Budget Deficit

As Spanish 10Y bond spreads break back above 350bps over Bunds for the first time in three weeks (having jumped over 10% so far this year alone), it is clear that its not all sangria and siestas in the land of the bull...and matador. With unemployment at record levels (youth unemployment at over 40%), industrial production back at record lows - along with retail sales, and a still collapsing housing and construction space, we agree with JPMorgan, in their 2012 Outlook, that there is no doubt that there are large budget deficit and current account deficit adjustments still to come. The pain in Spain is plain for all to see in the following six charts and as Michael Cembalest notes: "If there are socioeconomic limits to how much austerity a country can take in order to remain in a currency union, we are likely to find out in Spain."

One of the biggest headlines that floated under the radar late last week was the announcement by Spain that its budget deficit would soar well higher than the expected 6% of economic output and instead be at 8% of GDP, which while ignored by the broader media was certainly noted by the EURUSD which tumbled on the news. Probably the most humorous response came from the neo-feudal viceroy of the PIIGS Olli Rehn who was displeased. From Reuters: "The European Commission regretted missed fiscal targets announced in Spain on Friday, but hailed the government's announcement of an austerity plan intended to slash the Spanish public deficit. "I regret the sizable fiscal slippage" to a deficit of 8.0 percent of GDP instead of 6.0 percent initially targeted, Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said, while welcoming the new measures announced from Madrid." We in turn regret that a year after adopting so-called austerity, Spain still has not understood that it means cutting the deficit, not blowing it up. Because just like in Greece, sooner or later the Germans will come knocking and demanding every last shred of sovereign independence from its bevy of debt/bailout slaves. Unfortunately today's news will not help: in another piece of news that many hope slip under the low volume radar, the government just said that the revised number could well be re-revised even worse as soon as a few days later.

While European banks may or may not succeed in delaying the inevitable unwind of the Eurozone by a month or two, the European credit catastrophe is taking on a grotesque form, first in Greece, where following news that the budget deficit will soar past an unprecedented 10% of GDP, the Greek government has halted virtually all cash outflows. Ekathimerini reports that "The government has decided to stop tax returns and other obligation payments to enterprises, salary workers and pensioners." In other words, the entire government has now virtually halted one half of its operations - the outlays - as the country reverts even more to its status as European bank debt slave, in perpetuity, or until the country breaks away from the Eurozone and reinstitutes the Drachma (which as Zero Hedge pointed out first in August, continues to trade When Issued at various desks) whichever comes first.

As the Greek parliament meets to finalize huge public sector job cuts, Reuters is reporting that Greece will miss the deficit targets set in its EU/IMF bailout this year and next... We would say "again" but at this point "as usual" makes far more sense, Why this should come as a surprise to anyone is beyond us but the next steps by the Troika (as again and again targets are not met and yet still bank-extending-and-pretending-funding is provided) will be fascinating as they switch from carrot to stick and back to carrot perhaps. Assuming, of course, the "wildcat strikes" at any and all government institutions by government workers about to be sacked, allow Troika member access at some point in the near to long-term future. Although using numbers conceived on napkins as a replacement will be nothing new to either Greece, Eurostat or the Troika. Add to this the comment from the Deputy Leader of the CSU (one of Merkel's tri-party coalition) that Greece would find it easier to recover outside the currency bloc and rhetoric remains high, as do expectations for an inverse surge in the EURUSD at open in a few hours. The biggest winner: Qatar which just snuck in some recycled petrodollars into Greece, which will last the kleptocorrupt government about 1 week, in exchange for Greek gold.

Remember how the Troika said Greece has its "budget situation" under control, and as such is a worthy recipient of the second €120 billion bailout tranche? Then perhaps they can explain to us how the following makes sense: according to Bloomberg, Greece’s state budget deficit widened to €15.5 billion in the January to end-July period from €12.5 billion euros in the year earlier period, according to an e-mailed statement from the Athens-based Finance Ministry today. So.... after praising the Greek deficit cutting progress, the country comes out and tells everyone it was really only kidding, it kinda sort lied, about its deficit but was more than happy to take European and US capital, and as for collecting taxes, well, they can try it, or at least promise to do so, after bailout #3.

There was a time when countries would use Goldman's "innovative" currency swaps to hide billions of debt off the books. Those days are gone. Now governments, at both the state and regional level, just outright lie about what their deficit and debt is. Case in point, Spain's Castilla La Mancha region, best known for being the stomping ground for one Don Quixote, where the cities of Toledo and Albacete are located, has just announced that it has "a budget deficit more than twice as large as previously thought, raising new concerns over the true state of regional finances and helping to send Spain's risk premium to new historic highs. Castilla La Mancha President Maria Dolores de Cospedal said her government will present Tuesday the first results of the audit she announced after being elected in nationwide regional and municipal elections on May 22." What? Politicians lying about the state of their finances only for it to be uncovered that things are 100% worse? Say it isn't so. And why on earth couldn't Spain just open a local branch of the BLS: it would have absolutely no problem hiding its manipulated economic data. Too late now...

In 2020 the CBO estimates net interest payments of $778 billion. They estimate the deficit to be $685 billion. Our whole deficit will be a result of the interest on accumulated debt. That seems crazy. Net Interest paid is $202 billion in 2010 and $778 billion in 2020. Sadly that is a growth rate I can believe. We have gone past the point of the deficit doesn’t matter thinking. Ignoring the impact of growing debt service is short sighted, irresponsible, and downright dangerous. The cumulative debt is a problem, and debt service will be the single biggest budget line item. That cannot be fair to future generations. We need to attack the deficit become the cost of carrying prior deficits is too high, and the in meantime we have to manage our exposure to interest rates and hedge as much as possible and future possible shocks until the problem is under control.

