Budget Deficit

Last week, in the global currency war’s latest escalation, Kazakhstan instituted a free float for the tenge causing the currency to immediately plunge by some 25%. The rationale behind the move was clear enough. What might not be as clear is how recent events in developing economy FX markets stem from a seismic shift we began discussing late last year - namely, the death of the petrodollar system which has served to underwrite decades of dollar dominance and was, until recently, a fixture of the post-war global economic order.

... and the ECB printing presses!

In simple terms, Greece from 2003-2010 was an economic boom driven by incomes, which were in turn driven by cheap debt NOT real organic growth. Thus, the collapse in GDP was yet another case of “price discovery” in which asset prices fall to economic realities…

Low oil prices and the battle against Islamic State (IS) are pushing Iraq toward a financial crisis. Only fundamental reforms, especially decentralization of power, can resolve the challenges facing Iraq today.

Why I've come to thinking that Kyle Bass' short JGB premise may well be wrong

And how you will be paying for her 'exit party' bill...

Junk-rated Chicago is paying nearly 8% to issue debt these days and although the city's fiscal woes are set to persist, some asset managers are taking the plunge ahead of a key court ruling scheduled for Friday.

Over the last 5 years, rent costs in the city of Oakland have doubled. At $2,807 per month it more expensive to live in Oakland now than it was in SanFrancisco in 2012, so one would expect the city to have 'cleaned up', and 'be safer'? However, as SFGate reports, the city laid off 80 officers today to help eliminate a $30.5 million budget deficit, prompting the department to announce that officers would no longer be dispatched to take reports for most nonviolent crimes. "With current levels of staffing, we are unable to respond to many lower-priority calls," said Officer Jeff Thomason, a police spokesman.

The preposterous Gong Show in Brussels over the weekend was the financial “Ben Tre” moment for the Euro and ECB. That is, it was the moment when the Germans - imitating the American military on that ghastly morning in February 1968 - set fire to the Eurozone in order to save it. In short, Greece will become an outright debtors’ colony and its government will function as page-boy legislators for the Troika occupiers. Needless to say, political and social upheaval will erupt when the full extent of the Tsipras surrender becomes evident, and the resulting political contagion will spread throughout the length and breadth of Europe as Greece implodes. In due course, the euro will collapse and the baleful Keynesian money printers’ regime in Frankfurt will be repudiated and dismantled. But not before European democracy has a brush with death, and European prosperity is extinguished for a generation.

Several days ago when we first calculated that the new Greek debt/GDP post bailout #3 will promptly hit 200%, something the IMF agreed with earlier today. But it won't stop here, and as the  following analysis from Michael Lebowitz at 720 Global shows, just based on the country's negative growth rate and positive interest rate, Greek debt/GDP will keep rising indefinitely and will likely hit 336% in about one decade, at which point Greece will, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist.

"It will be appropriate at some point this year...to raise the Fed funds rate and normalize monetary policy," Yellen recently explained but given recent comments from Fed heads and the FOMC Minutes, it appears the real meme is "everything is awesome, we promise and as long as it stays that way we will hike rates just a little bit, stand back and watch the implosion, then stand ready to step back in to save the world... oh, and if Greece, China, US Shale, or LatAm blow up contagiously, we won't normalize policy ever again." Yellen speaks on the US economic outlook at The City Club of Cleveland.

With all the equity excitement from China to Europe to the US, it was easy to forget that the US has some $24 billion in budget deficit and debt rollovers to find in the form of 3 Year paper. And moments ago the US Treasury priced the first of the week bond issue when it sold 3 Year notes at a 0.932% yield, the lowest since April, and stopping through the When Issued 0.936%. While the Bid to Cover came in at a lowish 3.156, the weakest since last August, the internals made up for it, as the Direct take down jumped from 9.7% to 13.9%, and Indirects ended up with 47.7% of the issue leaving 38.4%, or 3% below the TTM average of 41.3%.

"When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations. ... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up... "

Greek PM Tsipras just delivered the biggest Friday night bomb in recent European history: he stunned the Troika and his peers in Europe with the biggest shocker of all - a referendum announcement, aka the Greek "nuclear option", something which cost his predecessor George Papandreou his job. At this point there is no turning back, and the Greeks - of which 80% want to stay in the Euro even as 80% want an end to austerity - will get to choose their own fate. Whatever choice they make, they will now only have only themselves to blame.