Monetization

All is (once again) failing. What to do? Much more of the same of course. Only this time whip out the nuclear option: the Helicopter Money Drop. This is the logical next step that Citigroup's Willen Buiter sees as "Central Banks should also engage in 'helicopter money drops' to stimulate effective demand" - temporary tax cuts, increases in transfer payments, or boosts to exhaustive public spending - all financed directly by the willing central bank accomplice in the monetization gambit. In his words: "This will always be effective if it is implemented on a sufficient scale." It is not difficult to implement, would likely be politically popular (nom, nom, nom, more iPads), and in his mind need not become inflationary. He does come down to earth a little though from this likely-endgame scenario noting that "helicopter money is not [however] a solution to fiscal unsustainability." It is just a means of providing a temporary fiscal stimulus without adding to the stock of interest-bearing, redeemable public debt. Any attempt to permanently finance even rather small (permanent) general government deficits (as a share of GDP) by creating additional base money would soon – once inflation expectations adjust to this extreme fiscal dominance regime - give rise to unacceptably high rates of inflation and even hyperinflation. His estimate of the size of this one-off helicopter drop - beyond which these inflation fears may appear - is around 2% of GDP - hardly the stuff of Keynes-/Koo-ian wet dreams. The fact that this is being discussed as a possibility (and was likely always the end-game) by a somewhat mainstream economist should be shocking as perhaps this surreality is nearer than many would like to imagine.

Back in the middle of March, when all was sunshine and unicorns in the post-LTRO world of recovery and another sustainable recovery, we were vociferous in our noting that nothing has been fixed and LTRO3 is not coming. Sure enough, here we are a few weeks later and the encumbering stigma that we were the first to point out (and call Draghi out on) is now wider than at any time since the LTRO program began with the banks that took LTRO loans now trading wide of pre-LTRO levels (fully stigmatized despite all that extra liquidity). Today saw the Stigma spread between LTRO and non-LTRO banks jump its most in 2 months to over 160bps (its highest in almost six months). There is however a troubling conundrum facing the ECB. The banks that need another LTRO (or liquidity) no longer have performing collateral to pledge and other banks that would like liquidity will not take it since they now understand the encumbrance and stigma that is attached to that decision. The ECB is snookered (and so is it any wonder that Draghi is playing for time) and perhaps this is why we are seeing the EUR leak lower against the USD as markets anticipate some more direct monetization mandate-busting action by the ECB (shifting the Fed/ECB balance and implicitly the flow between the two that we have also pointed out as critical). Either way, there is no LTRO3 coming anytime soon and together with this morning's jumps in liquidity funding costs, the vicious circles are ramping up again in Europe.

Three things are occurring in European liquidity markets that should send shivers down the spines of the most ardent bulls or believers in the status quo muddle-through scenario. First, 3-month LIBOR is waking from the dead having risen today after weeks of flat-lining in its irrelevant manner. Second, Deutsche Bank was the main driver of today's uptick in 3-month LIBOR (joining UBS as the only other bank in the LIBOR family post LTRO2 that has raised its willing offer rate for short-term liquidity). And third, most importantly, 3-month EUR-USD basis swaps (that expensive but anonymous market-based investment vehicle to find USD funding) have exploded with their biggest deterioration in five months pushing the premium that banks are willing to pay to receive USD over EUR to its highest in almost 4 months. So while Draghi suggests that we wait to see the effects of LTRO filter through to the rest of the real economy, once again he is clearly incorrect as banks are now desperately seeking liquidity (USD-based in this case) with short-term swaps only having been worse in the middle of the crisis last Fall and UBS and Deutsche Bank willing (or forced) to pay up for short-term money.

"In less than two years, we are now up to a total of seven European leaders or ruling parties that have been forced out of office, courtesy of the spreading government debt crisis — tack on France now to Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Even Germany's coalition is looking shaky in the aftermath of the faltering state election results for the CDU's (Christian Democratic Union) Free Democrat coalition partner. This is quite a potent brew — financial insolvency, economic fragility and political instability."

You just have to admire Ron Paul for his non-flip-flopping tenacity.

That this rhetorical question will not pose any difficulty is almost sad: the answer, of course, is America, which as we pointed out yesterday, just crossed 101.5% in total debt/GDP (excluding its tens od trillions in unfunded liabilities, that is a different story entirely). What however may surprise some is that the already curiously low average interest rate that America pays on its interest, which in calendar 2011 was 2.5% (or $240 billion on $9.5 trillion in debt) is in realty far lower. The reason is that, as has been indicated repeatedly over the past years, the Fed is now the proud owner of $1.7 trillion in US debt, and it continues to load up on ever more expensive debt courtesy of Twist. As a result, it pockets the interest expense paid out by the Treasury, which in 2011 amounted to $76.9 billion. Then, once a year Bernanke remits all of his "profits", which are essentially interest proceeds on its portfolio, back to the Treasury, which then lowers the effective cash outflow, to just $163.1 billion, or a tiny 1.7%.

