Debt Ceiling

As Obi-Wan Kenobi might have said "This is not the debt ceiling debacle you are looking for." That is the seeming 180-degree shift that Goldman appears to have taken with its latest missive on the pending 'discussions'. Their reasoning that this time is different is based on the fact that, in contrast to now, the S&P 500 seemed immune to 'cliff' risks and traded in the 1300 range for the first half of 2011, even as the macro backdrop began to sharply deteriorate. Their models suggest it was clear that risk sentiment was buoying the market even as macro fundamentals were deteriorating. Goldman's view is that the swift market 20% sell-off was in part a reflection of a levitating market reconnecting to still-deteriorating macro fundamentals, possibly catalyzed by the political debate. This time around, they claim, the macro backdrop is, at least for now, stable and far better then in 2011, which perhaps, will allow the market to better absorb the upcoming debt ceiling debate. Unless, this happens...

#444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Israel hasn`t attacked Iran, huge builds in gasoline products, no jump in demand, yet oil price moved up regardless...

With gun tzar Joe Biden expected to propose his "gun recommendations" to Obama by next Tuesday, a proposal which will certainly involve some additional measure of gun control, the last thing the nation needed was more gas being poured into the fire today. Yet that is precisely what it got following news that two people had been shot, one of which reportedly a student, at Taft Union High School in the San Joaquin Valley in California earlier. From AP: "A student was shot and wounded at a San Joaquin Valley high school Thursday and a suspect was taken into custody, officials said. The shooting occurred about 9 a.m. at Taft Union High School, an oil and agricultural community about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The student who was shot was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield, said Ray Pruitt, spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. There was no immediate word on the victim’s condition. “We have a suspect in custody,” Pruitt said, adding that the person was believed to be a student. Pruitt said it’s believed a shotgun was used in the attack. KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets."

The fiscal cliff situation has made it clear that when it comes to issues such as cutting the deficit and debt, US politicians are totally clueless. Remember, Congress hasn't passed a budget in four years, which incidentally goes a long ways towards explaining why we're about to breach the debt ceiling again.

Shooting arrows at kids who are five years old today is nothing to celebrate, even if the arrows won't hit for another decade or two.

The market has completely forgotten about the cliff (i.e., sequester and other, if any, spending cuts), about the debt ceiling, about the drag on the economy from the payroll tax increase, about central bank currency warfare, and is now fully engrossed by the hedge fund war between Ackman (and possibly Chanos, certainly Tilson) vs Loeb (and possibly Icahn) over the valuation of Herbalife: $0 or $60. Which is why today's HLF "analyst day" investor presentation - whose sole purpose is to refute Ackman's 300+ page monster accusing HLF of being a pyramid scheme - may be the most discussed event by carbon-based traders.

The release of the National Federation Of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Survey for December was much like the report we discussed in November.  In short - there were very few positives to be found.  The current survey was completed prior to the last minute "fiscal cliff" deal that raised taxes on small business owners and employers.  It is unlikely that higher tax rates will spur businesses to expand employment, make capital expenditures or increase production.  Furthermore, with the resolution to the upcoming debt ceiling likely resulting in few, if any, real spending cuts the worries about future economic strength will likely persist. 

In light of this evening's entertainment from Paul Krugman, we thought QBAMCO's Paul Brodsky's view of the present debt-ceiling policy-through-the-looking-glass extremely apropos. Speaking of monetary abstractionism, there has been recent talk of a fiscal gimmick called “The Trillion Dollar Coin,” in which a platinum coin valued at $1 trillion would be created by the U.S. Mint for the Treasury Department. Treasury would then rid itself of its pesky fiscal deficit in one fell swoop by simply keeping the coin on deposit at the Fed. The TDC idea is a marvel of political imagination and public ignorance. Obviously, the TDC idea is a political ploy with a targeted mission: to rid the US Treasury of its debt ceiling, which is an increasingly frequent and embarrassing public reminder of government ineptitude. Everyone knows government-led de-levering is not a serious threat. However, the irony of the scheme and its MMT (Modern Money Theory, is espoused by imaginative economists technically proficient in double-entry bookkeeping and deficient in confidence that free marketplaces can provide accurate valuations) / liberal Keynesian promoters could not be more delicious. The scheme exposes the forty year-old charade, otherwise known as the global monetary system, better than any mind-exercise we have been able to come up with.

This past weekend, as part of a system update to the CalWIN software of California's Social Services department, HP accidentally cancelled EBT cards for some 37,000 Californians. We can only imagine the resulting panic and the scramble by all these Californians who suddenly could not live within their means to print trillion, and other denomination, coins, in the shining example of their government. The OC Register reports that eighteen counties were affected in the CalFresh chaos (the 'friendly' name given to California's food stamp program - also formerly known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). While we worry for the strippers and liquor stores, CalWIN and Xerox (the state's primary contractor for administering CalFresh) developed a process to reactivate the cards by Tuesday morning. While this must have been a tough day or two for many, we wonder if Geithner's 'extraordinary' efforts to extend the debt ceiling deadline have perhaps gone a little too far? Finally, instead of minting coins, perhaps Hewlett Packard can remotely update its software in the Fed printers, which can then proceed to print a few cool extra trillion unsupervised, and voila: all of America's problems are gone. 

