Unemployment Benefits

In January, we discussed the stunning fact that Spain's social security pension fund was 90% allocated to Spanish sovereign debt. The latest data shows that this farcical epic reach-around has become even more ridiculous as, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the fund's holdings are now 97% weighted to sovereign bonds. The fund purchased about EUR20bn of Spanish debt last year, while it sold EUR4.6bn of French, Dutch and German bonds. More than 70 percent of the purchases took place in the second half of the year, after Draghi's 'promise' to "do whatever it takes" moment. It appears, since the Spanish government does not explicitly have its own Fed to monetize debt, that it has merely plundered another quasi-governmental entity to do the bond-buying reach-around. The fund, which was profitable last year on this bond-buying in its self-sustaining way, still contributes 1% to Spain's deficit as contributions to the fund are outweighed by the benefits paid.  Rules have been changed to enable this drastic concentration but at 97%, it is perhaps no wonder that Spanish bonds have been more volatile in recent weeks - as the implicit government buyer is now almost all-in. The potential for a vicious circle here is immense - but perhaps that is the point, more TBTF sovereigns for Draghi to deal with.

Below are the expectations of the biggest banks for today's Nonfarm Payroll number to be announced in just over two hours:

• Morgan Stanley +135K
• Barclays Capital +150K
• Goldman Sachs +150K
• Bank of America +160K
• JPMorgan +165K
• HSBC +179K
• Deutsche Bank +180K
• UBS +190K

With gold dropping nearly 3% on February 20, we had to look closely at the FOMC minutes, which were partially responsible for that movement. Since there are quite a few highlights, we have split this analysis into three sections: the confusion over the minutes in the market; the ambiguous language hinting at deep problems; and a few quotes to make your blood boil.

Europe's dual problems of low growth and weak profit margins combined with this week's vote in Italy are likely to usher in another period of European underperformance, but as JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest notes, that is the least of it as Italy overtook Japan with the worst real GDP growth of all advanced economies since 1991. In fact, other than wartime, the last few years in Italy have been the worst for growth since Italian unification in 1861. But, before the rest of Europe gloats that 'they are not Italy, or Greece', he reminds us that the slowness of French GDP growth in recent years is the slowest in over 80 years. As he warns, all things considered, from an investment standpoint, caution continues to be warranted as problems appear to be taking their toll on EU profitability.

Last week's initial claims "miracle", when it printed at 341K on expectations of a 360K print when the DOL estimated IL and CT claims, has once again been undone. Moments ago we got the February 16 number which, as could be anticipated, jumped by a solid 20,000, from an upward revised 342,000 to 362,000. And like last week, the Labor Department once again engaged in a huge guessing game, this time forecasting the claims for California, Virginia, Hawaii and DC, meaning next week's data will likely be even worse. Which is troubling. As the chart below shows, one would expect just a little more improvement from a recovery in which the just released initial claims of 362K are doing "so much better" compared to initial claims from precisely a year ago which were... 362K. Perhaps, keeping in line with greatly rotating themes, we can just call this "the 360 degree recovery  - where you always end up where you started." Or maybe, just maybe, the Fed's tinkering with the economy for 4 years running has broken the whole thing?

After digesting the opinions of the shills, shysters and scam artists, I am ready to predict that I have no clue what will happen during 2013. The fog of uncertainty is engulfing the nation, making consumers hesitant to spend and businesses reluctant to hire or invest. Virtually all of the mainstream media, Wall Street banks and paid shill economists are in agreement that 2013 will see improvement in employment, housing, retail spending and, of course the only thing that matters to the ruling class, the stock market. Even among the alternative media, there seems to be a consensus that we will continue to muddle through and the day of reckoning is still a few years off. Those who are predicting improvements are either ignorant of history or are being paid to predict improvement, despite the overwhelming evidence of a worsening economic climate. The mainstream media pundits, fulfilling their assigned task of purveying feel good propaganda, use the 10% stock market gain in 2012 as proof of economic recovery. The facts prove otherwise... Every day more people are realizing the con-job being perpetuated by the owners of this country. Will the tipping point be reached in 2013? I don’t know. But the era of decisiveness and confrontation has arrived. The existing social order will be swept away. Are you prepared?

After witnessing the fighting of undeclared never ending wars, passage of freedom destroying legislation like the Patriot Act & NDAA, approval of pork barrel spending to the tune of hundreds of billions, rule by Executive Order, using ZIRP to extract hundreds of billions from senior citizen savers and give it to criminal Wall Street banks, forcing the American people at gunpoint to replenish the Wall Street banks with $700 billion after they had committed the greatest financial fraud in history, and a continuing trampling of the U.S. Constitution, the American people continue to remain willfully ignorant of the truth. The American Dream is dead. We’ve allowed a rich, privileged, elite few to achieve hegemony over our economic and political system with their control of the media and manipulation of our financial markets. They will collapse the country because they will never be satisfied with the amount of wealth and power they’ve accumulated. Their voracious greed will be their downfall.

