Ireland

Europe's non-performing loan problem is such an issue that there is increasing bluster that the ECB may take this garbage on to its balance sheet since policymakers realize that bad debts and non-performing loans (NPLs) reduce the capacity of banks to lend, hindering the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Bad debts consume capital and make banks more risk averse, especially with respect to lending to higher risk borrowers such as SMEs. With Italy (NPLs 13.4%) now following the same dismal trajectory of Spain's bad debts, the situation is rapidly escalating (at an average of around 2.5% increase per year). With Periphery non-performing loans totaling EUR 720bn across the whole of the Euro area in 2012 and EUR 500bn of which were with Peripheral banks, it seems the Cyprus deposit haircut 'non-template' may indeed become the key template.

Read 'Em and Weep

Since 2009, when Hypo Alpe Adria was 'nationalized', the Austrian government has dumped more than EUR2 billion into the troubled bank. It remains on life-support but this time the government-proposed 'aid' being offered is running into a wall. The rest of Austria's banks (as creditors as well as forced levy-payers from other bailouts) dismiss the government's plan for a "bad-bank" model a la Ireland adding that they "will not allow themselves to be put under pressure by politicians." Reuters notes that the 'bad-bank' plan is up against a deadline at the end of May from the European Commission, and among others Unicredit Austria is clear on its role, "decidedly rule out a commitment on our part." The increasing tension between Vienna and Brussels is evident as a quick sale of the bank will lead to a EUR5-6 billion loss for taxpayers (hurting the government's budget plans) but it seems the rest of Austria's banks are unwilling to throw more good money after bad, "if we go this way, some persuasion will be needed". Is it time for more non-templates?

Irishmen with over 100k in euros in suspect Irish banks might as well kiss those damn euros goodbye. You can't say I didn't warn 'ya!

While everyone's attention this morning will be focused on the sheer, seasonally-adjusted noise that is the monthly NFP report (keep in mind that any number +/- 200,000 of the actual, is entirely in the seasonal adjustments and is thus entirely in the eye of the Arima X 13 beholder), which is expected to print at 140,000, resulting in an unemployment rate of 7.6%, there were some events overnight worth noting. First, the China non-manufacturing PMI printed at 54.5 in April, down from 55.6, and tied with the lowest such print in two years. The biggest red flag was that New Orders dropped below 50, with the price index also declining sharply, indicating that either the Chinese slowdown is for real, and the national bank will have no choice but to ease unleashing inflation, or that the politburo wishes to telegraph to the world that China is slowing, because what goes on in China, and what data is released out of China are never the same thing. Elsewhere, in Europe Mario Draghi's henchmen were stuck in damage control mode, and Ewald Nowotny said markets over-interpreted a signal yesterday that the ECB would consider a deposit rate below zero. Policy makers have “no plan in this direction,” Nowotny said in an interview with CNBC today. This helped boost the EUR from its languishing levels in the mid 1.30s higher by some 50 pips following his statement.

With the Bank of England cutting its wholesale interest (bank) rate to historic lows and now the ECB slashing 50bps off its key rate (as well as remonstrating on the reduction in fragmentation across European nations), it is perhaps perplexing (or simply too obvious) that a bank would raise its mortgage rates. As the Daily Mail reports, government-owned Bank of Ireland (BOI) doubled mortgage rates for 13,500 customers in the UK leaving homeowners with huge increases in their monthly payments. The bank, exploiting small print in the legacy mortgage contracts, will hike the interest cost for 1-in-14 homeowners from 2.25% to 4.99% (raising the spread over the bank rate on these loans from 1.75% to 4.49%). Anger is rife as customers complain "it's all very frustrating," adding that they thought this was a 'tracker' mortgage but BOI defends their massive rate hike on increased funding costs and the need to maintain higher levels of capital. The disconnect between wholesale gorging provided by the Central Bank and wholesale gouging of the real economy grows ever wider it seems.

One possibility for the markets to reverse has always been some grand event but another is just the economic deterioration that wears away at the markets as current levels cannot be rationally supported. It is not just the Law of Diminishing Returns which is coming into play as the central banks create more money but the effects on the consumer of seriously declining available cash to be used to purchase goods and services.  We have been subject to a massive amount of monetary printing and an unconscionable manipulation of data but the affects of reality cannot be ignored forever because reality forces the consequences as the fantasy gives way over time.

Central Bank governor now admits Irish banks need more capital. As the truth seeps slowly into the mainstream media, who do you believe - Reggie or the Central Bank of Ireland?

