Brazil

Just as Byron Wien publishes his ten surprises for the upcoming year, Morgan Stanley has created a heady list of seventeen macro surprises across all countries they cover that depict plausible possible outcomes that would represent a meaningful surprise to the prevailing consensus. From the "return of inflation" to 'Brixit' and from the "BoJ buying Euro-are bonds" to a "US housing recovery stall out" - these seventeen succinctly written paragraphs provide much food for thought as we enter 2013.

Ever get the feeling that the entire global economy is one big experiment conducted by several former Keynesian economists from MIT with a bent for central planning, who sit down in conspiratorial dark rooms in tiny Swiss cities and bet it all on green until they double down so much nobody even pays attention to the game? No? You should. Jon Hilsenrath, of all people, explains why.

The upcoming week is comparatively less loaded with policy events, though the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations in the US remain one of the key developments to follow. Important is also the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, where Goldman and everyone else now expect the Fed to increase their monthly asset purchase target under the QE3 program to $85bn per month, up from $45bn per month; this will keep the pace of asset purchases constant after the Operation Twist expires at the end of December, as Zero Hedge predicted the day QE3 was announced. There are is a handful of other central bank meetings in emerging economies (Russia, Indonesia, South-Korea, Philippines, Chile) although consensus expects no change to the base-rate in most cases. On the data front industrial production numbers for October will be released around the world including in the Euro-area, US and China. We also get the US retail sales number and December flash PMIs for the Euro-area and China.

Your comprehensive yet concise, one-stop summary of all the bullish and bearish events of the past week.

Big news ahead of this Friday's NFP report:

• CITI TO CUT OVER 11,000 JOBS, TAKE PRETAX CHARGE $1B IN 4Q

"Sandy's fault?" Or maybe the economy is collapsing despite all the propaganda one is spoonfed. Considering the recent termination of over 50,000 by UBS we think we know the answer. And while C stock may jump on the news, the end result is that New York and the US have both just lost 11,000 less key taxpayers most of whom are almost certainly in the $250,000+ bucket. That said we can't wait for the BLS to take this data as somehow beneficial for the unemployment rate.

Beggaring thy neighbour has consequences. Neighbours might turn around and bite back. How long until other nations join with Brazil in declaring trade measures against the United States is uncertain, but there may be few other options on the table for creditors wanting to get their pound of flesh, or nations wishing to protect domestic industries. After all, the currency wars won’t just go away; competitive devaluation is like trying to get the last word in an argument. The real question is whether the present argument will lead to a fistfight.

U.S. Manufacturing Index Plunges to 3 Year Low … While Manufacturing Rises in the BRICS

Depending on what market or macro indication you choose to believe in, China is doing terribly badly or is on a sustainable path to a more domestic consumption-based economy. This weekend's PMIs show the economy is barely limping higher but Industrial Output is dismally low; HSI is ripping higher while SHCOMP is at multi-year lows. What is more critical, as Bloomberg's Michael McDonough points out today, is China’s growing role as a transmission mechanism between the economies of the developing and developed world. China’s economic rise has been accompanied by a surge in its appetite for imports - especially raw materials - even as global demand has been slow to recover. This introduces new stresses for many export-oriented countries by reducing the diversity of their trade relationships as they become more and more dependent on China in particular, creating substantial risk for those economies, which account for an increasing share of global GDP. Russian, Brazilian and Indian trade volumes have become heavily dependent on China at 10.6 percent, 17.5 percent and 9 percent, respectively. An economic crisis in Brazil would have a minimal impact on the Chinese economy, while a slowdown in China would likely crush Brazil’s external sector and domestic economy.

The natural reaction from policy makers, so far, has not surprised us. Rather than addressing the source of the problem, they have and continue to attack the symptoms. The problem, simply, is that governments have coerced financial institutions and pension plans to hold sovereign debt at a zero risk-weight, assuming it is risk-free... and just like since the beginning of the 17th century almost every serious intellectual advance had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine, I fear that in the 21st century, we too will have to begin attacking anything supporting the belief that the issuer of the world’s reserve currency cannot default, if we are ever to free ourselves from this sad state of affairs. This problem truly brings western civilization back to the time of Plato, when there was nothing “…worthy to be called knowledge that could be derived from the senses…” and when “…the only real knowledge had to do with concepts…”. Policy makers then believe in recapitalization and coercive smooth unwinds. With regards to recapitalization, I will just say that we are not facing a “stock”, but a “flow” problem. With regards to smooth unwinds, I think it is obvious by now that the unwind of a levered position cannot be anything but violent, like any other lie that is exposed by truth. Establishing restrictions to delay the unmasking would only make the unwinds even more violent and self-fulfilling. But these considerations, again, are foreign the metaphysics of policy making in the 21st century.

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bloc has begun planning its own development bank and a new bailout fund which would be created by pooling together an estimated $240 billion in foreign exchange reserves, according to diplomatic sources. To get a sense of how significant the proposed fund would be, the fund would be larger than the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about 150 countries, according to Russia and India Report. Many believe the BRICS countries are interested in creating these institutions because they are increasingly dissatisfied by Western dominated institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Five years ago, every American would have considered a trillion-dollar budget deficit a national tragedy.  If you believe the CNBC parrot show, NOT having a trillion-dollar deficit is now a sure sign of the Apocalypse.  I speak of course of the cleverly dubbed “Fiscal Cliff,” which panicked CNBC apologists are required to mention no less than 5,000 times a day. Creating the illusion of economic growth is easy if you can print money.  It’s a prank you can play on an entire country.  Cut the value of the currency in half and the economy’s size will appear to double.  If it doesn’t, you’re in recession (whether you know it or not).   Cavemen probably understood this concept better than America’s best economic minds.

• Egypt protests continue in crisis over Mursi powers (Reuters)
• Greece hires Deutsche, Morgan Stanley to run Greek voluntary debt buy back, sources say (Kathimerini)
• Executives' Good Luck in Trading Own Stock (WSJ)
• Hollande Presents Mittal Nationalization Among Site Options (Bloomberg)
• Eurozone states face losses on Greek debt (FT)
• Spain's rescued banks to shrink, slash jobs (Reuters)
• EU Approves Spanish Banks' Restructuring Plans (WSJ)
• At SAC, Portfolio Managers Are Treated Like Stocks (BBG)
• China considers easing family planning rules (Reuters)
• European Court to Rule Over ECB’s Secret Greek File (BusinessWeek)
• And another top tick indicator: Asia Funds Buy London Offices in Bet Volatility Is Past (Bloomberg)
• Harvard Doctor Turns Felon After Lure of Insider Trading (BBG)
• Zucker Is Lead Candidate to Head CNN (WSJ) - it's not true until CNN misreports it
• Iran "will press on with enrichment:" nuclear chief (Reuters)

Back in March, we first presented a rather stunning finding: by 2020 75% of Americans will be obese or overweight. This was promptly followed up with a post showing just how it is transpired that America became the fattest nation in the world in less than 20 years. What however may not be known, is that America's fatness epidemic is not localized to the country that gave the world the McDonalds burger (and the McMansion): it really is a fat, fat world, after all.

Old Drag Down the Young ... and The Economy