Fail

Neoclassical Economics Is a Scam ...

Brad DeLong makes an odd claim:

So the big lesson is simple: trust those who work in the tradition of Walter Bagehot, Hyman Minsky, and Charles Kindleberger. That means trusting economists like Paul Krugman, Paul Romer, Gary Gorton, Carmen Reinhart, Ken Rogoff, Raghuram Rajan, Larry Summers, Barry Eichengreen, Olivier Blanchard, and their peers. Just as they got the recent past right, so they are the ones most likely to get the distribution of possible futures right.

Larry Summers? If we’re going to base our economic policy on trusting in Larry Summers, should we not reappoint Greenspan as Fed Chairman? Or — better yet — appoint Charles Ponzi as head of the SEC? Or a fox to guard the henhouse? Or a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary? Or a war criminal as a peace ambassador? (Yes — reality is more surreal than anything I could imagine).

It's just a matter of time before Bunds become the target of bond vigilantes unless Germany pulls out of the political fundfest that is runnnig nowhere very fast

"Mistakes are what superior investing is all about" is how Oaktree's Howard Marks begins his latest treatise, adding that for a trade to turn out to be a major success, the other side has to have been a big mistake. In any trade it is generally safe to say that one side has to be wrong (since win/win transactions are far less common than win/lose) leaving the buyer and seller unequally happy. Marks believes it is highly desirable to focus on the topic of investing mistakes. First, it serves as a reminder that the potential for error is ever-present, and thus of the importance of mistake minimization as a key goal. Second, if one side of every transaction is wrong, we have to ponder why we should think it’s not us. Third, then, it causes us to consider how to minimize the probability of being the one making the mistake. From the real-world 'issues' with the efficient market hypothesis, to behavioral sources of investment error, Marks concludes: "In the end, superior investing is all about mistakes... and about being the person who profits from them, not the one who commits them."

As Merkel, via Schaeuble, continues unwaveringly in Germany's pursuit of their consistent call for controls if the rest of Europe gets their money, chatter on desks is that maybe its not Zee Germans that are the problem at the Summit but Les French with Hollande's insistence that "there can be no transfer of sovereignty if there is no improvement in solidarity." Strategic Alpha's Maurice Pomery is "not convinced that Germany should be deemed the stubborn aggressor in all of this" and as we have been vociferously stating "Merkel is NOT going to be bullied into any wealth transfer; forget it" and "Hollande cannot make sweeping socialist changes and expect Germany to pay for it." Critically, given the levels of financial repression, and Newedge's comment that "the counter-intuitive moves Hollande has made by cutting some pension ages and rising the minimum wage have scared the market" and taken together with his comments about growth, the markets perceive Hollande as lacking a strong commitment to austerity. Until he demonstrates otherwise, France is vulnerable to a repatriation spiral (going the same way as Spain then Italy - where the markets have increasingly repatriated themselves into domestic enclaves) and the inevitable endgame where domestic demand for bonds becomes unsustainable.

We have long said that the maximum potential loss of the JPM CIO trade based on the blow out in IG9 10 year (and associated trades complex), which has about a $200 million DV01, is far beyond not only the $2 billion that Jamie Dimon estimated on May 10, but above our own estimate which was $5 billion on that same day. Today, the NYT "according to people who have been briefed on the situation" which translated means just more media propaganda because all the news on the topic in the past month has been leaks by axed parties, says that 'Losses on JPMorgan Chase’s bungled trade could total as much as $9 billion, far exceeding earlier public estimates, according to people who have been briefed on the situation." Also according to the NYT, and roundly refuting what the other leak had told Bloomberg and other media outlets, "The bank’s exit from its money-losing trade is happening faster than many expected. JPMorgan previously said it hoped to clear its position by early next year; now it is already out of more than half of the trade and may be completely free this year." Obviously, this refutes media "reports" also based on "people familiar" or "conflicted sources" that JPM has unwound its trade, either by novating, or by transferring it over to helpful hedge funds. Bottom line: take everything with a grain of salt until Dimon himself gives an update in two weeks, as this could easily be an upper bound loss estimate starwman to set expectations very low, sending the stock soaring when the "final" announce loss comes in at ~$5 billion, courtesy of other well-known "masking" techniques such as loan loss reserve release and DVA benefits.

Let's give federal money to tax cheats!!

