Ireland

Never forget; there are two sides to the European fiscal proposition. There are the funding nations and the borrowing nations and I suggest that the focus of the markets will soon turn to the funding countries and their capacity to provide capital without endangering themselves. I think the attention of the markets is about to turn to Germany and France, the largest components of the European Union, and with GDP’s of $3.2 trillion and $2.77 trillion respectively the question is going to come around to just how much these two countries can support without sending themselves into a serious economic quagmire. The EU officially recognized sovereign debt of Greece is now 22.33% of the GDP of Germany and 25.80% of the GDP of France. The banks in Europe dwarf the sovereigns with balance sheets three times larger than of all of the EU nations and with Spain having now fallen and Italy about to go; just how much that can be afforded is quickly coming into the focus of many money managers.

After last week's event-a-palooza, where the headlines, the spin, the erroneous HFT trading, and the propaganda (Draghi is too cold; Draghi is too hot; Draghi is just right) just refused to stop, we finally enter the summer proper where all of Europe is on vacation, as is congress. Add on top of this a very light macro event week and an earnings season which has seen the bulk of companies already report, and we expect the volume in the coming 5 days to be among the lowest recorded in 2012, and thus in the past decade. Which of course means that the cannibalization among the market makers will continue as more and more firms succumb to "trading anomalies."

Remember late-2010? When Spain wasn’t a problem, but merely a potential problem? I do. Back then, the general opinion was that if the contagion spread to Spain the game was over because there wasn’t enough money with which to bail out an economy the size of The Kingdom of Spain. I’m not sure exactly what happened— maybe I wasn’t paying attention—but suddenly, almost two years on and in an environment where even the rich nations of Europe are seeing an undeniable slide towards recession, there is no talk about Spain being ‘too-big-to-bail’ anymore.

Did somebody repeal the laws of mathematics?

Rather than give the people a voice, democracy allows for the choking of life by men and women of state authority.  When Occupy protestors were chanting “this is what democracy looks like” last fall, they wrongly saw the power of government as the best means to alleviate poverty.  What modern day democracy really looks like is endless bailouts, special privileges, and imperial warfare all paid for on the back of the common man. None of this is to suggest that a transition to real democracy is the answer.  The popular adage of democracy being “two wolves and lamb voting on what’s for lunch” is undeniably accurate.  A system where one group of people can vote its hands into another’s pockets is not economically sustainable.  Democracy’s pitting of individuals against each other leads to moral degeneration and impairs capital accumulation.  It is no panacea for the rottenness that follows from centers of power.  True human liberty with respect to property rights is the only foundation from which civilization can grow and thrive.

There has been much confusion over last week's remarks by Mario Draghi, with the prevailing narrative being that the market first got what Draghi meant wrong (when it plunged), then right (when it soared). The confusion is further granulated by attempts to explain what was merely a desperate attempt at delaying a decision for action, which was inevitable considering the now open opposition by Buba's Weidmann, into a formal and planned plotline: "Inverse Twist" or other such technical jargon is what we have seen floating around. The reality is that, just like all other central bankers, Draghi did what he does best: use big words and threats of action in hope it will buy him a few extra days of time. The reality is also that, just like when the LTRO was announced, the market did get it right initially, when peripheral bonds plunged, and got it wrong over the subsequent 3 months when bond prices rose, only to collapse to new lows (and in the case of Spain - record high yields as of two weeks ago). Back then, the ECB merely bought a few months time with its transitory intervention. This time it has at best bought a few days with the lack of any actual action. And yet, Draghi did leave a way out, for at least another brief respite (where unless Europe expands the available bailout machinery yet again, the respite will have an even briefer half life than that from the LTROs). The way out is simple, and in order to avoid any confusion, we will use an allegory from the movie Batman: Spain and Italy can be saved. But first they must be destroyed.

For months everyone was confused, like lost lambs in a sea of noise and 500x leverage, not knowing how to navigate the stormy, choppy FX seas. Now we know. For that beacon of anti-precision, the man, the myth, the legend who bats 0.000 and thus is the most certain contrarian bet in history, Goldman's Tom Stolper has spoken: "We would now recommend going long EUR/$ at current levels with a one-day stop on a close below 1.18 for an initial target of 1.30." Start your selling.

The S&P 500 has made little headway for two years running and as Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg points out, it first crossed 1380 on July 1, 1999 and since then has run around like a headless chicken (while other asset classes have not). Meanwhile, Europe's bottomless pit of debt deleveraging (which is as much a problem for the US and China but less ion focus for now) makes the entire discourse of some new and aggressive intervention by the ECB even more ridiculous (and all so deja vu); and the US is facing up to an entirely topless earnings season as revenues are coming in at only 1.2% above last year as it appears Q2 EPS is on track for a 0.2% YoY dip - with guidance falling fast. But apart from all that, Rosie sees the only source of real buying support for the stock market is the stranded short-seller forced to cover in the face of CB-jawboning as there is little sign of long-term believers stepping into the void.

"September will undoubtedly be the crunch time," one senior euro zone policymaker said. "In nearly 20 years of dealing with EU issues, I've never known a state of affairs like we are in now," one euro zone diplomat said this week. "It really is a very, very difficult fix and it's far from certain that we'll be able to find the right way out of it."

