Global Economy

Well, my fellow Slope-a Dopes, your favorite intrepid seafaring Frenchman got blown out of the water by Benjamin Moby-Dick Bernanke once again.  I have to hand it to captain grey beard, for a guy with a curiously quivering lower lip, who seems so utterly unsure of himself every time he opens his moronic mouth, he sure does have some pair of ballistic brass balls.  Not only did he delivered on his QE3 promise, but he actually turbo charged it into a terrifying trifecta!  Boatswain BDI was left for dead, desperately drowning in a sea of red DOOMs (Deep Options Out of the Money).  So now that Moby Dick has breached and surged the equity waves to new highs, where do we sail from here?  

Since 2009, outside of the megabanks in Europe, the bulk of the rest of the financial system has been completely shut out of the unsecured financing markets. One of the workarounds to this liquidity problem was the reclamation or retention of covered bonds issued by the Eurozone banks themselves, but these are constrained by strict allocation rules. Once the bank reaches that defined upper bound, where it is already close to exhausting this route, the bank will be forced to find a further alternate means for funding its existing loan portfolio. We discussed the issuance of self-referential or ponzi bonds previously since - can you really “own” your own liabilities?  Since circular logic pervades the current realm of central banking, this is wholly unquestioned.  In reality, retained covered bonds are just the accounting gloss on direct monetization of past and existing mortgage loans. Covered bonds as collateral to the ECB is an extremely important bridge holding the shaky liquidity system together as it is now; as the shortage of 'good' collateral increases, banks that do not possess enough “good” collateral have self-selected themselves for extinction and resource re-allocation.  There is no economic argument for maintaining self-selected bad banks.  Free markets demand their extinction.  Anything short of that will result in escalating and perpetual liquidity and solvency crises until the real economy is freed from the yolk of bad banks and their dis-intermediation. There is no real wonder as to why we have exactly that right now – the intrusion of politics done in the name of economics.

The chasm between official claims and reality is set to widen even further than it already has. The point will inexorably come when the long-suffering denizens of “Main Street” will rebel with the same combination of designed apathy and weary disgust with which the people of the East Bloc turned irrevocably away from their own rulers. The first “victim” of this abhorrence will be the Fed.

From Egan-Jones, which downgraded the US for the first time ever last July, two weeks ahead of S&P: "Up, up, and away - the FED's QE3 will stoke the stock market and commodity prices, but in our opinion will hurt the US economy and, by extension, credit quality. Issuing additional currency and depressing interest rates via the purchasing of MBS does little to raise the real GDP of the US, but does reduce the value of the dollar (because of the increase in money supply), and in turn increase the cost of commodities (see the recent rise in the prices of energy, gold, and other commodities). The increased cost of commodities will pressure profitability of businesses, and increase the costs of consumers thereby reducing consumer purchasing power. Hence, in our opinion QE3 will be detrimental to credit quality for the US."

Ex-Fed Governor Kevin Warsh provided much food for thought during his appearance on CNBC this morning. Over the course of the following clip, he addresses concerns from just how bad the reality of the global economy must have been for Bernanke and his merry men to have gone "all-in" aggressive - reflecting on this as a panic-like reaction during times now where we are not panicking, the ineffectiveness of QE3 "iPhone 5 will do more for the real economy than QE3", fears over how bad this could get as "there is a reason 'exit' is a four-letter word." Warsh notes the paradox of Bernanke "trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat' each time the economy loses control while calling for Washington to do more - as the politicians know "there's not much we need to do, Bernanke has our back." When asset prices are driven less by fundamentals and more by speeches and policies coming out of Washington, you're taking risks. "Risks are highest in the economy when measures of risk are he lowest"

If 2011's Arab Spring was all about the propaganda "hope" of democracy (driven paradoxically by soaring global good prices as we predicted in early 2011 before the first Tunisian domino toppled), then 2012 Arab Fall, is all about the blowback to US policies and intervention in the region. And while we are amused by the media's narrative that an entire continent can suddenly come to arms against Pax Americana over a YouTube clip, we are confident that what some hate-mongering preacher has to say about Mohammed is about as relevant to what is happening in the Middle East today, as how the global economy performs impact the S&P. Absolutely none. What we do know is that the anti-American revulsion, which started on September 11 in Egypt and has since taken Libya and Yemen by storm, is spreading like wildfire. The NYT writes: 'Protests were also reported at American missions in Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, where the police also fired tear gas to disperse crowds." It is only going to get far worse, as suddenly geopolitics, and the US response thereto, becomes the biggest issue in the presidential debate.

Some very curious thoughts ahead of tomorrow's FOMC announcement from none other than Citigroup: "There is a strong view in markets that 1) the Fed have to do a big QE, given the expectations that have been built up, and 2) the added liquidity will have a marginal effect.  Taken together this raises the risk that the assets that will benefit are those sensitive to liquidity, such as money substitutes and Treasuries, rather than assets that are sensitive to real business cycle expansion." Money substitutes = gold

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).

The chart below from UBS' George Magnus captures perhaps better than anything, not only the reason why the global economy grew with the speed it did over the past 40 years, not only why "globalization" (a/k/a finding news places to issue debt in exchange for secured assets and unsecured cash flows all the while under the umbrella of globalist organizations: see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) was the primary urgency for the status quo, not only why the developed world managed to delay the inevitable day of reckoning for as long as it did, but most importantly, why the global day of debt-saturated reckoning is coming.