Moments ago, MSNBC showed a clip in which "gun tzar" VP Joe Biden made it clear that "the President is going to act" on the issue of gun control, and that "executive orders and executive action can be taken." Of course "can" does not mean "will" as the fallout from an executive order bypassing Congress would be rather dramatic, especially on a topic so near and dear to at least half of America, and the response, to put it mildly, would make the Piers Morgan vs Alex Jones screaming match seems like a tranquil discussion between two dignified stoics. If "can" however, does become "will", America may have far bigger issues over the next two months than the debt ceiling, kicking the sequester down another several months, or even the quadrillion yen tuna.

The last time the US held a 10 year auction was earlier than its usual time on December 12, just before the Fed announced QE4EVA. The result from that particular auction were a total jumble, where Primary Dealers took down a tiny 33.1%, and where Directs were stuffed with a near record 42.7%. That and a big, 1.7 bps tail. In this light today's 10 Year was a little more casual, with the Treasury just issuing another $21 billion in 10 year bonds, this time not premonetized unlike tomorrow's 30 year auction, although the internals were just as ugly. The When Issued was 1.855%, with the final High Yield of 1.863% tailing (84% allotted at high). The Bid to Cover was 2.83, the smallest for a reopening auction since December 2009, and well below the average for 2012 of 3.03. Indirects took down just 28.5%, the second lowest in years, and better only compared to December's 24.2%, while Directs ended up holding only 14.8% of the final allocation, a big drop from December's 42.7%, which increasingly appears to have been a year end window dressing by various credit funds to show "safe securities" on their books. Overall, an ugly 10 Year auction following another ugly 10 Year auction, even if the past week has seen the yield on the paper drop substantially from 1.97% a week ago to 1.86% today. Was that it for the great "bonds to stocks" rotation?

We’ve now have just a little over 30 days until US breaches its debt ceiling. We would have already done so, except Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner borrowed some $200 billion from emergency funds to buy a few weeks’ time (announcing that he’d be leaving his post before the actual ceiling was breached).

There was a time when the Fed would repurchase freshly issued bonds a month, a week, or even a day after they were auctioned off by the Treasury (to avoid that whole perjury-inducing "no monetization" stigma). That's no longer the case. Moments ago the Fed concluded its most recent POMO as part of the now unsterilized QE4EVA, focusing on 2036-2042 maturities, i.e., the long-end. A quick look at the issues bought shows that the one CUSIP most put back by dealers to the Fed was the 912810QY7 30 Year. Curiously this is precisely the same CUSIP that, despite the debt ceiling being breached and all, will be auctioned off... tomorrow. Granted, it is a reopening (29 year, 10 month issue), but in a world in which nothing financial makes sense, and idiots come up with debt ceiling avoidance "schemes" that could have rolled right off a Lewis Black rant, we prefer to think of its as pre-monetization, much the same as pre-crime. That said, our hopes that Spielberg will consider putting the script of Monetization Report into a movie, with Paul Giamatti reprising the role of the man who prints the world, will likely not come true.

As reported previously, when Bloomberg broke the news two days ago, it now appears that the official appointment of Jack Lew as the new SecTres will take place tomorrow. From Bloomberg: "President Obama will announce tomorrow that White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew is his pick for Treasury secretary, person familiar with the matter tells Bloomberg’s Han Nichols." In other words - goodbye Timmah: best of luck writing your new book, which in the tradition of every ex-public servant who departs the government where they kept their mouths firmly shut, we assume will be all about bashing Tim Geithner.

With Alcoa kicking off the earnings season with numbers there were in line and slightly better on the outlook (as usual), attention will largely shift to micro data and disappointing cash flows over the next two weeks, even as the countdown clock to the debt ceiling "drop dead" D-Day begins ticking with as little as 35 days left until debt ceiling extension measures are exhausted and creeping government shutdowns commence. There was little in terms of macro data from the US, even as a major datapoint out of Germany, November Industrial Production, missed expectations of a 1% rise, pushing higher by just 0.2% M/M (up from a -2.0% revised October print), once again proving that "hopes" (as shown by various confidence readings yesterday) of a boost to the European economy are wildly premature. This disappointing print comes a day ahead of the ECB conference tomorrow, when the governing council may or may not cut rates, although it is very much unlikely it will proceed with the former at a time when at least the narrative is one of improvement - pursuing even more easing will promptly dash "hopes" of a self-sustaining trough (forget improvement) for yet another quarter. Putting the German number in context, Greek Industrial Output slid 2.9% in November, down from a revised 5% rise, refuting in turn that this particular economy is anywhere near a trough.