Two weeks ago, when reporting on Chesapeake's most recent legal problem in the aftermath of the Reuters report on McClendon's private well deal, we explicitly said: "to all those scrambling to short the company: beware. CHK has a history of being able to fund itself with HY bonds come hell or high water. If and when the stock tanks, the short interest will surge on expectations of a funding shortfall. Alas, courtesy of the Fed's malevolent capital misallocation enabling, we are more than confident that the firm will be able to issue as much HY debt (unsustainably at 10%+, but that is irrelevant for the short-term) as it needs, crushing all short theses. What this means, simply, is that anyone who believes traditional fundamental analysis will and should work in the CHK case is likely to get burned, especially if China is involved which will have its own tactics vis-a-vis the future of McClendon and/or CHK. And all, of course, courtesy of the Chairman of course." Sure enough, we just got confirmation of what happens when a company that everyone has left for dead gets a bit of good news, in the form that CHK has ended the wells deal and is looking for a new chairman: the stock explodes, as it has this morning when it is now nearly 10% higher in the pre market. That, and the fact that everyone and their grandmother is short, also doesn't help.

Back in October 2010 we presented an analysis by Bloomberg which showed not only that courtesy of not paying taxes at its statutory rate of 35% Google was adding about $100/share to its then stock price of $607/share, but just how this was executed. Now, it is the turn of Apple, with its $110 billion in cash, to fall under the spotlight, with an extended expose in the NYT titled "How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes" in which we learn that, shockingly, if you are at a table with only corporations sitting to your left and right, then you are the only person in the room paying taxes. Why - because global corporate tax "avoidance" schemes are not only perfectly legal, but they are actively encouraged, and in some cases form the backbone of a sovereign's (ahem Ireland) economic and even domestic policy, which just happens to be front and center in virtually every global corporate org chart permitting virtually the entire elimination of cash taxation at the corporate level.

Update: according to Belgian Le Soir, first exit polls show that Hollande is not surprisingly ahead, with 27% of the vote, 25.5% for Sarkozy, 16% for Marine Le Pen, and 13% for Jean-Luc Melenchon. More or less just as expected, and setting the stage for the runoff round which will be Hollande's to lose. French speakers demanding a minute by minute liveblog, can find a great one over at Le Figaro, and an English-one can be found at France24.com

As of 8 am CET, polls are open in the first round of the French presidential elections where voters are expected to trim the playing field of ten to just two candidates, incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy and his socialist challenger Francois Hollande, who will then face off in a May 6 runoff, where as of now Hollande is expected to have a comfortable lead and take over the presidency as the disgruntled French take their revenge for an economy that is contracting, an unemployment rate that keeps rising (see enclosed) despite promises to the contrary, and as their to "express a distaste for a president who has come to be seen as flashy following his highly publicized marriage to supermodel Carla Bruni early in his term, occasional rude outbursts in public and his chumminess with rich executives.....France is struggling with feeble economic growth, a gaping trade deficit, 10 percent unemployment and strained public finances that prompted ratings agency Standard & Poor's to cut the country's triple-A credit rating in January." In a major shift for the country, Hollande would become France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterand, who beat incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981. As Reuters reports, "Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in particular a 75 percent upper tax rate on income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million)." The Buffett Rule may have failed in the US but La Loi de Buffett is alive and well in soon to be uber-socialist France. Yet it is not so much Hollande's domestic policies, as his international ones, especially vis-a-vis the European Fiscal Treaty, Germany, and most importantly the ECB, that roiled markets last week, causing French CDS to spike to the widest since January. In other news, goodbye Merkozy, hello Horkel as the power center shifts yet again to a new source of uncertainty and potential contagion.

