Greece

CLSA's Chris Wood has released his latest outlook on the world is out, and it is getting progressively gloomy: when even a banker says that he is "aghast" at the "grotesque" extent to which senior creditors are being bailed out left and right in Europe, one has to stop and wonder. Judging by the frequency of protests, even the most rudimentary levels of European society seem to be realizing that with each passing day it is they that are funding decades of greed and foolish, not to mention wrong, decision making on behalf of the kleptoklass. And as such each rescued country is one more straw on the camel's back of public patience, which will probably run out just as, or after, Spain is rescued, which should be within a few weeks, the reprieve for Europe's fantastically intertwined cross creditors is shortly running out. In terms of trades, Wood recommends shorting Europe with an emphasis on Spain. On the other hand, his pro Asian bias is still here, although with ever louder rumors of tightening out of China, even that has been curbed somewhat. Looking into 2011, the CLSA strategist sees increasing signs of weakness in the US, borne out of the muni space. Of course, should senior bondholders in Europe be impaired, the weakness will come far sooner due to the extremely interconnected nature of global financial balance sheet where a writedown for one will promptly trickle down via a domino-like effect into massive haircuts for all.

Can Germany have its cake and eat it too?

Rosie enters the "future of the euro" speculation race, and sees a "devastating deflationary shock" when Europe finally accepts the inevitable: "U.S. companies would likely confront a huge appreciation in the dollar, which would cut into their foreign-derived earnings base. Commodity prices would undoubtedly correct and safe-haven flows would certainly redress the loonie’s overvaluation gap. Treasuries would rally big-time." Stocks, of course, would plummet, and "Gold would remain bid — yesterday’s rally in the face of the USD rally is a case in point." On the other hand, the fact that we are starting to see traces of Krugman in Rosie's thinking is very. very worrisome.

After we noted earlier that the latest trending topic regarding Europe's insolvency was that the €440 billion EFSF rescue facility will likely not have enough cash to bail out Spain, the ECB immediately came to the rhetorical rescue, with Governing Council member and Bundesbank head Axel Weber speaking at a conference in Paris, telling participants that "The European Financial Stability Fund should be
sufficient to dissuade markets from speculating against the solvency of
Eurozone member countries, and if not, more money will be provided." Lamenting the market's idiocy, which refuses to stop punishing bankrupt stats, Weber further added that markets suffer from "limited rationality" and players
often follow market movements to the neglect of "fundamentals." Of course the same should be said for all those who are buying into this rally, which is driven exclusively by the genocidal desire of central bankers to ramp up stocks, kill currencies, and make the cost of living unbearable for half their constituencies. But nobody has ever accused central bankers of objectivity, or ever doing something that puts the interests of a few billionaire "Jenny 20" rejects over a billion or so filthy peasants.

As a disclaimer to this update, I just want to reiterate once again that I firmly believe that the Euro is not viable, at least certainly not the way it is designed and I think the flaws in its conception are so profound that dissolution makes the most sense. With this assumption in mind, let us look at what the solutions are to the current woes. The individual bail-out route is not an option. When dominoes fall in panic the speed at which they fall tends to accelerate exponentially. Rewind the tapes to late July 2007: American Home mortgages files. The market goes on to make new highs but in January Bank of America takes over otherwise soon defunct Countrywide and by March Bear Stearns is belly up. The forced hand out to JP Morgan appeases the market temporarily, but by early September Fannie and Freddie are de facto nationalized, and so is AIG, Lehman collapses, Wamu is taken over by JP and at that point the government has no choice but backstop the entire system. Well, this is not unlike what we are witnessing here: We first had Iceland in November 2008, then Greece in the spring of 2010, now Ireland. Make no mistake if you let that fester enough or decide to bail them one by one without attempting a larger scale resolution by January Spain Portugal and possibly Italy will have been downgraded several notches, LCH will have raised the margins on all those bonds, and French and German banks will start dragging their country down the same slope. - Nic Lenoir

