Global Economy

Austerity is dead!  Long live Spending! Futures are up, Italian and Spanish bonds are up, CDS spreads on them are at least 10 bps tighter, and MAIN is 3 bps tighter on the day (though I have this feeling I better type fast as we are starting to fade off the best levels). Lots of little things seem to be contributing to the strength, TXU earnings, no economic data, auctions that raised the required money, etc., but there does also seem to be a belief that Germany finally “gets it”.  That Germany is finally going to relent on their demands for austerity. So “Austerity Now” may be over, but killing something that didn’t work, isn’t the same as solving the problem.  Going back to the norm that caused the problem in the first place, hardly seems like a solution either.  Currency reversion and/or debt restructuring will be the ultimate end-game.

Here is the point; Bernanke thinks he can deal with this falling growth outlook and a deleveraging consumer by adding to QE to keep rates very low. I am not sure it will work and if it doesn’t yields could start to rise and the more he throws at it the more yields actually rise as vigilantes will fear pent up inflationary pressures. This is a potential disaster for central bankers and at some point the impact of QE may be proven limited. When it is the central banks will have shot the last bullet. Why is no one discussing this?

All you need to read and some more.

The IMF meeting ended yesterday and leading world economies agreed to more than double the lending power of the IMF in an effort to protect the global economy from the euro zone contagion. This was still short of Lagarde’s $600 billion goal. The Netherlands  was drawn into the spotlight over the weekend when the government failed to agree on budget cuts, making elections nearly unavoidable and casting doubt on its support from future euro zone aid.  Investors will watch the China HSBC manufacturing survey at 1430 GMT as a measure of the conditions of the world’s 2nd largest economy.  The Federal Reserve meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, and its statement on monetary policy is given on April 25th.  The Bank of Japan meets on Friday and is expected to ease again. Trading is sluggish as the market waits for clues.

All you need to know.

Here are four charts of wages, income and consumption. The charts depict changes from a year ago (also called year-over-year) and the percentage of change from a year ago. These measure rates of change as opposed to absolute changes, and so they are useful in identifying trends... The build-out of Internet infrastructure that culminated in the dot-com boom boosted employment, wages and consumption, and the credit-housing bubble of the mid-2000s also boosted income and consumption. Now that these temporary conditions have faded, what's left is the relentless chewing up of traditional industries by the Web as distributed software boosts productivity while slashing the number of people required to create value. What's remarkable about the first chart is the increase in volatility in recent years: the changes in wages and salaries are increasingly dramatic. This might be reflecting the dynamics of the global economy pulling wages lower while massive financial-stimulus policies of the Central State and bank (the Federal government and the Federal Reserve) act to artificially boost wages with trillions of dollars in borrowed/printed money.

In this week's missive, Jefferies' strategist David Zervos decries the doomsayers, panders to the printers, and colors this colossal nominal rally (and its expected infinite horizon) through green toner-colored glasses. All we can say here is "Viva Jefferies' David Zervos, and Viva Sarcasm"... it is Sarcasm right? Because if serious, this letter seems like it could have been penned by anyone fighting tooth and nail to become 3rd undersecretary of central planning in Stalinist Russia. We leave it to readers' judgment on which side of the fence Mr. Zervos sits.

The WTO recently announced it expects global trade to fall again from 5% to only 3.7% growth - significantly lower than the 20-year average growth rate of 5.4%. But ThomsonReuters notes this week that their additional comment that 'severed downside risks' could put a further dent in growth rates could well have foundation in some very real data. Traffic through the Suez Canal - a key cargo transport route - has nosedived in recent weeks and months and is currently only just above the flat-line. While not a perfect indicator, given that 8% of world trade travel this route and the rising tensions occurring geographically, nevertheless the trends in global GDP growth and trade volumes have mirrored one another very closely and this downturn suggests considerably more contraction in global growth than even the most pessimistic of sell-side research shops believes is possible.

The global reliquification continues:

• BRAZIL CENTRAL BANK DECREASES BENCHMARK LENDING RATE TO 9.00%
• BRAZIL CEN BANK SAYS RATE CUT PART OF CONTINUED ADJUSTMENT

First India, now Brazil (even if the move was largely expected). When are Russia and China joining the fray?

The Eurozone could break up and trigger a “full-blown panic in financial markets and depositor flight” and a global economic slump to rival the Great Depression, the IMF warned yesterday. In its World Economic Outlook report, the International Monetary Fund said the collapse of the crisis-torn single currency could not be ruled out. It warned that a disorderly exit of one member country would have untold knock-on effects. "The potential consequences of a disorderly default and exit by a euro area member are unpredictable... If such an event occurs, it is possible that other euro area economies perceived to have similar risk characteristics would come under severe pressure as well, with full-blown panic in financial markets and depositor flight from several banking systems," said the report.  "Under these circumstances, a break-up of the euro area could not be ruled out."  “This could cause major political shocks that could aggravate economic stress to levels well above those after the Lehman collapse," said the report. The risks outlined by the IMF are real and are being taken seriously by central banks who are becoming more favourable towards diversifying foreign exchange reserves into gold. Central bank reserve managers responsible for trillions of dollars of investments are shunning euro assets and questioning the currency’s haven status because of the region’s sovereign debt crisis, research has found, according to the FT.... Elsewhere, gold demand in India, the world’s biggest importer, may climb as much as 25 percent during a Hindu festival next week, according to Rajesh Exports Ltd., reviving jewelry buying that was curtailed by a nationwide shutdown.

Low trade volume is sucking the fuel from the global economy

All you need to read and more.

This isn't science. 

Based on supply, demand and even after taking into account the geopolitical factor, we believe oil could experience a correction later this year and in the next three years or so.

Before there was seamless connectivity, before there was one global electronic currency and instantaneous global debt creation, before there was the internet, supply-chain "logistics", World Bank, IMF, and economic hitmen, there were... ships. Because in order to allow modern Ricardian economics to flourish (we would be curious to read some/any scholarly papers probing the failure of Ricardo's theories in a ZIRP regime, unfortunately there are none, as never before has the cost of money been zero essentially until regime end), and before money could be printed with impunity, backed solely by full lack of faith and eroding credit, nations had to actually trade with each other, and money was simply a means to facilitate said trade, which in turn allowed the formation of wealth and subsequent asymmetric power relationships. Needless to say, any nation that imported itself to death would be promptly wiped out by its heretofore friendly neighbors who would simply invade it when the money to buy stuff and to fund armies ran out: sadly TARGET2 was not available during Victorian times. So where are we going with this? Ben Schmidt, a Princeton graduate student, using ship logs has conceived of this tremendous time lapse of every single major known ship route taken by Dutch, Spanish and English vessels during the "age of transition", the period between 1750 and 1850, which set the stage for today's "global economy." The result is a fantastic insight into the early stages of globalization.