Phoenix Capital Research's blog

As I’ve outlined in earlier articles, Spain will be the straw that breaks the EU’s back. The country’s private Debt to GDP is above 300%. Spanish banks are loaded with toxic debts courtesy of a housing bubble that makes the US’s look like a small bump in comparison. And the Spanish government is bankrupt as well.

Today as was the case a month ago, everything ultimately hinges on Germany. Political intrigues aside, Germany is just about out of money. And Merkel has to decide… save Germany or save the EU. Only one of these options is even possible at this point (save Germany) as the EU is beyond saving.

The implications of this are severe. However, the first question we have to ask is, “why now?”

I gain nothing from pretending that I’m right when I’m not. And while I hate being wrong, I’m not going to ignore this fact and try to simply move on as though none of this has happened.

The reality is that we’re now facing a Crisis that will make 2008 look like a picnic. That Crisis will come when sovereign nations begin defaulting. The most likely candidate is Spain who refuses to ask for a bailout because it doesn’t want anyone looking too closely at its books because the entire Spanish baking system is insolvent beyond belief.

So where does this leave us? Well, it’s highly unlikely the Fed will actually implement anything major this week. What we could see is a large, but hollow promise for action, much like the ECB’s promise of “unlimited” bond purchases based on certain “conditions” being met (an empty promise if ever there was one).

In closing, the new ECB program will ultimately prove to be Mario Draghi’s big bluff. By presenting an old, failed program as something “new” and “unlimited” in scope, the ECB has actually shown that it’s essentially out of firepower.

Oh, and France just nationalized its second largest mortgage lender. But don’t worry, the EU Crisis is definitely contained and Draghi and others have got everything under control. After all, when the US nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008 the financial crisis came to a screeching halt… didn’t it?

This was the obvious conclusion anyone who actually bothered doing research would come to. Bernanke stated as far back as May 2011 that the consequences of QE outweighed the benefits. He also stated a month ago that for the Fed to buy too many Treasuries or Agencies would “hurt” the financial system.

Mr Draghi… a few questions for you…

The biggest even this week is Ben Bernanke’s Jackson Hole Speech which will take place on Friday August 31. It was at Jackson Hole in 2010 that Bernanke hinted at QE 2. With that in mind, many investors believe that the Fed is about to unveil or at least hint at a similar large-scale monetary program this Friday. We, at Phoenix Capital Research, disagree for three reasons. Number one, stocks are at or near four-year highs. With stocks at these levels, there is little reason for the Fed to use up any of its remaining ammunition.

For several months now, I’ve been stating that the world’s central banks are in a bind. That bind is that their monetary policies are becoming less and less effective at placating the markets while the consequences of said policies (higher costs of living, the targeting of troubled banks in the credit market, etc.) are increasing.

Bernanke has all but admitted this recently, saying "I assume there is a theoretical limit on QE as the Fed can only buy TSYs and Agencies… If the Fed owned too much TSYs and Agencies it would hurt the market."

I have to admit, I am pretty sick of writing about Europe, particularly since nothing has changed over there in the last month.

Instead what’s happened is that Mario Draghi issued a borderline ridiculous statement that he somehow will be able to fix the EU’s solvency Crisis.

The actual speech started with a philosophical inquiry comparing the Euro to a bumblebee. I kid you not:

The US is experiencing its worst drought since 1956. Altogether 63% of the lower US 48 states are experiencing a drought. As a result of this, the USDA has said that 50% of the US’s corn crop will be in poor to very poor condition.