Great Depression

With the long-weekend rapidly approaching, ConvergEx's Nick Colas takes a trip to the Hamptons, but through a time warp back to the Great Depression.  Examining the social registers (colloquially called the “Blue Book”) from 1927 and 1940, he finds that “The great and the good” of the day had real trouble holding their status during the social upheavals of the late 1920s and 1930s.  Only 32% of the families appearing in the Blue Book in 1927 were still there in 1940.  The ratio was even worse, at 29%, for the ultra-elite who belonged to the Meadow Club in Southampton.  It’s too early to tell what the last few volatile years will do to the upper crust of East Coast society, of course.  Or what may still be in store.  But when the hedgie in the Bentley cuts you off on Route 27 this weekend, take some solace in knowing he may not be there in a few years. “Yes, the wealthy are different. Every year there are different wealthy people.”

So the Fed is essentially handcuffed at this point. Increasing QE in any way risks a Japan-bond market style rout.

In the 1940s, the Fed adopted pegging operations to protect the financial system against rising interest rates and to ensure the smooth financing of the war effort. In effect, the Fed became part of the Treasury’s debt management team; as the budget deficit hit 25% of GDP in WW2, it capped 1Y notes at 87.5bps and 30Y bonds at 2.5%. From the massive bond holdings of its domestic banks to its exploding public debt, Japan today faces a situation very similar to the US in the 1940s. When the long-term rate climbs above 2%, the BoJ will probably adopt outright measures to underpin JGB prices to prevent turmoil in the financial system and a fiscal crisis - and just as Kyle Bass noted yesterday, they are going to need a bigger boat as direct financial repression in Japan is unavoidable.

Is the coming financial collapse going to be inflationary or deflationary?  Are we headed for rampant inflation or crippling deflation?  This is a subject that is hotly debated by economists all over the country.  Some insist that the wild money printing that the Federal Reserve is doing combined with out of control government spending will eventually result in hyperinflation.  Others point to all of the deflationary factors in our economy and argue that we will experience tremendous deflation when the bubble economy that we are currently living in bursts.  So what is the truth?  Well, for the reasons listed below, we believe that we will see both.

Our country has entered a period of Crisis. We may or may not successfully navigate our way through the visible icebergs and more dangerous icebergs just below the surface. The similarities between the course of our country and the maiden voyage of the Titanic are eerily allegorical...

Up until today, the narrative was one trying to explain how a soaring dollar was bullish for stocks. Until moments ago, when Bill Dudley spoke and managed to send not only the dollar lower, but the Dow Jones to a new high of 15,400 with the following soundbites.

• DUDLEY: FED MAY NEED TO RETHINK BALANCE SHEET PATH, COMPOSITION
• DUDLEY SAYS FISCAL DRAG TO U.S. ECONOMY IS `SIGNIFICANT'
• DUDLEY: FED MAY AVOID SELLING MBS IN EARLY STAGE OF EXIT
• DUDLEY: IMPORTANT TO SEE HOW WELL ECONOMY WEATHERS FISCAL DRAG
• DUDLEY SAYS HE CAN'T BE SURE IF NEXT QE MOVE WILL BE UP OR DOWN

And the punchline:

• DUDLEY SEES RISK INVESTORS COULD OVER-REACT TO 'NORMALIZATION'

Translated: the Fed will never do anything that could send stocks lower - like end QE - ever again, but for those confused here is a simpler translation: Moar.

If this plan fails to bring about economic growth in Japan, or worse still fails to bring about growth and unleashes inflation, then it’s GAME OVER for Central Bankers. Their one great claim “we’re not doing enough QE” will have been proven to be total bunk.

Preview of tomorrow's Bernanke testimony and FOMC minutes.

To those who have already submitted their applications to launder their cash buy an apartment or better yet, have already wired the money to purchase any of the still to be built residences at 432 Park, the 84-story giant that is set to become the tallest residential building in the Western hemisphere, congratulations. Although that is technically inappropriate: for full effect we would have to say "congratulations" in the buyers' native tongue, be it Russian, Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic, because it sure won't be English in the ongoing scramble to park trillions in cash away from a global banking system now hell bent on confiscating it, especially away from Europe's insolvent and massively levered banks as shown yesterday, and in the Cyprus template aftermath, the cleanest dirty shirt has once again emerged as midtown Manhattan real estate just as we said would happen last September. However, to call the emerging, full-blown panic scramble to park cash sight unseen, with zero regard for asking price "a bubble", would a slap in the face of all calm, cool and collected bubbles everywhere. Because any time someone is willing to pay $95 million for a non-duplex one-floor apartment, $44.8 million for a 4-bedroom apartment, $10 million for a two-bedroom, or a paltry $3.9 million for a maid's quarters studio (no really), something far more profound is going on beneath the surface than a simple asset bubble.

Read 'Em and Weep

With home prices rising at near-record paces in SoCal, corporate debt yields at record-lows, equity markets surging at near-record rates, and high quality assets dwindling by the minute under the heel of a central bank jack boot; it is perhaps no surprise that investors have switched from finding leverage through the balance sheet (i.e. crappy quality firms) to finding leverage through the instrument (i.e. structured credit). The trouble this time is that yields (and spreads) being so low, the creators of the new-normal ABS, CDOs, and CLOs have to stoop to the old tricks to make their money (as we noted here). As Bloomberg reports, bond issuers are once again exploiting the credit rating agency pay-for-performance business model to create "high-quality" collateralizable assets from utter garbage - such as auto loans.

History never changes. Or, at least it changes very slowly indeed. So here we are, like those before us, warning of our own Great Depression, of our own World War, or of even larger cycles like the fall of the English, Spanish, or Roman empires. And so far as we can tell, few listen and nothing changes. Why? Because it isn’t time. Understanding long-term cycles, and how they shape our spectrum of responses in periods of crisis and transformation is key to comprehending what is to come (and how we will allow it to affect us). Do you really think your ancestors didn’t see the Depression coming in 1921 or in 1929? Of course they did. The Balloon Option-ARM mortgage had just been invented, creating a housing boom larger and even more groundless as our own, immortalized by the Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuts. They warned the world then just as we do now, and no one listened then, just as they don’t now. Why? It wasn’t time.

Why There Is So Much Pro-War Reporting

I'm a selfish prick. A hot, rich, pampered intellectual with a big dick and a marathon tongue. I'm young enough to do it often and old enough to do it right.

In chapter 8 of David Stockman's new book The Great Deformation, the power-that-be-turned-anti-establishment-reality-seeker explains his perspective on the myths of the New Deal Recovery: "The new deal was a political gong show, not a golden era of enlightened economic policy. It shattered the foundation of sound money and inaugurated a régime of capricious fiscal and regulatory activism that inexorably fueled the growth of state power and the crony capitalism which thrives on it. But it did not end the Great Depression or save capitalism from the alleged shortcomings which led to the crash. In fact, the New Deal introduced a severe dose of economic nationalism and autarky at a time when the only hope for speedy recovery was a reopening of world trade and reestablishment of a stable international monetary régime.... in reality, the notion that the New Deal had pioneered a road map to recovery by means of countercyclical fiscal policy is mostly a postwar academic legend."