Archive - Apr 2012 - Story

Frankly, by now the topic of US student debt has been discussed to death, and like every other bubble, it will keep growing, as the very fungible proceeds are used to purchase such mission critical "student" addenda as iPads and booze, until it bursts. Yet is it really that bad? And how does it look compared to some other countries' bubbles. Like that of the UK? Courtesy of Bloomberg we now know how a similar bubble is blowing across the Atlantic:  “In this country, we will be on an order of magnitude ahead of the U.S.,” Lampl said in an interview. “We’re loading up these kids with debt. The whole thing is an absolute disgrace.”

As we noted this morning, the perfect 'reality-check' storm hit Europe this morning and with Draghi dismissing hope for more printing and nationalism raising its ugly specter, broad European equity markets made nearly their largest drop in five months. With the BE500 (Europe's S&P 500 equivalent) at three-month lows and Spain's IBEX within a few points of the March 2009 lows, things are becoming critical once again. Spanish yields jumped back over 6% but Italian spreads actually underperformed on the day +14bps vs Spain +12bps as Holland 5Y CDS blew past 130bps to near crisis-peak levels - leaving GDP-weighted European sovereign risk at three-month highs. The LTRO Stigma has broken above 150bps for the first time since before the LTRO as the realization of the implicit subordination of LTRO-encumbered banks is crushing unsecured bond-holders (on average trading at 350bps near four-month wides). EUR-USD basis swaps deteriorated a little remaining near their worst levels in three months but EURUSD remains miraculously just above 1.31 (though almost 100 pips off Friday's close) as repatriation flows are not helping correlation-driven algos in the US anymore.

There are those who think that Currency Wars are a brand new thing. They are not. More importantly, we now have finally moved on to the real deal:

• EU SAID TO PLAN WTO COMPLAINT AGAINST ARGENTINE IMPORT CURBS - BBG

This perfectly objective and otherwise impartial decision has nothing to do with recent collectivist decisions of what is for the greater good... At least one's greater good that is, which just happens to be the biggest problem with central planning at the global level.

So far, so good as far as euphoric stock bubbles are concerned... but now what?

I don't how the future will unfold, not just because I'm an idiot but because it's unknowable. Though we cannot know the future, we do know two very important things: 1) that which is unsustainable will implode, and 2) the present Status Quo is unsustainable. That ultimately leaves us with a single question: what are we going to do about it? In my view, it's not important that we agree on solutions--agreement would in fact be a catastrophe, for dissent and decentralization are the essential characteristics of any sustainable "solution." What is important is that we realize the future boils down to a simple choice: do we passively comply with the Status Quo feudalism or do we resist?....  That is the false choice provided by the Status Quo: do you want to buy/sell/drink sugar water or saccharine? There is another choice: do we want to passively self-destruct in servitude to the Status Quo or do we want to join those with a positive vision for the future? Every act is a choice, and the future is in our hands.

As reported first thing this morning when we discussed the perfect storm in Europe, the Dutch government was expected to resign en masse in the aftermath of this weekend's auterity fiasco. Sure enough, that resignation is now fact.

Presented with little comment aside from a slight Schadenfreude as the European equity market collapses back in line with the credit market's much less sanguine view of the sad reality that is European social, economic, and political life. Meanwhile, German 10Y yields just broke to record low yields as EUR-USD basis swaps deteriorate, LTRO Stigma leaks to its widest in over 4 months as Spanish 10Y yields hold above 6% once again and Dutch CDS snap wider to their 3rd highest level ever on resignations. But apart from that LTRO was a success, Europe is stable, and Spain is not Greece...

Europe's overnight reality check is weighing on stocks broadly but two names standout. Apple is down once again, and below its 50DMA for the first time in four months but it is Wal-Mart that is struggling under the weight of the Mexican debacle. Walmex is down over 25% at the open and WMT opened down over 5% on huge volume. Apple and Wal-Mart bounced out of the gate off those lows but are leaking back now - both below their VWAP.

It's not as if this should come as a major surprise to ZeroHedge readers, but to hear officials from the Bank of England pointing out the sub-optimal nature of the financial system's information asymmetries is refreshing. Be it via any one of Andrew Haldane's three so-called arms-races (Returns - the past, Speed - the present, and Safety - the future), analogizing to the winner-takes-all 'sex-fest' blubberiest-optima of elephant seals and their 'extinction' implications, these socially 'bad' financial system outcomes (Leverage, HFT, and collateral and encumbrance) are channeled superbly by the comedic Brit. A must-watch to reassure one's self that some central bankers really get it as, unlike before, when nobody would touch on topics covered by ZeroHedge with a ten-foot-pole, at least they do now, if with a one-year delay.

According to Mark Grant, it's over: "There are only two ways out of the current dilemma and that is growth which is not possible as the European economies contract and fare worse as the result of the austerity measures or Inflation; which Germany can’t stomach. The “at the very bottom of the barrel” answer then is not an economic response at all but a question of politics. The answer is actually when some nation cannot take it anymore; either the funding and the increase in national debt and the resultant credit downgrades or in receiving and the pain inflicted upon the populace. From the funding perspective it will be when the debts of the givers begin to match the debts of the borrowers. From the recipients it will be when the core nations decide that no more money will be given and so they will leave the funding nations and their banks with the debts and return to their own currencies and devalue. Which one comes first can only be answered by Divine Providence but I do not believe the train wreck can be stopped. I do not believe, any longer, that the catastrophe can be avoided and I would begin to immediately plan for an event that will eclipse the American financial crisis of 2007-2009 because this one will be far worse."

Is the "rest of the world" finally discovering the Exter inverted pyramid?

No wonder one third of Americans are obese. The crap we are shoveling into our bodies is on par with the misinformation, propaganda and lies that are being programmed into our minds by government bureaucrats, corrupt politicians, corporate media gurus, and central banker puppets. Chief Clinton propaganda mouthpiece, James Carville, famously remarked during the 1992 presidential campaign that, “It’s the economy, stupid”. Clinton was able to successfully convince the American voters that George Bush’s handling of the economy caused the 1991 recession. In retrospect, it was revealed the economy had been recovering for months prior to the election. No one could ever accuse the American people of being perceptive, realistic or critical thinking when it comes to economics, math, history or distinguishing between truth or lies. Our government controlled public school system has successfully dumbed down the populace to a level where they enjoy their slavery and prefer conscious ignorance to critical thought.

European bond markets appear poised on the edge of the latest precipice as economic data this morning has confirmed once again that all the ECB's $1.3 trillion liquidity injection did was mask the underlying solvency issues for less than 4 months. Net result: more liquidity injections imminent (and with $2.5 trillion in asset sales and deleveraging still pending, we should probably bold and underling more). Yet what some are forgetting is that European banks would want nothing more than getting Spanish bonds back to 7.50%, the bogey which JPM defined as the level at which the NEW LTRO will be unleashed, standards of living be damned. The junkies need their fix and will do anything to get it, even crashing sovereign bond markets in the process. They may get their wish sooner than most expect: after all, this week is chock full of bond auctions in the core and periphery, where just one failure will make every forced buyer into a forced seller, as creative destruction will be the only thing to force the ECB's hand into injecting another several hundred billion in stock steroids, now that the Fed is still in its pre-presidential election quiet period.