China

While last night's quid-pro-quo from Chinese officials will likely be remembered as the start of escalating trade wars, Wikileaks has uncovered a declassified cable from John Huntsman indicating China's clear understanding of the growing tension and comprehension of the ability of the US to entirely destroy it economically with one swipe of the Presidential pen via a massive devaluation of the USD or repegging to gold. Choice quotes include: "The U.S. has almost used all deterring means, besides military means, against China. ", "United States is determined to beggar thy neighbor", "Chinese must be very clear what the key to victory is.  It is by no means to use new foreign exchange reserves to buy U.S. Treasury bonds.", and "[when] the new U.S. dollar is pegged to the gold - we will be dumbfounded."

In the past week, any and every move higher in the market, which is a direct consequence of the EURUSD seeing an uptick, has been as a consequence of rumor or statement or outright innuendo that China may either buy European bonds or European assets, but generally bail out the now ridiculously insolvent continent (and with Greek 1 Years at 150%, it is pretty clear what will happen). Yet, once again the conventional wisdom leaves much to be desired. Such as the answer to one very simple question: China just may buy up a whole lot of Greek and Italian bonds, and even EFSF issuance, but... who will bailout China. Wait, China is in trouble? Why yes: from Marketwatch: " China’s real-estate market may face an escalating credit crisis, with industry data for August providing clues that big developers are running short of cash, according to Credit Suisse analysts. The unfolding situation heralds a perfect storm for China’s home-building industry, and China’s deteriorating credit backdrop should be viewed by investors with alarm, the Credit Suisse analysts said." That's ok, by the time China is insolvent, Chinese stabilization of Europe will be complete, and Europe can boldly step up and rescue China in turn. And so on... And so on... In the wacky, wonderful, ponzi world of ours.

Well, that was a brief hiccup for the ponzi scheme. Luckily, the market has forgotten that it priced in China bailing out Europe two days ago so it is time the vacuum tubes are reminded. From Bloomberg: "China's NDRC says China using foreign reserves to support investment abroad; NDRC Vice Chairman says in transcript of remarks on website double-dip recession abroad is “avoidable,” willing to buy bonds of sovereign-debt crisis nations. National Development and Reform Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Xiaoqiang spoke in an interview with the media in Dalian today, according to transcript distributed on the planning agency’s website today." EURUSD predictably soars... for at least a few more minutes, when we start the whole bailout rotation all over again, first with Russian, then Brazil, etc, etc. In the meantime, what all this means, read the post by Dylan Grice on how to deal with a whole world gone pathlogically rogue, and willing to lie and cheat in order to preserve the status quo.

When in doubt, recycle... In this case the rumor that China would bail out Europe is about to get second billing. From Bloomberg, quoting Wen Jiabao at the Dalian World Economic Forum:

• WEN SAYS CHINA WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE INVESTMENT IN EUROPE
• WEN SAYS CHINA IS WILLING TO EXTEND HELP TO EUROPE

Granted, nothing new here, and it simply means that China will be happy to buy European assets at firesale prices and invest in 20%+ IRR projects, but the algos, which have not yet seen this news, are expected to kneejerk higher, regardless of how short the latest intervention halflife will be (recall that China already has sizable investment in Greece, Portugal, the EFSF and the EUR). Call it what it is - doubling down, all over again. That said, the bailout for Europe will not come free, and once that realization hits the market, this may have a completely opposite reaction that the one intended...

Add this from Reuters to today's rumor trifecta to make the day RDA allowance of crazy pills complete:

• BRICS COUNTRIES IN "VERY PRELIMINARY" TALKS TO COORDINATE PURCHASES OF EURO ZONE SOVEREIGN DEBT - BRAZIL GOV'T SOURCE

And so in one day we have heard rumors of China, Russia and Brazil (in this case"citing a monetary official"... sure beats "unidentified Italian government sources" ahem FT) all bail out Europe, none of which will inevitably happen mind you because these countries aren't governed by idiots, although "idiots" is precisely who trades this market. See the attached chart for the kneejerk reaction to this latest headline.

Let’s be honest here. Neither China, nor the ECB, nor the Federal Reserve can stave off the collapse that’s coming. Indeed, the Fed spent $900 billion and nearly one year to prop the markets up… and we’ve wiped out ALL of those gains in just one month.

And BMW blinks.

