Sovereigns

Is Deustche Bank the next Lehman is likely the wrong question to be asking. Is Lehman the template for European banking may be more to the point. Take it from the guy that called the Lehman debacle 5 months before the fact.

Another round of the Crisis is coming and the Powers That Be know it. This is why they’re preparing by buying up Gold bullion.

With each passing year the currency fell in value to ever more absurd depths until by November 1923 an ounce of gold - which had cost 170 Marks only five years previously - was trading at 87,000,000,000,000 Marks per ounce. Silver saw similar price gains (see chart) - or rather to put it more accurately silver too remained a store of value and maintained purchasing power as the currency collapsed.

We heard from several central banks in the last few days, and what they had to say was just one more reminder that we are in a Hill Street Blues financial world. So, hey, let’s be careful out there - and then some!

“Promoted by the intellectual glitterati of the central banks, our economic system has become addicted to all forms of debt, much of which has been unproductive." The seemingly universal agreement that the prerequisite for a healthy economy is the growth of debt at all costs highlights both a lack of discipline and an aversion to consider different ideas on the part of economic policy-makers.

Instead of merely plugging the hole left from declining liabilities (deposits), what the ECB's ELA funding appears to also be doing is compensating for a rapid write down in bank assets (loans) as well, in the form of charged off Non-Performing Loans. According to Reuters, one of the leading Greek financial institutions, Piraeus Bank will write off credit cards and retail loans up to 20,000 euros ($21,484) for Greeks who qualify for help under a law the leftist government passed to provide relief to poverty-stricken borrowers, it said on Thursday.

30% of German debt trades at or below the depo rate and some 60% carries a negative yield. The way things are going now, central bank Bund purchases will have to be in maturities of 7 years or more within just 6 weeks, and of course that timeframe could accelerate meaningfully should things take a turn for the worst in Athens. Ultimately, the math doesn't add up and it appears as though modifications to PSPP's structure will be necessary (perhaps at the ECB's September meeting) in order to prevent a forced taper.

This may take you the entire weekend to digest, but if you are an unsecured creditor/lender (have a checking, savings or demand deposit account) to a euro zone bank, I would consider it your fiduciary responsibility to yourself to sit down and parse this piece with care and aplomb!

As Grexit contagion spreads so European peripheral bond risk has surged. Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish risk has increased by the most since May 2010. It appears that the hope of "containment" in Europe via Q€ purchases is overwhelmed by the outflows - this was extremely evident in German markets today that saw 'someone' selling both bonds & stocks as Grexit fears rose. European stocks were all battered - the worst week of the year - with Germany worst as European VIX soared 5 to 25.05 - its biggest jump in 4 months.

Just yesterday, German FinMin Schaeuble bent the truth, proclaiming that there was no sign of contagion from Grexit concerns. Today, it appears, he will be eating his words, as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese bond spreads have exploded higher (up 15-30bps this week) amid the collapse of Greek sovereign and bank bonds. All we need now is for some EU leader to claim "Grexit risk is contained," and we know trouble is ahead.

Without the support of the ECB, the country’s banking system would be shut off from international markets and likely collapse.

Wiping out creditors by inflation is the easy part. Re-establishing money to restart the world economy is the harder one.

A  simple discussion of what the ECB is buying and some of the potential implications.

"I fear that central bankers may have been inadvertently drawn into what they are currently doing... [QE] won't work and may have many undesired side effects that will build up over time. Many of the central bankers at Davos this year said explicitly that they were only buying time for governments to act but, seven years into the crisis, it already seems we have been waiting forever...  the effectiveness of monetary policy in terms of stimulating aggregate demand goes down with time, because you're constantly bringing spending forward from the future...  Logically, at this point, central bankers should say, "We are doing more harm than good. This policy must be reversed." But I don't see anybody actually doing it."

A number of economists have proposed the implementation of what has been dubbed "QE for the people." They seem to prefer to apply the principle "When in trouble, double." Given the massive mistakes which were made by central banks from Weimar to Bernanke and the relentless attempts to use the printing press to finance governments, it probably shouldn't take much to convince people of alternatives, and not more of the same, right?