Archive - Feb 2015 - Story

"Economic hardship is another piece of the puzzle governing the extent to which violent extremism takes hold of societies. Europe, in part because of the unintended (but entirely predictable) effects of the euro currency union, is in its seventh year of economic stagnation. Unemployment and underemployment are high, especially among the region’s youth. This economic environment is a foul ground in which anger and racial, religious and ideological hatreds flourish."

The Chinese stock market is "looking prercarious" according to Citi FX Technicals' team. A bearish outside day on the Shanghai Composite could represent just the first of a series of technical patterns that suggest a potential 23% correction... as 100s of thousands of newly minted margin'd retail equity 'investors' find out the hard what a tap on the shoulder feels like. As Paul Sinder warned, "take a look at a chart of Chinese retail margin debt, but not just right before bedtime. It looks something like the U.S. figures heading for 1929."

"The next shoe to drop will be the realisation that the US recovery is stalling and outright deflation is as big a threat there as it is in the eurozone. Indeed my former esteemed colleagues Marchel Alexandrovich and David Owen pointed out to me that if US core CPI is measured in a similar way to the eurozone (i.e. ex shelter), then US core CPI inflation is already pari passu with the eurozone ? despite the former having enjoyed a much stronger economy!"

"Don't mess with Texas," may be a dire warning to most but perhaps after this "don't mess with Taxes" would be more appropriate. In what must have most free-thinking libertarians smirking, a man in Texas was arrested this week for “disrupting the operation and efficiency” of the local tax office - by trying to pay his taxes in $1 bills. Which leaves us with one question... does Kyle Bass pay his taxes with nickels?

“In effect, there is nothing inherently wrong with fiat money, provided we get perfect authority and god-like intelligence for kings.” Aristotle (?2,400 years ago)

“Remember what we’re looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency. No fiat currency, including the dollar, can match it.” Alan Greenspan (2014)

While we are sure the spin from any and every talking head will be that Grexit is overall positive for the Eurozone (until they see Podemos in the lead in the Spanish polls and Italy's Beppe Grillo previous threasts to "leave the Euro and bring down this system of bankers, of scum"), the early pressure to sell Euros (and not in a 'great news we are devaluing our currency and exports will be awesome way' - more a Venezuela 'get my capital away from this hell-hole' way) has been v-shaped recovered as, without doubt every central bank from Switzerland to Swaziland will be buying Euros tonight to maintain the illusion but for how long... While 'they' tried to save EURUSD, US equity futures aren't buying it (giving up the late-Friday Ukraine-is-solved and Dow is gren YTD surge) - The Dow is down 65 points, S&P down 8 points, and Nasdaq down 14 points.

In the face of Turkish President Recep Erdogan's increasingly harsh rhetoric towards The West and slamming the central banks for its "independence" warning that it will "be held accountable" if the decision on interest rates is wrong - which has sent the Lira to record lows - Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc appears to have come out today to try and calm the situation. Fearing that "Turkey could cease to be a governable country," Arinc called for a softening of political language, as he warns "the polarization of the masses, frightens me."

Today's obvious mispricing of sovereign bonds is a bonanza for spending politicians and allows over-leveraged banks to build up their capital. This mispricing has gone so far that negative interest rates have become increasingly common. Macroeconomists will probably claim that so long as central banks can continue to manage the quantity of money sloshing about in financial markets they can keep bond prices up. But this is valid only so long as markets believe this to be true. Put another way central banks have to continue fooling all of the people all of the time, which as we all know is impossible.

As leaders from France, Cyprus, Germany, US, Russia, and Ukraine drop tape-bombs of turmoil at one another, the following somewhat stunning clip suggests on the ground in Eastern Europe, other - far bigger - bombs are being lobbed...

In 12 U.S. states, over half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-13.  The states: York are: New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington D.C.

Much of what's been 'sold' to us about the US shale oil revolution is massively over-hyped. The amount of commercially-recoverable shale oil is much less than touted, returns much less net energy than the petroleum our economy was built around, and is extremely unprofitable to extract for most drillers at today's lower oil price. To separate the hype from reality, Arthur Berman explains the recent US oil production boost from shale drilling as short-lived and somewhat desperate; a kind of last hurrah before the lights get turned out...

Debt-mageddon...

The U.K. government is stepping up contingency planning to prepare for a possible Greek exit from the eurozone and the market instability such a move would create, U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne said on Sunday.  The U.K. government has said the standoff between Greece’s new antiausterity government and the eurozone is increasing the risks to the global and U.K. economy. “That’s why I’m going tomorrow to the G-20 [Group of 20] to encourage our partners to resolve this crisis. It’s why we’re stepping up the contingency planning here at home,” Mr. Osborne told the BBC in an interview. “We have got to make sure we don’t, at this critical time when Britain is also facing a critical choice, add to the instability abroad with instability at home.”

Summarizing the key points of Tsipras Sunday speech to parliament:

Greece cannot back down (mandate is clear)
Greece rejects bailout extension (implicit GREXIT unless EU backs down)
Europe cannot afford repeat mistakes - will not humiliate one nation.
Greece's first priority: humanitarian disaster