Germany

With the US Mint selling silver at an unprecedented pace, it was only a matter of time before the silver shortage would be spotted across the Atlantic, where distributors ran out of both gold and silver on a daily basis during the first time Europe became insolvent some time in early May 2010. Sure enough, BullionVault.com has announced that it has run out of silver in Germany "due to high demand." In the meantime, the CFTC's actions have succeeded in allowing the JPM's suppression of precious metals markets to continue indefinitely, yet all its actions have really done is to provide a short-lived lower cost basis for the precious metals as there is no indication demand is subsiding. At some point the margin calls will come. Then not even Gary Gensler will be able to bail out JPM (we wish we could say the same about Ben Bernanke to whom JPM's role as head of the tri-party repo clearing market is irreplaceable in maintaining an orderly shadow liquidity market).

Wondering why Bund yields have been pushing ever higher over the past month (not to mention the two failed German auctions in recent weeks)? Mohamed El-Erian, in his latest op-ed explains: "Sensing the risk that Germany’s balance sheet (and that of the ECB) may continue to be contaminated by someone else’s problems, the markets have started to signal some initial concerns about the country’s fiscal robustness. In addition to some jitters at a recent government bond auction, German interest rates have followed American ones sharply higher even though the two countries’ fiscal paths diverge dramatically...This highlights the dilemma facing a Germany that feels politically compelled to support a liquidity approach for peripheral Europe’s solvency problem, but knows the economics of the situation are wrong and, ultimately, harmful."

Last night, in a less than surprising Op-ed in the FT, Jean-Claude Juncker and Giulio Tremonti, prime minister and treasury minister of Luxembourg and Italy’s minister of economy and finance respectively, once again floated the idea that the time has come for a joint European bond issuance mechanism, because apparently lack of individual monetary policy is not enough, European countries now have to surrender their fiscal decision making to a bunch of dogmatic bureaucrats in Brussels. The desperate duo, which knows all too well, that they could well be next on the bond vigilantes radar, write: " The European Council could move as early as this month to create such an agency, with a mandate gradually to reach an amount of outstanding paper equivalent to 40 per cent of the gross domestic product of the European Union and of each member state." We ridiculed the idea last night, noting that this proposal would only happen over Germany's dead body, which already sees as contributing far too much to keeping the European experiment alive and getting only dirty looks from its voters. Today, Germany steps up and confirms: "Germany on Monday rejected the idea of increasing the size of the European Union's safety net and ruled out a proposal to issue a joint euro zone bond." And additionally recent pressure to hike the rescue fund by the IMF and internally were also promptly shut down by Germany, which as we pointed out last week threatened to pull out of the Euro if the political wrangling by pathological liars such as the Greek elite continued: "We see no reason at all at the moment for an increase in the size of the euro rescue shield -- no reason at all." Which means that with no recourse to do anything structural, the ECB is back to buying up Portuguese bonds in a fake bid to create a sense of normalcy in the bond market, which everyone with half a brain knows will collapse the second the ECB pulls out or runs out of paper.

Today's much anticipated Portuguese T-Bill auction carried some good and some not so good news. While the Bid To Cover on the €500 million 12 month paper improved from 1.8 to 2.5, the rate on the 1 year issue surpassed 5% for the first time, and came wide of analyst expectations, pricing at 5.281%, compared to 4.813% previously. Per Reuters: " That was higher than the roughly 5 percent that dealers and analysts had looked for ahead of the sale, though the rise in short-term borrowing costs was much smaller than a more than 150-basis point jump at the previous tender in November.  "There is no place to hide on the curve for Portugal anymore. Once again, the auction increases pressure to find a circuit-breaker to limit the damage, which is most likely to mean asking for aid," said David Schnautz, debt strategist at Commerzbank in London." Filipe Silva, debt manager and Banco Carregosa explains why contrary to the EUR's reaction, this is not good news: "This rate is very high and Portugal cannot keep raising its rates at this pace, 47 basis points in just two weeks." Yet despite the weak auction, Sovereign spreads tightened modestly after rumors that the ECB would announce an expansion or a new program to buy peripheral sovereign debt. Which was to be expected: the Portuguese auction was quite irrelevant compared to what happened in Germany earlier, when the country held its weakest 5 Year Bobl issuance in 6 months: in an auction of €4.13 billion in paper, the government saw a mere 1.1 Bid To Cover, the weakest since May, and forcing the government to retain 17.4%, or €0.87 billion of the auction to make it not appear that the auction was a failure.

