Ireland

It may be blasphemy but we ask "Is a Eurobond necessary?" UBS' Paul Donovan suggests the short answer to this question is “no”. The long answer is “no, of course not, not like this”. The Euro area seems to have drifted into something of a fiscal backwater with the debate over Eurobonds. German Chancellor Merkel has rather melodramatically declared that Eurobonds will not be an option as long as she lives. As Donovan notes, European politicians go back and forth over the merits, necessity, and preconditions for Eurobonds. He sees this as "a waste of time". Eurobonds are not a necessary condition for the survival of the Euro, even though (in our view) fiscal union in some form is a necessary condition. The Eurobond debate is diverting valuable political and economic resource into what is at best an irrelevance, and at worst may actually undermine the stability of the Euro area.

And so it begins...Last Friday the Spanish government published a proposal to cut government expenditure and raise taxes to reduce the fiscal deficit by 56.4billion euros by 2015.  I have outlined why austerity will not work in Europe, but it looks like this is a lesson Europeans will have to learn for themselves--for a second time.  The writing is on the wall in Ireland, who ailed in the same ways that Spain is currently ailing, but what Lord Merkel wants, Lord Merkel gets.  The immediate malaise from these austerity measures will be large-scale social unrest, which is already being planned by many of the 50% of the country's unemployed young people.  Regardless of one's stance on the economic merit of austerity, what is indisputable is that riots are real and riots do not end well.  With nothing to lose, this round of Spanish austerity protesting has the potential to end in catastrophe.

“Converting a state bailout into a speculator bailout” and other acidic confrontations in the escalating disaster of disagreements in Germany

In what has become a typical pattern; Europe has a summit, everyone says this, that, their own variation of that and the other to appease their citizens and it is not until days later that some sort of reality begins to be released to the Press. Not only has this become the pattern but it generally comes over the weekend when the markets are not open and when no one is paying much attention. It is a purposeful scheme and useful I suppose for dampening effects and it allows the bliss to continue. In the meantime there is no ESM in place, only $65 billion left in the EFSF after Spain and Cyprus are funded and the German Constitutional Court declared over the weekend that there would be no ruling on the ESM until September 12. The Golden Rule lives on; “He that has the Gold rules.”. For those that believe in the usefulness of firewalls, which would not include me, you are now staring at bricks to build dollhouses and it is not just the flank but the center that is fully exposed and vulnerable. This is Vichy reborn and Anschluss déjà vu and the takeover of Poland just accomplished on a different battlefield. The weapon is money and not armaments and while the stench is more polite the demand for victory has not lessened.

In a landmark shift in its bank "impairment" stance, the WSJ reports that "in a sharp turnaround" the ECB has advocated the imposition of losses on senior bondholders at the most "damaged" Spanish savings banks, "though finance ministers have for now rejected the approach, according to people familiar with discussions." The WSJ continues: "The ECB's new position was made clear by its president, Mario Draghi, to a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers discussing a euro-zone rescue for Spain's struggling local lenders in Brussels the evening of July 9. It marks a contrast from the position the central bank adopted during the 2010 bailout of Irish banks--which, like Spain's, were victims of a property meltdown--when it prevailed in its insistence that senior bondholders in bailed-out banks shouldn't suffer losses." Needless to say, if indeed the fulcrum impairment security is no longer the Sub debt, but Senior debt, as the ECB suggests, it is only a matter of time before wholesale European bank liquidations commence as the ECB would only encourage this shift if it knew the level of asset impairment is far too great to be papered over by mere pooling of liabilities (think shared deposits, the creation of TBTF banks, and all those other gimmicks tried in 2010 when as a result of Caja failure we got such sterling example of financial viability as Bankia, which lasted all of 18 months). It also means the European crisis is likely about to take a big turn for the worse as suddenly bank failures become all too real. Why? Senior debt impairment means deposits are now at full risk of loss as even the main European bank admits there is no way banks will have enough assets to grow into their balance sheet.

It seems every week there are new acronyms or catchy-phrases for Europe's Rescue and Fiscal Progress decisions. Goldman Sachs provides a quick primer on everything from ELA to EFSM and from Two-Pack (not Tupac) to the Four Presidents' Report.

Portugal is a country that I’ve always enjoyed, full of warm, welcoming people, excellent wine, and great weather. I came to Porto, the country’s second largest city of some 1.5 million, to get a sense of what’s been happening since the eurocalypse...

