default

From the unthinkable, to the possible, the unavoidable, the actual and finally, the patently obvious

"I kept thinking about prior sovereign events I lived and invested through, and how the “unthinkable” eventually became the “possible”, the “unavoidable”, the “actual” and finally, the “patently obvious”. This week's Sovereign Default Time Capsule shows what people were thinking and saying in real time as sovereign debt and currency crises played out. This is not meant to say that Greece is Argentina; there’s a big difference between Mercosur and the European Union, and it looks like the First Act of the EMU drama will be a bailout for Greece. But it’s instructive to remember how politicians, markets, investors and analysts can underestimate the depths of a problem". - Michael Cembalest, CIO, JP Morgan, Global Wealth Management

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday that its deposit-insurance fund fell to $20.9 billion at the end of 2009, a $12.6 billion drop in the final three months of the year, as bank failures continued at a pace not seen since the savings and loan crisis. The fund's reserve ratio was -0.39% at the end of the quarter, the lowest on record for the combined bank and thrift fund...Net charge-offs of troubled loans occurred across all major loan categories, led by a $3.3 billion increase in residential mortgage loans. The FDIC said U.S. banks' coverage ratio--reserves divided by the amount of noncurrent loans--fell to 58.1% in the fourth quarter from 60.1% in the third quarter.

Spanish National Intelligence Agency (CNI) is investigating whether the Spanish economy and the euro have fallen victim to a concerted attack by speculators and foreign media (El Pais)

Wall Street helped mask debts shaking Europe (NYT)

Γερμανογαλλικ? εγγ?ηση στα ελληνικ? ομ?λογα – Πως θα κινηθε? το ΧΑ - Here's to hope for another €5 billion Greek bond deal - the question: will it be guaranteed by Germany/France (B(T)ankingNews.gr)

Majority of Germans want Greece expelled from the euro zone(Reuters)

Dubai stocks plunge after disclosure Dubai World to pay 60 cents on dollar (Bloomberg)

European finance ministers meet to discuss week ahead (Economist)

Greek FinMin unveils tax reform, wage policy, outlawing of cash: "From 1. Jan. 2011, every transaction above 1,500 euros
between natural persons and businesses, or between businesses,
will not be considered legal if it is done in cash. Transactions
will have to be done through debit or credit cards" (Reuters)

Greek Britain? (BBC)

Greek saga won't kill the euro but the end may begin here (Telegraph)

It has long been discussed, both on Zero Hedge and elsewhere, that the massive budget deficit over the next 10 years will have to be funded with an unprecedented amount of new Treasury issuance. Various estimates project that absent a dramatic increase in yields, especially in the mid and longer dated side of the curve, there will simply not be enough demand for treasuries to fund the budget shortfalls just in the upcoming year (let alone the next ten). Furthermore, it is known that governmental estimates put early to mid 2011 total US debt estimates in the $14 trillion ballpark, courtesy of the just signed into law debt ceiling raise to $14.3 trillion. Lastly, the Treasury has made it well known that it intends to push debt issuance away from Bills and into Bonds and Notes, with the goal of increasing the average maturity of new debt to 5-6 years, which also would inevitably increase the average cost of Treasury borrowings as existing debt, of which 40% matures in under a year, has to be rolled into longer-dated debt. We present a recent monthly analysis of core Treasury receipts and outlays, highlighting the minor role that interest payments play currently. Yet should there be a dramatic or even gradual increase in rates, the monthly cost of funding of the ever increasing debt burden will soon become unbearable. A black swan scenario, which introduces an average interest rate reversion to those dark early 1980's days, when USTs carried interest of 10% and over, will see a 424% increase in monthly interest expenditures, which will push the annual interest expense as a percentage of core Treasury Deposits from the current 10% to nearly 50%, plunging America into a debt funding spiral.

When psychologists evaluate human behavior, one of the most prevalent observations regarding any activity is the all too often flawed basis of perceived versus realistic outcomes that dictates our every action. As imperfect creatures, we tend to construct theories that conform with our worldview, which are subsequently reinforced by our confidence (or lack thereof) in the future. This is true in any discipline: finance, politics, gambling, mating, etc. There is hardly a better example of this than the very basis of modern economic theory where assumptions about the validity of fiat currencies determine the actions of central banks, which in turn spill over into every aspect of modern society . Yet what if the very basis of core assumptions is wrong? What if every activity exhibited by humans in the post gold-standard world has a flawed assumption at its core? Austrian economists have, of course, claimed this for ages, usually seeing their efforts conclude with a dead-end as the attempt to change the status quo hits the brick wall of quadrillions of (arguably worthless) pieces of paper which dictate the status quo. However, with the recent turn for the worse, courtesy of sovereign bail outs (as confused as they may be) could the day of reckoning be fast approaching? With each passing the day an affirmative answer seems closer at hand. Today SocGen's Dylan Grice shares his perspectives on popular delusions, and why these may soon be coming to an abrupt end.

In a CNBC interview on Feb. 10, Marc Faber went out on a limb saying ALL governments will eventually default, including the United States. From all indications, this is a fairly plausible scenario.