When Operation Twist began in late September 2011, Primary Dealers reported that their net position in bonds with a maturity between 1 and 3 years was ($23) billion or the biggest short since January 2010, while reporting holdings of bonds between 11 and 30 years of $12.4 billion, for a net carry position (Short minus Long) of $(35) billion. What a difference just over 6 months makes: courtesy of Treasury Primary Dealer data, we now know that in the preceding weeks, with the Fed selling paper maturing in under 3 years, the Primary Dealers have loaded up to the gills on short-dated maturities, and in the week ended April 11, they reported $54 billion in 1-3 Year Holdings. At the same time 11-30 Year Maturities declined from othe $12.4 billion at the start of Twist to just $7 billion: don't forget - this is the only type of bonds sold by the Fed (if also including short maturities than the explicit long-end that the Fed is buying). What is interesting is that with nearly 80% of Twist over, the 10 Year was at just under 2.00% the day Twist started, and was....just shy of 2.00% on Friday. In other words in order to "sterilize" the Fed's duration extension, keep rates, and the price of gold, low and promote a "housing recovery" Dealers have been "forced" to part ways with about $100 billion in Net Interest Margin generating units, as the Short minus Long position has risen from -$35 billion to +$54 billion, hitting over $60 billion a few weeks ago.

Throughout the postwar period, banks have almost always lent out all the way up to the reserve requirement. So, does the accumulation of excess reserves lead to inflation? Only so much as the frequentation of brothels leads to chlamydia and syphilis. Excess reserves are only non-inflationary so long as the banks — the people holding the reserves — play along with the Fed-Treasury game of monetising debt and trying to hide the inflation . The banks don’t have to lend these reserves out, just as having sex with hookers doesn’t have to lead to an infection. But eventually — so long as you do it enough — the condom will break. As soon as banks start to lend beyond the economy’s inherent productivity (which lest we forget is around the same level as ten years ago) there will be inflation.

At first we were going to comment on this "response" by the high priest of Keynesian shamanic tautology to Mark Spitznagel's latest WSJ opinion piece, but then we just started laughing, and kept on laughing, and kept on laughing...

Four time Fed Chairman Marriner Eccles: "As long as the Federal Reserve is required to buy government securities at the will of the market for the purpose of defending a fixed pattern of interest rates established by the Treasury, it must stand ready to create new bank reserves in unlimited amount. This policy makes the entire banking system, through the action of the Federal Reserve System, an engine of inflation. (U.S. Congress 1951, p. 158)... [We are making] it possible for the public to convert Government securities into money to expand the money supply....We are almost solely responsible for this inflation. It is not deficit financing that is responsible because there has been surplus in the Treasury right along; the whole question of having rationing and price controls is due to the fact that we have this monetary inflation, and this committee is the only agency in existence that can curb and stop the growth of money.. . . [W]e should tell the Treasury, the President, and the Congress these facts, and do something about it....We have not only the power but the responsibility....If Congress does not like what we are doing, then they can change the rules. (FOMC Minutes, 2/6/51, pp. 50–51)"

All morning we have been blasted with 2011 deja vu stories how the IMF panhandling effort has finally succeeded, and how Lagarde's Louis Vuitton bag is now full to the brim with $400 billion in fresh crisp US Dollars bills courtesy of BRIC nations, and other countries such as South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Japan (adding $60 billion to its total debt of Y1 quadrillion - at that point who counts) and, uhh, Poland. From Reuters: "The Group of 20 nations on Friday were poised to commit at least $400 billion to bulk up the International Monetary Fund's war chest to fight any widening of Europe's debt crisis." We say deja vu because it is a carbon copy of headlines from EcoFin meetings from the fall of 2011 in which we were "assured", "guaranteed" and presented other lies that the EFSF would surpass $1 trillion, even $1.5 trillion on occasion, any minute now. Alas, that never happened, and while we are eagerly waiting to find out just what the contribution of Argentina will be to bail out Spanish banks (just so it can expropriate even more assets from the country that rhymes with Pain), we have one simple question: does the I in the IMF stand for Idiots? Why? Because this is merely yet another example of forced capital misallocation, only this time at a global scale.

Over the past month, the world has finally awakened to the reality that when it comes to easing, there is more than just one central bank (i.e., the Fed). in fact, as we have been showing since early this year, the bulk of the easing over the past 5 months has happened elsewhere, primarily in Europe with LTRO 1+2, and subsequently at the BOE, and more recently at India and Brazil. Yet some holdouts still remain. One of these naturally is China, which everyone would love to see cut RRR or even the benchmark rate, yet which as recent CPI data has shown still has lingering packets of inflation precisely where it hurts: food (and of course recall China's Schrodinger economy). Which leaves Japan, which already eased more a few months back when it expanded its LSAP program... but it is never enough. Needless to say strategists, in their quest to shake any and every central banker here or there for some free money, have been seeing imminent BOJ easing in the form of yet another Y5 trillion LSAP any second now. Yet it is one thing for bankers to do what they are programmed to do, which is demand more free money, it is something very different when politicians step in and defuse the myth that any central bank is even remotely independent, especially when reelection is at stake. As Bloomberg points out this morning, the fight for the BOJ's "independent" balance sheet is starting to get lethal.