Creditors

After sliding early in Sunday pre-market trade, overnight US equity futures managed to rebound on the now traditional low-volume levitation from a low of 1938 to just over 1950 at last check, ignoring the biggest single-name blowup story this morning which is the 23% collapse in Volkswagen shares, and instead have piggybacked on what we said was the last Hail Mary for the market: the hope of more QE from either the ECB or the BOJ. Tonight, it was the latter and while Japan's market are closed until Thursday for public holidays, its currency which is the world's preferred carry trade and the primary driver alongside VIX manipulation of the S&P500, has jumped from a low of just over 119 on Friday morning to a high of 120.4, pushing the entire US stock market with it.

Greece went to the polls on Sunday with a choice that really wasn't a choice and even as Alexis Tsipras looks set to prevail the most shocking electoral outcome is this: neo-Nazi Golden Dawn is set to come in third and garnered the most support of any party among Greece's unemployed.

Non-bombasitc overview of the investment climate.  No, the sky is not falling.  This is not the end of days.  

The consequences of all this are grim, but the timing is hard to predict. Perhaps the government can somehow borrow amounts that no one previously thought possible. But its creditors will look for repayment. Either the creditors are going to walk away unhappy (in the case of default), or the holders of all dollars are going to be stuck with worthless paper (in the case of hyperinflation), or the taxpayers’ pockets will be looted (the longer things muddle along), or most likely a combination of all three will happen. This will not be a happy story for all but a few of us.

Don't look now but Greece (remember them?) is headed back to the polls on Sunday in an election that pits a watered down version of Alex Tsipras and Syriza against the conservative New Democracy. With Syriza's original vision relegated to the realm of "wishful thinking", Greeks face a choice that really is no choice at all.

Chinese equity markets are holding modest 'bounce' gains after two days of carnage. After 3 days of stronger fixes PBOC devalued the Yuan but the Ministry of Finance made it clear that "devaluation is not aimed at boosting exports," which makes us wonder, is it aimed at selling Treasuries? No additional direct liquidity injections but anxiety grows as China National Erzhong Group Co. may miss an interest payment later this month after one of its creditors filed a restructuring request, putting it at risk of becoming the second state-owned company to default in the nation’s onshore bond market.

In short, activist Fed policy is both ineffective and reckless (and the historical data bears this out), and that the Federal Reserve has pushed the financial markets to a precipice from which no gentle retreat is ultimately likely. Similar precipices, such as 1929 and 2000, and even lesser precipices like 1906, 1937, 1973 and 2007 have always had unfortunate endings. A quarter-point hike will not cause anything. The causes are already baked in the cake. A rate hike may be a trigger with respect to timing, but that’s all. History suggests we should place our attention on valuations and market internals in any event.

Never go full Krugman...

Major depressions do not occur overnight. They go in downward waves, interrupted at intervals by false recovery waves.  But the collapse will continue, unstoppably. Like any house of cards, once it begins to actually fall, no further Band-Aids will stop the inevitable. So, what might that trigger be?

global bank credit looks like it is already contracting in key markets, such as China, in which case global fundamentals are definitely deteriorating. This being the case, it will take increasing amounts of newly-issued money from the central banks to perpetuate the illusion that markets are rising, and that the economy is still growing, with or without state-directed buying of equities.

Late last year, Paul Krugman took a field trip to Japan to observe Keynesian insanity prowling around in its natural habitat. While he was there, he gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe some sage advice which can be roughly summarized as follows: "Abenomics is working so why would you screw it up by getting fiscally responsible all of the sudden?" Nine months later, Japan is still a deflationary deathtrap and Krugman is "really, really worried"...

• Compare: S&P 500 Futures Advance After U.S. Stocks Ignored Global Rally (BBG)
• And contrast: Global Stock Rally Grinds to a Halt (BBG)
• And be very confused: Global Stocks Lower on U.S. Interest Rate Uncertainty (WSJ)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Wavers on September Rate Rise (WSJ)
• Time for more QE: Abe Adviser Says Next Month Good Opportunity for BOJ Easing (BBG)
• Brazil downgraded to junk rating by S&P, deepening woes (Reuters)
• Kiwi dollar tumbles after New Zealand cuts interest rates (Reuters)

It would be a welcome gesture for an incoming government to declare the actions of previous governments to be against the interests of the taxpayers and repudiate the national debt. This would not only relieve the taxpayers of a present burden but would also mean that any future government would find it hard to borrow from international creditors forcing them to bear the negative effects of their fiscal and monetary policies much earlier and with greater severity. Unfortunately Greece’s “anti-bailout” government’s decision to ignore a plebiscite opposing a new bailout deal and the German parliament’s recent approval of said deal (going against the will of the majority of Germans) proves that any concept of democratic legitimacy is not only logically flawed but will always be discredited in practice.

Remember when two months ago Schauble, jokingly, offered Jack Lew to "trade" Greece for Puerto Rico? Something tells us in the interim period the German finmin changed his mind because while the Greek can has been kicked again, if only for the time being until bailout #4, the full severity of the Puerto Rican insolvency was laid out for all to see moments ago when top officials and outside advisors to the commonwealth released a highly-anticipated report showing that island's whopping funding gap of $28 billion will at best be reduced to "only" $13 billion over the next several years. Worse: according to the report of the so-called Working Group, the Treasury’s single cash account and Government Development Bank would exhaust available liquidity before the end of the year

To summarize: in order to get the Saudis to "agree" to the Iran deal, all the US had to do is remind King Salman, that as long as oil is where it is to a big extent as a result of Saudi's own record oil production, crushing countless US oil corporations and leading to the biggest layoffs in Texas since the financial crisis, the country will urgently need access to yield-starved US debt investors. If in the process, US corporations can invest in Saudi Arabia (and use the resulting assets as further collateral against which to take out even more debt), while US military corporations sell billions in weapons and ammo to the Saudi army, so much the better.