Picking up where he left off in his prior Bloomberg interview earlier this week, the author of the "Gloom, Boom and Doom Report" continues his bashing of the governments of all developed and overleveraged nations, which he claims will sooner or later default on their obligations. This could be the most scathing critique of the fiat-money system to date, which is the primary cause for the facility with which governments have accumulated untenable debt loads. Sure enough, CNBC was not too happy with his assessment.

And you thought the $23 trillion in backstops for the financial system was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Earlier today, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, best known for its Cede & Co. partnership nominee which is the holder of virtually every single physical stock certificate in the known universe, and accounts for over $2 quadrillion in stock transactions per year, announced that "the Federal Reserve Board had approved its application to establish a DTCC subsidiary that is a member of the Federal Reserve System to operate the Trade Information Warehouse (Warehouse) for over the-counter (OTC) credit derivatives." With this approval the DTCC is now the de facto legally accepted global repository for over-the-counter credit derivative transactions. Simply said, the Federal Reserve is now the guarantor behind all CDS transactions that clear via DTCC, which would be pretty much all of them (sorry CME, you lose). The total bottom line in terms of gross notional? 2.3 million contracts with a gross notional value of $25.5 trillion. When the next AIG implodes, and the CDS market is once again facing annihilation in the face, who will be on the hook? You dear taxpayer, that's who.

Whether or not large nations actually go bankrupt, one thing is clear . . . Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and their foreign counterparts have failed ...

The fire in the sovereign periphery is slowly moving to the core. Today, US CDS, on which we have been constructive since it hit 20 bps in September, as unprecedentedly cheap insurance, are trading 55/60, or almost 200% "higher." This is the most 5 year US protection has cost since the market lows in March. We anticipate at least another 15-20 bps of widening in US risk absent some dramatic and miraculous improvement in Europe, as existing shorts are forced to cover en masse. As for the "sure buy" out there, it doesn't get any better than German CDS.

Contagion is here. Portugal and Greece default risks are now racing whose CDS can hit 500 first... Then 1,000... Forget the bond vigilantes: the sovereign default vigilantes just called Almunia's bluff. At last check SovX was flirting with the record century mark, Greece was almost back to record wides with some bids of 410 bps floating around, while Portugal, which is today's whipping boy, exploded to 215 bps. We eagerly await to see which other country will join the CDS ballet. Almunia is now openly waging a two-front war, which will soon become multi. The last time this happened to a European, the results were not that good.

It appears that in the 11th hour, Europe is still unable to decide just what the proper approach to rescuing Greece is. The Sunday Times has just released information that a plan to be published by Brussels on Tuesday, titled "Urgent measures to be taken by May 15, 2010" will demand dramatic Greek austerity measures, such as cutting "average nominal wages, including in
central government, local governments, state agencies and other public
institutions" and proposes new luxury goods and self-employed taxes. Yet the kicker is that "Richer eurozone countries such as Germany and France would be expected to bail
out Greece in the worst-case scenario, to prevent a disastrous crash in the
value of the single currency" - not very surprisingly, this is precisely the Plan B that Almunia yesterday swore up and down that the EU was not, repeat not, considering. Moral Hazard has indeed gone global. Yet even with this bureaucratic memorandum on the table, it seems certain that the EU will not actually act before Greek deterioration escalates out of control. Here are the near term catalysts that will likely make the cost of inactivity very high.

We mean, if you simply had to pick....

Greek CDS hits another all time record at 342.50 bps. Greece is now trading nearly 5 times as risky as the entire universe of investment grade US corporates. In other news, Greek Prime Minister Papanderou repeats for the third time (and fourth, and fifth) that the country will not, repeat not, repeat not, repeat not, repeat not, need a bail out from the EU, and will not (etc) drop the euro or leave the eurozone. If only anyone believed the man. Anyway, where is that damn ESH0 ramp job when you need one? The best way to send a signal that all is good in the world is for Liberty 33 to trade a quadrillion e-mini's with itself.

On December 24, the Senate passed a vote by a razor thin margin (with not a vote to spare) to raise the Federal debt ceiling from $12,104 billion to $12,394 billion. The actual debt ceiling increase took effect on December 28. And as the chart below shows, the Treasury's cash flow projections were spot on: 3 days later, and the debt subject to limit surged to $12,254, a jump of over $200 billion in 2 days, and a whopping $150 billion over the old debt ceiling. Three days is all the buffer the administration's reckless spending spree has afforded this country to avoid bankruptcy. Had one more Democratic vote dissented from the stopgap measure, the US would now be in technical default. There is just $140 billion left before the revised debt ceiling is breached. We hope for the country's sake that Bill refunding in January is massive, because as we already pointed out, on January 7th we expect another ~$130 of new Treasuries to be announced for auction by January 15th. And then there are two more weeks in January... Which is why the Treasury better be using that TARP money to pay down all it can, because if the general population understands how close this nation was to the fiscal brink, many more answers may be demanded out of the ruling party as to how it could allow things to get so out of hand.