vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work." If the Senate passes the legislation, it would then force the House to take up the bill on the eve of the looming deadline - leaving the 'blame' at the foot of Boehner's Republicans should they not support it. The games continue... but in the meantime, consider what the debate would have looked like (literally) if Elizabeth Hasleth was still in the Senate.

We have a Crisis of Trust in America and it has become so pervasive that it is paralyzing America's natural inclination towards risk taking and innovation. This Crisis in Trust is a direct result of Monetary Malpractice and the Moral Malady which it has inflicted on America. Trust fosters certainty and a sense of security. Uncertainty is the death knell for business investment and finance. Today's plummeting capital investment in America means slower growth and an even tougher job market lay ahead. So where does a Crisis of Trust stem from and why do we suddenly have one?

When it comes to US austerity, a very sensitive topic as framed best by the "spending cuts" portion in the Fiscal Cliff debate, the ideas range from the surreal to the outright idiotic: as an example in the most recent Obama proposal spending would be "reduced" in the form of $290 billion in interest savings - not an actual spending reduction, but a hope and a prayer that because rates are lower, the government will "save" money with rates continuing to be lower (something which immediately causes a #Ref! explosion for anyone not using government math), $130 billion in savings that would come from once again rejiggering the definition of 'inflation', as well as "savings" from not funding extra defense spending because the US is not engaged in a pro forma war. Like we said: surreal and idiotic, or in other words, no actual real cuts to spending. Yet even as the nation is gripped by the melodrama of fake spending cuts offset by the threat to tax millionaires more (all of whom will merely find more creative and effective ways to hide their wealth and income offshore), spending increases are all too real, such as last night's order by Obama's just issued an executive order to end the pay freeze for federal employees, which is the equivalent of a wage increase. A truly deserved rise in wages for a job well done by the most dysfunctional Congress America has ever seen.

In a little under three minutes, Ron Paul explains to a somewhat nonplussed CNBC anchor just how ridiculous the charade that is occurring in D.C. actually is. This succinct spin-free clip should be required viewing for each and every asset-manager, talking-head, propagandist, and mom-and-pop who are viewing the last-minute idiocy of the 'fiscal cliff' debacle with some hope that things will be different this time. "We have passed the point of no return where we can actually get our house back in order," Paul begins, adding that "they pretend they are fighting up there, but they really aren't. They are arguing over power, spin, who looks good, who looks bad; all trying to preserve the system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends and print money when they need it." With social safety nets available to rich and poor, there is no impetus for change and "the country loses," but Paul concludes, the markets are starting to say "there is a limit to this."

There were some readers who took offense at our "bloodbath" recap of yesterday's market action (modestly different from that provided by MarketWatch). And, all else equal, a modest 28 step drop in the E-Mini/SPX would hardly be earthshattering. However, all else was not equal, and based on peripheral facts, the reason for our qualifier is that as of last week virtually nobody was prepared for a move as violent and sharp as the one experienced in the last minutes of trading yesterday. In such a context a "mere" 1.5% drop in the futures market has a far more pronounced impact on participants than a 10% or even 5% drop would have had, had traders been positioned appropriately. They weren't. So what was the context? Let's find out.

The IMF’s Il Houng Lee, Murtaza Syed, and Liu Xueyan have published a very interesting and widely noticed study called “Is China Over-Investing and Does it Matter?” In it they argue that there is strong evidence that China is overinvesting significantly. China’s investment rate is so high, that even ignoring the tremendous evidence of misallocated investment, unless we can confidently propose that Beijing has uncovered a secret formula that allows it to identify high quality investment in a way that no other country in history has been able, there is likely to be a systematic tendency to wasted investment. The extent of Chinese overinvestment – even if we assume that it has not already caused significant fragility in the banking system and enormous hidden losses yet to be amortized – requires a very sharp contraction just to get back to a “normal” which, in the past, was anyway associated with difficult economic adjustments. It is hard to imagine how such a sharp contraction in investment will itself not lead to a sharp drop in GDP growth.