And so the can has been kicked down the road one more time as Ireland's Brian Lenihan has just sold out his country to the IMF, the ECB and the Fed for a few extra years of puppet control. RTE reports that EU Finance Ministers are due to hold a conference call later this evening during which Ireland is expected to make a formal request for a financial rescue package. What is not discussed is how the Irish people, now likely furious at being manipulated over a lost cause will express their anger over being the latest sheep used to bail out Europe's ever more insolvent banking system. They can at least sleep soundly, that they won't be the last. After today's rescue of Ireland, the vigilantes will focus their undivided attention on Portugal and Spain - perhaps these two countries will be a little less timid when it comes to rescuing Germany's banking oligarchy.

Now I don't mean to be overly cynical or anything...

Silver's sky-shot to a new 30-year high of $27.73 per ounce has led to a new phenomenon in Germany. For the first time in history it is theoretically possible to buy two last series of silver coins with a denomination of €10 and a silver content of 0.535 ounces for less than the silver equivalent. According to a report in German Daily "Welt" the soaring silver price has forced the German government to bring forward the starting time of sales of the 2 commemorative coins into October to save face. The coins now have a value of €10.66 but have to be sold at the denominated Euro value.

After months of US bitching and moaning about China's so called unfair exchange policies, when it is the US Fed which is the biggest currency manipulator in the world by orders of magnitude, one country finally had the guts to stand up and call out Tim Geithner on his endless bullshit. At the G-20 meeting, German
Economic Minister Rainer Bruederle said that the Fed's  "push
toward easier monetary policy is the “wrong way” to stimulate
growth and may amount to a manipulation of the dollar. Excessive, permanent money creation in my opinion is an
indirect manipulation of an exchange rate." The fact that China was smart enough to peg its currency to the most rapidly devaluing currency in the world is a different story altogether, and merely confirms that they are leap and bounds more sophisticated in their monetary policy than anyone gives them credit for. If Geithner wants to prevent a relative depreciation of the Yuan versus all other currencies in the world (especially the EUR, against which it continues to be in freefall), the answer is simple: stop bloody printing!

After repeated admonitions from Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and even President Obama to engage in more Keynesian stimulus, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel firmly rejected those demands and had the gall to suggest that such policies weren't right for Germany. Now she has the last laugh as Germany is recovering and we slip back into recession.

With the euro surging, it was only a matter of time before the rickety house of European cards was put on full display once again. Sure enough, not 24 hours after the EURUSD hit a "German export industry suicidal" 1.34, here comes Germany's FinMin Schaeuble, who has said that if the IMF/EU hope to extend the duration of the European Bail Out Facility beyond 2013, they have another thing coming. As a reminder, Reuters reported a few days ago that "Greece's international lenders assured investors this week that they would not abandon Athens at the end of a 3-year bailout plan if it fulfilled tough reforms but failed to regain market trust." Additionally, Greek newspaper Ta Nea reported over the weekend that EU officials are considering an extension of the aid package for Greece beyond the agreed three years, due to fears that the country’s economy will not have sufficiently recovered by 2013. The reason - in 2013 Greek public debt is expected to hit its peak of 150% of GDP, a level far higher than where it is now. Regardless, it seems that Germany is once again sowing the seeds for the next crisis, as the ECB is unable to go "full retard" with QE.X right now as that would destroy the credibility of recent lies that Europe was doing oh so well (and as we are expecting a tide of European GDP revisions lower, Italy just announced a few hours back that its GDP would not meet a previous target of 1.5% as previously disclosed). In other words, the next step in the devaluation race will be out of Europe, possibly accompanied by the provisional semi-ejection of the PIIGS from the Eurozone just to make the point that not only Bernanke is a middle-class destroyer.