A few days ago, the BOE's Andy Haldane, rightfully, lamented that the apparent "solution" to the exponentially growing level of complexity in the financial system is more complexity. Alas, there was little discussion on the far more relevant central planning concept of fixing debt with even more debt, especially as the US just crossed $16 trillion in public debt last week, right on schedule, and as we pointed out over the weekend, there has been precisely zero global deleveraging during the so-called austerity phase. But perhaps most troubling is that with 2 days to go to what JPM says 77% of investors expect with be a NEW QE round (mostly MBS) between $200 and $500 billion in QE, the world is, also in the words of JP Morgan, drowning in liquidity. In other words, according to the central planners, not only is debt the fix to record debt, but liquidity is about to be unleashed on a world that is, you guessed it, already drowning in liquidity. The bad news: everything being tried now will fail, as it did before, because nothing has changed, except for the scale, meaning the blow up will be all that more spectacular. The good news: at least the Keynesians (or is it simply Socialists now?) out there will not be able to say we should have just added one more [    ]illion in debt/liquidity and all would have worked, just as our textbooks predicted. Because by the time it's over, that too will have happened.

Dante would be proud; the Baltic Dry Shipping Index has now plunged through at least eight levels of hell on its way to record lows as it drops to 666 today. This is the lowest since Feb 2012's Chinese New Year lows and is a stunning 55 percentage points lower than the normal seasonal shift in the global aggregate trade indicator (and down 69% from its Oct 2011 swing high). Whether its over-supply, under-demand, or too many Chinese New Years, it is unarguably the next level of hell for the global economy - that will surely bring all the bottom-callers out as this time is different.

Stocks in Europe traded lower throughout the session, as market participants reacted to another round of weak data from Asia. In particular, China’s imports fell 2.6% on the year in  August vs. Exp. 3.5%, underpinning the need for policy easing measures from the People's Bank Of China. Some of the weakness in equity space was also attributed to profit taking following last week’s gains. Spanish bonds continued to benefit from the ongoing speculation that the government will seek a full scale bailout. As a result, SP/GE 10y bond yield spread is tighter even though there is an outside chance that the constitutional court vote in Germany will delay this. On the other hand, IT/GE and NE/GE bond yield spreads are wider, reflective the upcoming issuance, as well as elections. EUR/USD and GBP/USD, both seen lower on the back of touted profit taking, as well as pre-positioning into near-term risk events mentioned above. Commodity linked currencies are also weaker, weighed on by the weaker data from China, which also showed that imports of crude oil hit a 22-month low. In terms of notable stocks news, Glencore said it will not improve its offer for Xstrata after the company raised offer for Xstrata to 3.05 from 2.8.

• China Output Growth Slows as Leadership Handover Looms (Bloomberg); Weak China trade data raises Beijing spending stakes (Reuters)
• Italy Q2 GDP revised down to -0.8% year-on-year on weak domestic demand (Economic Times)
• Troika disagreed with €2 billion in Greek "cuts" (Reuters)
• No Greek bottom in sight yet: Greek IP, Manufacturing Output plunge compared to year earlier (WSJ)
• France's Hollande sees 2013 growth forecast about 0.8 pct (Reuters), France plots tax hikes of up to 20 bln euros (Reuters)
• Euro Crisis Faces Tests in German Court, Greek Infighting (Bloomberg)
• Geithner sells more AIG stock (FT)
• Japan infuriates China by agreeing to buy disputed isles (Reuters)
• Euro crisis to worsen, Greece could exit euro: Swedish FinMin Anders Borg (Economic Times)
• ‘Lead or leave euro’, Soros tells Germany (FT)
• German MP makes new court complaint against euro plans (Reuters)
• Obama super-Pac in push to raise $150m (FT)

During the height of the 'Goldilocks economy' of the mid-1990s, Mat Stein wrote When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency , a master compendium of do-it-yourself preparation skills. Fast-forward to today's Great Recession, drought-stricken, $100+ oil, post-Katrina, post-Fukushima world -- many are realizing the prudence of taking basic precautionary steps to reduce their vulnerability to whatever the future may bring. Whether you're concerned about the fallout from a breakdown of today's weakened global economy, or simply want to be better able to deal with the aftermath of a natural disaster if you live in an earthquake/hurricane/flood/wildfire/tornado-prone part of the world, the personal resiliency measures Mat recommends make sense for almost everyone to consider. It's important to note that Mat isn't a doomer bent on fanning fears of a zombie apocalypse (though those concerned about social collapse will find much utility in his work), but believes that our current fossil fuel-driven, hyper-consumptive, and over-leveraged way of life is not sustainable.

The cracks in the Fed's narcissism started to show at Jackson Hole, where Bernanke's speech did nothing for the market; and as the FT points out, the biggest worry on display was whether these bureaucrats, sitting at the heart of every mature economy, still have the power to influence demand. Lurking behind many debates was this question: if central bank policies are so omnipotent effective, why is the global economy not growing faster? Everyone's favorite honest-dwarf Fed Governor, James Bullard, summarized perfectly:

"I am a little – maybe more than a little bit – worried about the future of central banking. We've constantly felt that there would be light at the end of the tunnel and there'd be an opportunity to normalize but it’s not really happening so far."

 

"What I’m worried about is this creeping politicization."

With monetary financing of governments on the increase (unconditionally by the Fed and conditionally by the ECB), it is clear that more radical options are increasingly mainstream as the textbook is not providing the answers. If the Fed itself is admitting it is becoming irrelevant and obsolete, then perhaps regimes are changing.