That the US government's activities as a share of GDP have gone from well under 10% at the beginning of the last century to over 40% today – and will go over 50% by the time Obamacare is fully implemented – makes it clear that this country is now operating on principles that run completely contrary to those that promote success and economic well-being. The consequence of continuing to operate on this model will be a steady decline in the quality of life for most Americans, while favoring a ruling elite that produces nothing… except more roadblocks.

In order to understand why we’re at risk of the financial system collapsing, you first need to understand how the global banking system works

While it would appear that all news is good news; good news (or no news) is better news; and old-news is the best news; here is your one stop summary of all the notable bullish and bearish events in the past seven days.

We discussed the use of Game Theory as a useful tool for analyzing Europe's predicament in February and noted that it was far from optimal for any (peripheral or core) sovereign to pre-emptively 'agree' to austerity or Eurobonds respectively (even though that would make both better off). This Prisoner's Dilemma left the ugly Nash-Equilibrium game swinging from a catastrophic break-up to a long, painful (and volatile) continuation of the crisis. Recent work by BofAML's FX team takes this a step further and in assigning incentives and from a 'do-not-cooperate' Nash-equilibrium between Greece and Germany (no Greek austerity and no Eurobonds) they extend the single-period game across the entire group of European nations - with an ugly outcome. Analyzing the costs and benefits of a voluntary exit from the euro-area for the core and periphery countries, the admittedly over-simplified results are worrying. Italy and Ireland (not Greece) are expected to exit first (with Italy having a decent chance of an orderly exit) and while Germany is the most likely to achieve an orderly exit, it has the lowest incentive to exit the euro-zone - since growth, borrowing costs, and a weakening balance sheet would cause more pain. Ultimately, they play the game out and find while Germany could 'bribe' Italy to stay, they will not accept and Italy will optimally exit first - suggesting a very dark future ahead for the Eurozone and with EUR tail-risk so cheap, it seems an optimal trade - as only a weaker EUR can save the Euro.

Confirming what we described in detail in March, Bridgewater's Ray Dalio notes in his Daily Observations that "Spanish banks' collateral is running out in a way that could force them into an ELA." The manager of the largest hedge fund in the world - so not some self-perpetuating political mouthpiece - estimates that the Spanish banking system has only a few hundred billion euros left in eligible collateral and that some of the weaker banks are likely already getting close to a point where their collateral is exhausted. Critically, if this occurs, then Spanish banks will need to turn to its own Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program. An ELA for Spanish banks would likely be several times the size of those in place for Greece and Ireland, further fracturing the uniformity of central bank standards across the eurozone, and the magnitude of funding coming through the national central banks could accelerate rapidly. This increasing Balkanization of European central banks and funding capabilities only entrenches the impossible task of fiscal union as 'more' sovereign control transfer will be required in return for any core backstopping. Furthermore, those who are hoping for LTRO3: no collateral, no deal! Which the IMF just confirmed is a flashing red warning:

• IMF: COLLATERAL AT ECB VULNERABLE TO DOWNGRADES, MARGIN CALLS

The attempt to manage the imbalances among the Euroland economies is an extremely dangerous highwire act, and to the extent that monetary policies diverge to serve individual countries' needs, the further capital flows will likely go in the opposite direction.

While the EUR was soaring, and Spanish bond yield were (very briefly) plunging in the past 48 hours, the reality behind the scenes was very different than what was blasted publicly in the headlines. Namely, Spain was on the verge of requesting a full blown sovereign bailout, one which would see it become the next country after Greece, Ireland and Portugal to fall under the Troika's control. From Reuters: "Spain has for the first time conceded it might need a full EU/IMF bailout worth 300 billion euros ($366 billion) if its borrowing costs remain unsustainably high, a euro zone official said. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos brought up the issue with German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble in a meeting in Berlin last Tuesday as Spain's borrowing costs soared past 7.6 percent, the source said. If needed, the money would come on top of the 100 billion euros already agreed to prop up Spain's banking sector, stretching the euro zone's resources to breaking point, and Schaeuble told de Guindos he was unwilling to consider a rescue before the currency bloc's ESM bailout fund comes on line later this year." So why the sudden attempt to talk up European risk in the last two days? Simple - Germany did not agree to fund Spain's bailout. Which meant it was suddenly up to Europe's apparatchiks to jawbone markets into cooperation. "De Guindos was talking about 300 billion euros for a full program, but Germany was not comfortable with the idea of a bailout now," the official told Reuters."

European markets started off on a quiet note with thin volumes as equities drifted lower and fixed income gradually made gains, however newsflow rapidly picked up as commentary from the ECB President Draghi picked up wide attention. The ECB President was very upbeat on the Eurozone’s future, commenting that the bank will do whatever is needed to preserve the Euro, fuelling the asset classes with risk appetite across the board. European equities as well as the single currency erased all losses and the Bund moved solidly into negative territory. As such, EUR/USD is seen comfortably back above 1.2200, with both the core and peripheral bourses making progress. In the wake of the moves, attention is particularly being paid to Draghi’s comment that if monetary policy transmission is affected by government borrowing, it would come within the bank’s policy mandate. As such, much of the focus now lies firmly on next week’s policy decision from the ECB.