Renowned German economist Professor Wilhelm Hankel has written a second open letter to German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel after his first plea to follow the dictates of reason and not introduce the constutionally disputed financial aid laws that will pump €750 billion into insolvent Eurozone banks while pushing Germany deeper into social and economic abyss was ignored. Hankel has already warned in 2005 that the Euro system is unsustainable. While I am still wondering to whom Germany will sell all the goods it now produces (and warehouses) when all important trade partners face the same economic and social problems, Hankel focuses on the adverse effects the hastily pushed through financial aid laws for Greece - which is already running into difficulties to comply with the austerity conditions that are part of the bailout - will have on Germany in the future.

He warns of dire consequences and states that Merkel may run afoul of the German constitution and her oath to stave off the German sovereign from bad damage.

In what could be the most important news of the day, German Die Zeit reports that, in a stunning move, the EU has ordered Germany to count the holdings of WestLB and Hypo Real Estate (the latter of which failed the stress farce from last month which nobody cares about or remembers anymore) as government debt!  As Bloomberg notes, "That could raise Germany’s debt to 90 percent of gross domestic product, Die Zeit said." Of course the implications of this decision are massive, as it takes out all the guess work of whether insolvent institutions are or are not on the government's balance sheet. The net result, for Germany alone, is that just the addition of Hypo's debt would push German debt/GDP from 79% to 90%, both of which are well above the Maastricht limit of 60% (not like anyone cares that is - everyone is now aware the EU is a failed experiment). The next question: what happens to nationalized RBS and it $168 billion in debt? Total UK debt is $1.2 trillion meaning a comparable action in the UK would rise UK debt by 15%! And then there is a whole slew of other banks in the pipeline in Europe that are full of trillions in toxic debt: will the sovereign hosts be able to onboard this debt? Most importantly, what happens to our administration's adamant claims that Fannie and Freddie's $6+ trillion in debt should not be counted as part of total Federal debt. America already has its hand full with $13.3 trillion in debt. What will happen when it moves to $20 trillion (140% of GDP) overnight. We are confident that unless this decision by the EU's statistics office is overturned, it will likely set off the next leg in the sovereign debt crisis as suddenly European Debt to GDP ratios will increase by about 15-20%.

Following up on our earlier observations on the Spiegel article about Germany change in posture vis-a-vis the European Stability Fund, here are some additional summary thoughts from Thermidor.

These days it's hard being a religious fanatic, also known as a Keynesian. It is even harder when you are Paul Krugman (sadly, the cornerstone of NYT's entire paywall strategy), and everyone in your own country is already sick and tired of, and openly ignores your constant appeals to drown the world in new and record amounts of debt, thus ignoring your appeals with impunity. So what do you do when nobody takes you seriously for thousands of miles around? Why you go even further - to the core of Europe in fact... where you proceed to threaten, badger, insult and give your unsolicited advice to anyone that listens. That "unlucky soul" in this case happens to be Germany daily Handeslbatt, which ran an interview with the "economist" in which Krugman stick not a foot, but an entire SS-20 nuclear warhead armed ICBM, in his mouth. And since Krugman is unaware, preaching the benefits of record deficit spending in Germany, ever since that little experiment in hyperinflation known as the Weimar Republic, tends to generate adverse reactions. Which is precisely what happened in this case. Luckily, now Krugman is a persona non grata in at least one country. Unfortunately, it is not the one in which his trite platitudes and melancholic remembrances of the golden days of Greenspan's credit bubble are still published on a daily basis.

Ironically even with Greek CDS surging by 60 bps to 909 bps this morning, the biggest mover in percentage terms is not the bankrupt Mediterranean country but Europe's "stablest" one -  Germany, whose default risk has spiked by 9.19% according to MarkIt. Without splitting hairs, Europe is a sea of red this morning as the ugly specters of default and complete lack of credibility in the EU administration raise their ugly heads again.