On one hand we have FT "reporting" about Chinese Italian bond purchasing ambitions citing "unidentified Italian officials" one day ahead of a major Italian bond auction (wink wink nudge nudge). On the other hand, we have Reuters, citing a real live Italian Finance Minister (though not for long) Giulio Tremonti, who tells us a slightly different story, which, gasp, cites real live people: "Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Thursday that Asian investors are reluctant to buy Italian bonds because it sees they are not being bought by the European Central Bank."

Update: Further negotiations are likely to take place soon, FT says, citing unidentified Italian officials. Ok seriously, enough with this bullshit, please.

How many times can the idiotic market keep falling for the same old rumor over and over and over again? Yes, for those wondering what caused this epic surge in stocks on massive volume look no further than the following FT headline which is precisely the same as what we have seen every single other "Chinese white knight" time, namely that Italy is in talks with China Investment to buy bonds, assets (it also makes it perfectly clear who the real "IMF" is). That said, this is at least the 4th time that China has "bailed out" Europe in 2011. We give this latest rumor a 15 minute half life.

Two years ago we first covered the flip side of the Chinese real estate "boom" story by presenting the ghost city of Ordos. Today, on the two year anniversary of China's Keynesian miracle being exposed for the whole world to see, Al Jazeera goes back to Ordos to see if anything has changed. And while Paul Krugman may be shocked, shocked, that the Keynesian approach of building for the sake of building does not work not only in the US but pretty much everywhere, it will be no surprise to anyone, that as Al Jazeera concludes, "it's still pretty quiet, but here's the remarkable thing - the building has't stopped, somehow people are convinced that if you keep building, people will come. If not in a few years, then... eventually." And somehow we keep bashing the Fed as the only source of Einsteinian insanity, when it is the same cretins from the Princeton economics department in both the monetary and fiscal arena, who know one thing and one thing only - do whatever ultimately fails, just keep on doing it.

So, will this jobs bill do much? I don't see how. Employers get a tax break, but that will likely be used to increase profits, because they remain uncertain of what happens when the breaks end. No new jobs, and limited new spending. For the employees - he said an average of $1,500 next year extra in their pocket. Interesting but when he talks about cutting medicare and social security in the same speech, how much of that will be spent? I think a lot of that will go into savings to offset future needs. People making 50k a year aren't so dumb to just take this money and spend it, when they see future benefits getting stripped away. The $4,000 tax credit for hiring new employees covers about 14 weeks at minimum wage (the sort of job this economy has been able to generate). Maybe we will see a spike in layoffs ahead of that since it might be a good time to get rid of employees on the fringe, when you can get a free look at his replacement, courtesy of the government.

Gold’s London AM fix this morning was USD 1,896.50, EUR 1,341.13, and GBP 1,174.67 per ounce. The gold fix was higher than Friday’s in all currencies (USD 1,854.00, EUR 1,301.23, and GBP 1,143.81 per ounce). Despite continuing denial, a recession in the U.S. is inevitable; the question is only with regard to how deep the recession is and to the nature of the recession – inflationary, stagflationary, hyperinflationary or deflationary. The consensus, especially amongst Keynesians, is that deflation is most likely. However, given the degree of currency debasement being seen internationally stagflation is also a risk. Hyperinflation, as being experienced in Belarus today, is the macroeconomic and monetary ‘black swan’. There are growing concerns that the Eurozone crisis might degenerate again soon due to the Greek debt crisis and risk of default. Over the weekend talks between Greece, the IMF and ECB representatives over new bailout funds broke down. The euro has fallen and the German local elections have added to concerns over Greece.

Wondering why gold at $1850 is cheap, or why gold at double that price will also be cheap, or frankly at any price? Because, as the following leaked cable explains, gold is, to China at least, nothing but the opportunity cost of destroying the dollar's reserve status. Putting that into dollar terms is, therefore, impractical at best, and illogical at worst. We have a suspicion that the following cable from the US embassy in China is about to go not viral but very much global, and prompt all those mutual fund managers who are on the golden sidelines to dip a toe in the 24 karat pool. The only thing that matters from China's perspective is that "suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar's role as the international reserve currency. China's increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries towards reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the RMB." Now, what would happen if mutual and pension funds finally comprehend they are massively underinvested in the one asset which China is without a trace of doubt massively accumulating behind the scenes is nothing short of a worldwide scramble, not so much for paper, but every last ounce of physical gold...

Even a broken clock could be right at least twice a day....