What few media pundits seem to grasp is that when our trade deficits transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to other nations, those dollars have to end up in dollar-denominated assets like bonds, stocks or real estate. Many people have missed the difference between dollars used to settle accounts and dollars held as a result of trade deficits. Many of those emotionally wedded to the belief that the U.S. dollar is doomed gleefully grabbed onto the news that China and Japan will swap currencies directly (yen and yuan) rather than intermediate the trade with U.S. dollars. This was mistakenly seen as a nail in the coffin of the USD. If I am in Japan and I have yuan due to trade with China, and I want to exchange those yuan for yen, I only need USD for about 10 seconds to intermediate the exchange. Cutting out the USD simply cut the exchange costs and lowered the daily trading volume of the USD. This reduction in the transactions needed to exchange yuan for yen did nothing to change the dollars held by China or Japan as a result of their trade surpluses with the U.S. This also didn't lower the amount of assets or credit (debt) denominated in USD. In other words, the effect on the value of the dollar is trivial. No matter how many exchanges the USD sitting in overseas accounts are pushed through, they still end up in dollar-denominated assets somewhere.

Because once you pop, you can't stop.

There are now reports that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to clamp down on gold bullion coin sales by banks as the rising bullion imports are adding pressure to the current account deficit and weakening the rupee.  

Western central banks and mints will not be clamping down on gold bullion coin sales in the near future as demand for gold and silver bullion coins fell in Q1 2012.

In a detailed discussion with Bloomberg TV's Tom Keene, Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg addresses everything from Europe's "inability to grow its way out of the problem" amid its 'existential moment', Asian 'trade shock' and commodity contagion, and US housing, saving, and fiscal uncertainty. He believes we are far from a bottom in housing, despite all the rapacious calls for it from everyone, as the over-supply overhang remains far too high. "The last six quarters of US GDP growth are running below two percent" he notes that given the past sixty years of experience this is stall speed, and inevitably you slip into recession". He is back to his new normal of 'frugality' and bearishness on the possibilities of any solution for Europe but, most disconcertingly he advises Keene that "when you model fiscal uncertainty into any sort of economic scenario in the U.S., what it means is that businesses raise their liquidity ratios and households build up their savings rates. This comes out of spending growth. And that's the problem - you've got the fiscal uncertainty coupled with a US export 'trade shock'."

There are roughly 19 million vacant dwellings in the U.S., of which around 4 million are second homes and a million or two are on the market. Let's stipulate that several million more are in areas with very low demand (i.e. few want to live there year-round). Let's also stipulate that several million more are in the "shadow inventory" of homes that are neither on the market nor even officially in the foreclosure pipeline, i.e. zombie homes. Even if you account for 9 million of these homes, that still leaves 10 million vacant dwellings in the U.S. which could be occupied. That means 1 in 12 of all dwellings are vacant. Even if you discount this by half, that still leaves 5 million vacant dwellings that could be occupied. Given that the total rental market is 40 million households, that constitutes a very large inventory of supply that remains untapped. Lastly, it is important to note that the ratio of residents to dwellings is rather low in the U.S., with millions of single-person households and large homes occupied by one or two people. The potential pool of existing homeowners who could enter the "informal" rental market by offering bedrooms, basements and even enclosed garages for rent is extremely large, and that is a difficult-to-count "shadow" inventory of potential rentals.

In about an hour, the US Supreme Court, three years after Chrysler, is about to have a profound impact on Wall Street one more time. As Goldman explains, the court is expected to release some of the final opinions of the current session, which ends this week. Rulings on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as well as the Arizona immigration law are likely to capture the greatest amount of attention. With a number of opinions to get out, it is possible the court could wait until later this week (possibly Thursday, June 28) to release some of the remaining rulings for this term, though the court has not yet announced any additional dates for the release of opinions. Trading in the online prediction market intrade.com implies a 74% probability that the court will find the mandate unconstitutional; prior to the oral arguments in March, it implied only around a 35% probability the court would rule against the mandate. Goldman believes that the outcome is fairly unpredictable and that many market participants probably are relying too heavily on the oral arguments in trying to predict the outcome of the case.

The European Union will hold yet another do-or-die summit this week. On this occasion, “growth” is the plat du jour; the allegedly missing recipe in the “plan” to save the euro. In addition, some suggest that this time is also “different” because Greece, France, Italy and Spain may now be ready to corner Germany to relax its sacrosanct fixation with austerity. This summit truly promises to be quite a gathering of beggars at a feast, no less.

Today, we are in the midst of a financial debacle which is more truly global than any world war. There are no lines of trenches, no shattered towns and cities, no casualty lists in the papers and no “we regret to inform you” telegrams being delivered. The carnage is real but it is invisible. No lives have been lost. All that has happened is that the living of life has become more difficult and the ability to rely on the fruits of past efforts for future comfort and “security” has been all but extinguished. The vast majority of the people are cannon fodder in this financial debacle. Like the real thing in the trenches of the Western Front, they have long since realised the futility of the efforts of their “generals”. They know that the “recession” is not over. They are starting to realise that it will never be over as long as the same methods which produced it are being used to get out from under it. But most see no escape, having become used to looking to those same “generals” to tell them what to do.