With bond spreads in Europe refusing to slow down for the Thanksgiving holiday (unlike the US, Europe will be open through the end of the week), and both Portuguese and Spanish spreads jumping to fresh records, with Spain nearly approaching the bailout threshold of 5%, it appears that the market has now pretty much skipped Portugal whose insolvency is a given, and has commenced the "pack of wolves" thing on Madrid. Expect to hear many accusations that CDS traders, and their naked shorting, is the spawn of satan any minute now, and for CDS trading limits to be imposed imminently (not to mention LCH hiking Portuguese and Spanish margins as early as today), even though as we have demonstrated repeatedly in the past, it is all cash bond sellers who are driving the price down. Nonetheless, it is a fact that "price action is now self-reinforcing" - what this means for Spain and for Europe is explained by Goldman's Francesco Garzarelli. Note that this is only a small part of the story. As Zero Hedge discussed first in early July, a far biggest systemic threat is what is happening (or rather, not happening) in the mortgage space, where just like in the US, Spanish Cajas continue to misrepresent the "phantom" bad debt on a national level, however unlike the US and the nationalized GSEs, there is no sovereign backstop to a nation full of delinquent mortgages. Back then the Stress Test farce brushed this biggest risk under the rug. Now that reality is back, this topic will soon come back with a vengeance.

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The market is limping in to Thanksgiving like Kenny Easterday with a broken wrist thanks to the European Union being on shakier ground than Gabourey Sidibe on a tight rope, North Korea dropping bombs on South Korea after South Korea's TSA apparently tried to touch Kim Jong-ils junk, and the Fed...

Contagion in the Europe is a foregone conclusion and its risk cannot be truly priced in since no one really knows where it will kick off, how, and what direction it will take through which channels. All that is known for sure is that you have a collective of nations that have been purposely over-optimistic in forecasts, purposely misleading regarding their past and present liabilities and mired in debt and bad assets amid an inevitable hard landing - or worse.

From RTE "The EU and the IMF will offer the Government an €85bn facility, which can be used to recapitalise the banks and fund the public finances. The EU and the IMF will offer the Government an €85bn facility, which can be used to recapitalise the banks and fund the public finances. The package would see the level of capital in the Irish banks being increased from eight to 12% in a move to bolster confidence of depositors in the financial system." This could well be too little, too late. The bank run has already started. And just to confirm that the schism between the ECB and Germany is now likely insourmountable, Nowotny said that he is 'irritated' with Merkel's remarks on the serious situation for EUR. Why, of course Ewald- nobody wants to hear the sad truth that you will be unemployed within a year.

Full of holes? Yes, but what other plan is out there?

While Bernanke was putting the finishing touches on QE2 in DC, 50 global financial regulators met at the New York Fed to discuss regulation of world's largest market. Instead of financial reform measures, what is being created is simply a massive new power center headed by the CFTC from which those at the top will vainly attempt to manipulate market prices and entrench favored institutions within the new framework.

Some may recall how the very contentious topic of Greek deposit bank runs was arguably the key catalyst to push Greece (and its banks) to accept a bailout from Europe, after the country realized it had little cash left (and the associated SNAFU in which RBS proved it really has no clue about anything). Well, it is now Ireland turn, and as the below chart shows, the Irish bank run has already commenced, with locals not even bothering to wait until the December 7 coordinated "pull your money" pan-European D (for default)-Day. Bank of America brings attention to this issue, which will likely be the last liquidity event before not only a full bailout of Ireland has to be implemented, full terms be damned, but becomes the catalyst for ongoing CHF strength as European deposits once again rush to the relative safety of the last remaining relatively stable European currency (and of course gold). The result will be an ongoing squeeze in Switzerland, which we now believe may be one of the first countries from the core to feel the vigilantes' wrath shortly after Spain is bailed out, some time in Q1 2011.

This is certainly true of most classic movies, and it applies quite well to shock and awe emergency/extraordinary economic or monetary policies. Indeed it has so far been true of QE 2.0, and we are finding out for now this could also be true of PIIGS bailout. Part of the reaction is completely natural. Bailing out Greece was a first within the EU and perceived as a sign of dedication to fighting the crisis by European institutions it squeezed out weak shorts and profit takers in PIIGS bonds. However the second time around the surprise effect is lost, and if anything it raises the questions as to how many countries really bailed out, is austerity working (Ireland was one of the first to adopt measures), and how many can Europe reasonably bail out before the euro currency's existence is put in question and the richer countries simply throw in the towel on helping their poorer neighbors in an attempt to save themselves. As of now it appears the worries are dominating euphoria. - Nic Lenoir

Exactly was we predicted in the beginning of the year, Ireland is the 2nd Euro nation that didn't need a bailout to get bailed out! Now that some may start taking this seriously, I go through a quick history of how we got to this point and prep for an intense analysis of how the contagion will unfold, how ugly the haircuts (that nobody needs, of course) will get, and who may be the next domino to fall.