Ireland

The “Marshmallow Test” is a landmark study in child psychology which tests a toddler’s ability to delay gratification in return for the promise of a reward in the future.  Those who can wait 15 minutes unattended to eat a marshmallow are rewarded with a second treat. ConvergEx's Nick Colas, however, notes that more recent work on the topic, however, shatters the notion that innate self-control defines future success.  The real answer is, Colas adds, not surprisingly, trust.  If the child doesn’t believe their environment to be sufficiently predictable, they will be much more likely to gobble up the first treat regardless of any promised reward for waiting.  Since all investing is ultimately a game of delayed gratification, trust plays an under-appreciated role in the success of any macroeconomic policy on long term capital market and economic outcomes. What it essentially says is that you can’t keep whacking away with novel policy programs until one catches hold.  Trust in the system is what keeps the population playing along.  And when that trust erodes, the next iteration of confidence-boosting measures is less effective.  Repeat that cycle a few times and you end up with a population that will take the first marshmallow, gobble it down, and move on.

How many important (or worse yet, systemically important) banks can fail to disclose pertinent debt info before it becomes evident that the tax payer/depositor/regulators/stress tester realizes they don't know the Irish banking system's true condition? 

In the somewhat unsurprising conclusion of former FBI Director Louis Freeh's investigation into the MFGlobal collapse, Jon Corzine's aggressive bets on European sovereign debt led to the firm's dramatic collapse. The 124 page report (below) is extensive; noting, as Reuters reports, that Corzine's single-handed "negligent conduct" contributed to the company's failure. It was also "almost impossible to properly monitor the liquidity drains... caused by Corzine's proprietary trading strategy," the report said, adding that the "glaring deficiencies" in the firm's internal reporting were, "long-known to Corzine and management, yet they failed to implement sufficient corrective measures promptly." The investigation, based on interviews with former MF Global employees, board members and the review of hundreds of thousands of documents, concludes, "The risky business strategy engineered and executed by Corzine and other officers and their failure to improve the company's inadequate systems and procedures so that the company could accommodate that business strategy contributed to the company's collapse." Obviously, Corzine has denied any wrongdoing.

Witches Brew: Part 4 - Reality Bites

• The Specter of Things to Come

The road to ruin is on plain display and the playbook is easily seen at this juncture. Let’s take a look at how that playbook will unfold. Contrary to popular outrage of the SOLUTION being IMPOSED it is the correct one once the insured depositors where PROTECTED.  In this edition the elites suffered FIRST followed by the private sector depositors who foolishly believed false BALANCE sheets which were POLITICALLY CORRECT but PRACTICALLY incorrect fictions approved by fiduciarily (regulations and regulators allowed ONGOING insolvent operations rather than protect the public by ending and prohibiting them) challenged governments (work for the banks and crony capitalists not for the public at large).

You know, there's never just one roach. The deeper you look, the more you're likely to find. Just sayin...

Mounds of cold, hard, indisputable evidence not found ANYWHERE else! Damn, you thought Cyprus was newsworthy? Ireland already Troika'd & they're bigger than Cyprus. Depositor recap of banks looks inevitable if this research is right!

The $13 billion bailout in Cyprus is small (in 2011, France and Germany made $80 billion of loans and grants to developing countries) and as JPMorgan's CIO, Michael Cembalest, notes the situation is in many ways unique. However, he warns, the latest melodrama reinforces the inconsistent and chaotic nature of EU policy-making. Bondholders, equity investors, bank depositors and citizens of Europe are at risk of unpredictable outcomes as they play Eurozone Roulette. Here’s where they might land on any given spin...

Anglo Irish Bank/IBRC bondholders will actually get some of their money back! April Fools!!! Ireland makes the Cyprus deal look downright generous in comparison.

It begins here: Introduction of cold, hard evidence of bank shenanigans (with complete documentation) that A) should be prosecuted & B) cause enough concern to make you worry about your bank's integrity. 

From a European perspective, the list of broken taboos and assumptions continues to grow. The euro’s core founding principles, based on the Maastricht Treaty’s “irrevocable” fixing of currency rates, and of the free movement of capital, have been violated. The euro will never be the same again; its preservation now depends urgently upon economic recovery. Without the delivery of economic growth, unemployment will rise to yet higher post-war record levels, and the widespread and growing disillusionment felt by EU citizens towards their economic regime will threaten to spill over into more explicit questioning of the euro’s suitability.

Suddenly it should be dawning on a lot of Europeans that deposit-guarantee limits matter. In Slovenia, the maximum is 100,000 euros per depositor, the same as in Cyprus. (Deposit- insurance programs vary among the 17 countries that use the euro.) For a few days last week, it looked as if customers at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus would lose even some of their insured deposits, which would have been a sacrilege. That plan was scrapped, but could resurface elsewhere for all we know should some genius at the German Finance Ministry insist upon it. The one constant among bailouts of euro-area countries is that there is no rhyme or reason, much less fairness, in the way many details get worked out... So far, there have been no signs of a mass exodus in countries such as Italy or Spain. But deposit migrations can happen slowly, with lots of time passing before they appear in official statistics. Or maybe little will change and most bank customers will go on believing “it can’t happen here,” until one day it does.

Gold rose 1.1% in March, its first monthly rise in six. 

For the quarter, gold was 4.5% lower in dollar terms and 1.4% lower in euros. However, signalling that the demise of gold is greatly exaggerated, gold is 3.7% higher in Japanese yen and 2.6% higher in sterling.

As one astute financial journalist said to me “ ‘cash in the bank’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it anymore.”

So, one has to ask one’s self… if the ECB (along with the IMF and Germany) has thus far failed to manage, let alone solve, Greece’s problems (a country which comprises only 2% of EU GDP and whose bond market was just €350 billion), how is it now going to solve those of Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, and Slovenia all at once?

The big news out of Europe is whether or not Cyprus will be a template for future bailouts. Having seen that issues like personal property, rule of law, and democracy got thrown out of the window in Cyprus as soon as things got hairy, investors and depositors throughout Europe are panicked as to whether they will be targeted next when the next European Domino starts to fall.

There are some good features of the Cyprus deal and, of course, some bad aspects. However, its repercussions for the Eurozone as a whole are exceptionally ugly and will, we submit, mark a turning point for Europe; a point at which Europe took a nasty turn toward a set of mutually disagreeable outcomes.