According to Bloomberg's rankings (based on wealth disparity, average unemployment benefits, and overall unemployment pool), and somewhat confirming the food-divide discussion we had last night, the following states are the worst to live in if you are unemployed. Connecticut tops the list with its massive wealth disparity - more than one $200,000 household for every household earning less than $10,000. New York, California, and D.C. are close behind with Oregon and Alabama in 19th and 20th 'worst' place to be unemployed. Welcome to the bifurcated un-recovery.

Update: those (few) worried if America's overactive Attorney General, best known for soon to be confiscating guns and perhaps shipping them off to Mexico, and doing nothing else in the past 4 years, will stick around for Obama's second term.

And no, before the questions pile in, she was not fired, as poetic as that would be (nor was she replaced by a 65 year old, part-time worker as is the case with the vast majority of the US labor force). She quit, saying "decided to begin a new future, and return to the people and places I love" and that as the product of "a large Mexican-American family I never imagined that I would...serve in a president’s Cabinet." From WaPo: "Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a letter to colleagues Wednesday she was stepping down from her post." Of course, using the BLS' own policies and "logic", this means the unemployment rate just ticked even lower. We look forward to Hilda's book due out in 6-12 months bashing, who else, Tim Geithner.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis made her ubiquitous post-NFP appearance on CNBC this morning and spouted the usual propaganda. However, while discussing how wonderful the ATRA was, the seemingly slap-happy Solis noted how great the fact that emergency unemployment benefits were extended for millions of people was - and that thanks to that (and the magic of the Keynesian multiplier), millions of jobs were saved. So, to sum up, paying people not to work, saved millions and millions of jobs? Indeed America, indeed.

• After the worst post-Christmas market performance since 1937, we had the largest surge to kick off any year in recorded history
• The myth is that we are now seeing the clouds part to the extent that cash will be put to work. Not so fast It is very likely that much of the market advance has been short-covering and some abatement in selling activity
• As equities now retest the cycle highs, it would be folly to believe that we will not experience recurring setbacks and heightened volatility along the way
• The reality is that the tough choices and the tough bargaining have been left to the next Congress and are about to be sworn in
• The myth is that the economy escaped a bullet here. The reality is that even with the proverbial "cliff" having been avoided, the impact of the legislation is going to extract at least a 11/2 percentage point bite out of GDP growth

It would seem initial claims can be summed for 2012 in one word, 'average'. This last print of 2012 was almost perfectly at 2012's average of 372, the biggest miss since the first week of November and the Sandy disturbance. Notably, last week's print was revised higher (after 19 states failed to report and were 'guessed at) by 12k jobs to 362k having now risen for 3 weeks in a row (on a seasonally adjusted basis). When we scratch below the surface at non-seasonally-adjusted the numbers are much more concerning than a rampaging equity market would care to note, NSA initial claims rose 40,459 to 495,588 on the week. Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania saw the biggest rises in claims while California dominated the drop in claims (by state) down 11,789. 73k Americans lost Extended Unemployment Benefits in the week ended December 15th.

This deal has made our debt problems worse.

Moody's has stepped forward with the first warning shot across the bow that:

• *MOODY'S: MORE MEDIUM TERM ACTIONS MAY BE NEEDED TO SUPPORT Aaa

Has contradicted itself (from September) on the debt-ceiling breach; and warns that while the deal 'mitigates' some fiscal drag, it does not remove it. To wit: the IMF piles on:

• *IMF SAYS `MORE REMAINS TO BE DONE' ON U.S. PUBLIC FINANCES
• *IMF SAYS U.S. DEBT CEILING SHOULD BE RAISED `EXPEDITIOUSLY'

Full statements below.

US Vice President Biden and Senate Minority leader McConnell brokered an agreement that was approved by the Senate that seems to avoid the full fiscal cliff.  It now is before the House of Representatives.  

While the Jan 1 deadline is passed, the more significant one, we had argued was Jan 3, when a new Congress is sworn in.  A failure by the 112th Congress to finalize the legislation would mean that process would have to begin anew with the 113th Congress. 

After what is likely to be intense though short debate, the House of Representatives can either approve the same exact bill the Senate approved, which be the quickest resolution.  It can seek to amend the bill, in which case it must return to the Senate for their approval.  The process could be cumbersome and require reconciliation and would risk the Jan 3 deadline.  Alternatively, a majority of the House could fail to ratify the Senate bill, in which case, it will be up the next Congress to claw back from the other side of the cliff.