The IMF has just released its latest "Fiscal Monitor" report which, not surprisingly, is as usual full of pretty charts that alas amount to pretty much nothing. What was surprising is the increasingly more antagonistic tone the IMF has taken with regard to the developed economies. In what could be a first, the IMF is starting to get increasingly realistic, and in the report notes that of all budget deficits in "selected countries", the US will hit the highest at 10.8%, the same as Ireland, and just ahead of Japan at 10%. And a direct stab at the US: "The United States needs to accelerate the adoption of credible measures to reduce debt ratios....Market concerns about sustainability remain subdued in the United States, but a further delay of action could be fiscally costly, with deficit increases exacerbated by rising yields." Other observations by the IMF: deficits in the Middle East could widen as governments increase subsidies to ease social tensions; higher food, fuel prices are likely to slow the pace of spending in emerging markets; US fiscal adjustments in 2012 are needed to put fiscal consolidation back on track. Oddly enough, the IMF which yesterday decided to trim GDP estimates very modestly even as it activated its SDR500 billion New Arrangements to Borrow line of credit, is Cottarelli's statement that the US still has a "lot of credibility." For now the rating agencies still seem to buy this load of BS.

Well, it's one way to start a deficit cutting scramble. Washington Times reports that the preliminary number for the February deficit, which will formally be released by the FMS shortly, is $223 billion: this is the largest single month deficit in history! So much for prudent budgets and all that. At least the number can only get better from here. Unless, of course, it gets much, much worse, and rates continue creeping higher, resulting in 30% of total revenues being dedicated to paying gross interest, as was previously discussed on Zero Hedge. Then 40%. Then 50%... One gets the picture.

That government projections are not worth the price of the paper (especially not in today's dis-disinflationary environment) they are printed on is no secret. As Zero Hedge recently demonstrated the margin of error in the most recent budgetary prediction can only be classified as insane. We wrote: "On February 28, 2001 George Bush said this about his 2002 Budget: “It
will retire nearly $1 trillion in debt over the next four years.”
Instead, US debt, which at that point was $5.7 trillion, rose to $7.7
trillion. $3 trillion rounding error? Also in the same budget, Bush
predicted a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next ten years, which would
wipe out all of America's debt by 2011. The latest debt figure was $14.1
trillion. A $14.1 trillion rounding error, or a nearly five fold
increase in "rounding errors" in a decade." So that's debt, what about budget surplus and/or deficit projections? It's not any prettier. And courtesy of the NYT we can now see this in an easy to comprehend animation. Following the jump readers can see just how endlessly upward biased projections tend to almost without fail deviate with reality (and unemployment rates as well). The best indication: the 2012 projection to the 2008 budget forecast callsed for a surplus. Now we are expecting a massive deficit. So why do we listen to these monkeys with typewriters again?

Still hungover from Saturday to comprehend what happened with the Great Obama Budget presented yesterday? Then this video is for you. Using shot glasses of Jack Daniels it takes just under two minutes to lay out in layman's terms not only the essence of the proposed budget, as well as the "Draconian" cuts contemplated, but also insinuates heavily about the level of blood in the alcoholstream of those government workers who came up with the "50% rise in government revenues over 2 years" assumption.

The Treasury has released the November deficit, which at $150.4 billion was about $12 billion worse than expected. Total receipts were $148 billion, of which individual income taxes were $64.3 billion, while the government actually refunded $3.1 billion for corporate taxes in the month. While cumulative receipts since the start of the new fiscal year are better than in the prior year period ($135.7 billion compared to $109.1 billion), it is the expense side that is far more important: in November the government spent $299.4 billion, the bulk of which going to the Department of Health and Human Services ($72 billion), social security ($64 billion), and Defense ($57 billion). The department of education saw a whopping $7.6 billion in funding in November. What is more troubling is that the interest expense is starting to rise: in the two months ended November 30, the US government paid $43.5 billion compared to $40.8 billion last year. Of course, this is to be expected, as total US debt is about $1 trillion higher now than it was last year. And, as always, what is most notable is that in November total debt increased by $192 billion to $13.861 trillion from $13.669 trillion. In other words, we are now at a point that every dollar in receipts is matched by 1.3 dollars in incremental debt.

To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities. The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in light of incoming information and will adjust the program as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability....Most importantly, as Zero Hedge predicted, the 35% SOMA limit is 'TEMPORARILY RELAXED' as the Fed knows it will need to monetize all net issuance for 2011! It also means the weekly POMO goes up from $10 billion to $27.5 billion.

It is settled: the only country that may have more pathological liars than the US, is Greece. Eurostat, whose revision of Greek GDP numbers in April was the catalyst that led to the country's insolvency and riots in early May, and subsequent bail out, is on the scene again, and has once again confirmed that Greek authorities can be relied on 100%... to lie. Reuters reports that Greece's much-revised 2009 budget deficit will be set "once and for all" by Eurostat at above 15 percent of GDP, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday. And the revision is certainly a little more than just "modest": "Remember the 2009 budget was projecting a deficit under 3 percent, then a few days before the (Oct. 4) election the reported deficit to the EU Commission was 6 percent," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a conference in Cyprus. "We realised it was over 12 percent. And actually, even after the final revision by Eurostat ... which will validate Greek numbers for 2009 once and for all, it will be above 15 percent. We are talking about a five-fold difference." This is data fudging that will make not only China but the BLS blush with envy.

Just Reuters headlines for now: the CBO has reduced its 2010 budget deficit from $1.368 trillion to $1.342 trillion, even as it kicks the can down the road yet again, raising the 2011 budget deficit estimate from $0.966 trillion to $1.066 trillion: in other words a net deficit increase by $44 billion. Good thing nobody even cares about the 2012 number now that Mayan apocalypse predictions are fully priced into a Dow 36,000 number.