Last time it issued bonds was in 1996, when it flirted with bankruptcy. But now a new era is dawning.

While near record low sovereign bond spreads and near record high equity prices have been taken as vindication by the European elites that all is well and 'we just need a little less fauxsterity' to be done with this crisis; the data, as it so often does, says the exact opposite. European unemployment just broke above 12% for the first time ever and European youth unemployment remains miserably above 24%. And while 1-in-4 under-25s unemployed is a bad enough statistic in terms of likely emergence of social unrest, the individual countries are in general deteriorating once again at a faster rate. French youth unemployment has risen for 13 months in a row to a record 26.5%; Spain (at 57.2% of under-25s unemployed) is catching up fast to Greece's stunning 59.1%; but perhaps the most concerning for the broader economies is the fact that Italy's youth unemployment has now topped that of Portugal at 38.4%. The only nation to see a drop in its youth unemployment was Ireland - which fell back modestly to January levels. Not a rosy picture, but then again, it doesn't matter...

In what has been a banner weak for the many serial inflationists and fans of Big Government out there, equity markets have largely reversed the declines of the previous period on the hope for – what else? – yet more pump priming. On the fiscal front, much heart has been taken at EU Commission President Barroso’s assertion that the time has come to move beyond an exclusive reliance on ‘austerity’ and to begin to focus on encouraging growth. Needless to say [Barroso's actual words, were] far less radical than anything whipped up by the journalists. In the circumstances, however, the wilful desire to over interpret (if not actively misinterpret) the message was far too powerful to resist, especially in the wake of the academic catfight going on over the state of Reinhardt and Rogoff’s Excel skills. For those who have real lives to lead, the briefest of synopses of this spat will suffice and, indeed, it is only introduced here to illustrate the heedless Flucht nach Vorne mentality of the Krugmanites, ever eager as they are to peddle the line that the only reason stimulus has ‘failed’ is because there has been nowhere near enough of it. But other than this war of the scholastics, the whole debt issue surely misses the crucial point that debt only swells in a polity where not only is government over large to begin with, but where it is serially profligate – i.e,. where the political class persists in spending more than it dares ask its electors to contribute to their whims.

After reading the Spiegel article below, which reveals so much about German thinking, it becomes very clear that not only is Cyprus the "benchmark", but that the second some other PIIG country runs into trouble again, and its soaring non-performing loans inevitably demand a liability "resolution" a la Cyprus, it will be Germany once again at the helm, demanding more of the same equity, unsecured debt and ultimately depositor impairment. As the following punchline from Spiegel summarizes, "It would be more sensible -- and fairer -- for the crisis-ridden countries to exercise their own power to reduce their debts, namely by reaching for the assets of their citizens more than they have so far. As the most recent ECB study shows, there is certainly enough money available to do this." And that is the crux of the wealth-disparity demand of the European Disunion.

Now that the absolutely irrelevant debate over the applicability of the 90% debt/GDP Reinhart and Rogoff hard cutoff for sovereign growth is supposedly over due to an excel mistake of the type that JPMorgan did at least once to misrepresent its VaR both internally and to public shareholders (which to a large group of supposedly people is equivalent to supporting the notion that a record debt global conflagration can only be resolved with even more debt), perhaps the debate can shift to another question: why despite all the bickering and complaints, Europe never actually engaged in austerity, in spending or debt cuts, and that the primary reason the people's plight in the periphery worsened in the past three years is nothing more or less than gross political and governing incompetence?

A bank in some European country such as Spain lends money but the collateral, Real Estate or commercial loans, are going bad. The bank then securitizes a large pool of this collateral and pledges it at the ECB to receive cash. In many cases to take the pool the country has to guarantee the debt. So Spain, in my example, guarantees the loan package which is then pledged at the ECB and is a contingent liability and which is not reported in the debt to GDP ratio of the country but nowhere else that you will find either. “Hidden” would be the appropriate word.  Then as time passes the loans get even worse so that the ECB demands cash or more collateral because they will not be taking the hit; thank you very much. The bank cannot afford to post more collateral so that the country, Spain, must post the collateral and add an additional guarantee for the new loan or they must post cash which is oftentimes the case.  Consequently as time passes and more cash has been spent the country, Spain, begins to run out of capital and the 10.6% deficit figure, that Spain announced recently, is not anywhere close to the actual reality so that they will get forced to officially borrow more money from the ESM as the sovereign guarantee of bank debt becomes unsustainable.

I always wanted to debate those smart guys at the Fed, ECB and Irish Central Bank. After all, blowing up country after country is a notable accomplishment, right???!!!