European equities are seen softer at the North American crossover as continued concerns regarding global demand remain stubborn ahead of tonight’s Chinese GDP release. Adding to the risk-aversion is continued caution surrounding the periphery, evident in the Spanish and Italian bourses underperforming today. A key catalyst for trade today has been the ECB’s daily liquidity update, wherein deposits, unsurprisingly, fell dramatically to EUR 324.9bln following the central bank’s cut to zero-deposit rates. The move by the ECB to boost credit flows and lending has slipped at the first hurdle, as the fall in deposits is matched almost exactly by an uptick in the ECB’s current account. As such, it is evident that the banks are still sitting on their cash reserves, reluctant to lend, as the real economy is yet to see a boost from the zero-deposit rate. As expected, the European banks’ share prices are showing the disappointment, with financials one of the worst performing sectors, and CDS’ on bank bonds seen markedly higher. A brief stint of risk appetite was observed following the release of positive money supply figures from China, particularly the new CNY loans number, however the effect was shortlived, as participants continue to eye the upcoming growth release as the next sign of health, or lack thereof, from the world’s second largest economy.

• If Hilsenrath leaks a Fed party line and nobody cares, does Hilsenrath exist? Fed Weighs More Stimulus (WSJ)
• Clock Is Ticking on Crisis Charges (WSJ)
• South Korea in first rate cut since 2009 (FT)
• Shake-Up at New York Fed Is Said to Cloud View of Risk at JPMorgan (NYT)
• Italy stats office threatens to stop issuing data (Reuters)... because Italy is "out of money"
• China New Yuan Loans Top Forecasts; Forex Reserves Decline (Bloomberg).. and here are Chinese gold imports
• Italy Faces 'War' in Economic Revamp, Monti Warns (WSJ)... says Mario Monti from Sun Valley, cause Italy is "out of money"
• NY Fed to release Libor documents Friday (Reuters)
• U.S. House Again Votes to Repeal Obama’s Health Care Law (Bloomberg)
• Germany May Turn to Labor Programs as Crisis Worsens, Union Says (Bloomberg)
• Ireland to unveil stimulus package (FT)

Peak employment is the theory that due to factors such as efficiency, driven by technological innovation, and demand, developed economies may have already passed beyond the highest point of employment and that from this point onwards employment will continue to fall and unemployment inexorably rise causing increased social tension. Employment is falling, unemployment is rising but hidden behind those headlines is the fact that part time Employment is rising. Less people have full time jobs, more people have part time jobs, which means that the hours of work are being spread increasingly more thinly across the population. Some might argue that it is only because of the economic slump that all of these things are happening and that it is only temporary. But there is enough evidence to suggest that this is a long term trend that has just been disguised by the boom of the last ten years and is only now really becoming apparent. The fear is that we have already passed Peak Employment and the downward trend will continue, perhaps disguised by increasingly more part time employment.

Despite the ongoing barrage of pronouncements out of Europe on a weekly if not daily basis, discussing the imminent launch and even more imminent success of the ESM, the reality is that many questions remain: such as will Germany just say nein again today, in the constitutional court's verdict, especially after the President asked Merkel over the weekend why it is that Germany has to keep bailing out Europe, a proposition which no longer impresses about 54% of the German public. More importantly, even though the debate over the explicit subordination of the ESM may be resolved (it never will be as the bailout funding will always be implicitly senior to general bondholders no matter how many pieces of paper are signed), a bigger debate now emerging is just who will guarantee the bank losses. Below, we answer that question, and virtually every other outstanding one, courtesy of this DB analysis, which removes most of the lack of clarity surrounding the European bailout mechanism. Yet the main axis of inquiry in our opinion is different: what is the timetable of funding rollout. Because as DB explains, "It follows that from July to October, the ESM can only lend about EUR 100bn. If that is committed to Spain, there is nothing left in the ESM until October. Any other intervention before October would have to be under the EFSF." In other words, assuming a smooth acceptance of the ESM today by the German court, and no further glitches, the best case scenario is one which provides for funding to Spain... and there is no other cash until virtually the end of the year under the ESM, whose implementation is staggered as the chart below shows.

Who Are the Biggest Manipulators of All?

The politics of the EU summit appear quite tense, and as JPMorgan's CIO Michael Cembalest notes, you have to wonder if this is how monetary unions are made or broken: by strong-arming the Chancellor of the country primarily expected to fund the Euro’s survival. In order to better comprehend the shenanigans, Michael provides an aerial view of the summit and how these maneuvers played out. The next move is Germany’s.

Central Banks came, stood and delivered… just not much more, although the (nightly) POBC cut (1 YRS by 31 to 6% and deposits by 25bp to 3%) had not really been foreseen. Second Chinese cut in as many month, the last one having been on 07 Jun (as well just ahead of the ECB meeting, then by 25 basis points to 3.25% and 6.31%). The Chinese move was good for a small uptick, rapidly squashed by the European serving.

ECB quarter cut and BoE GBP 50bn additional QE to GBP 375bn both already in the valuation ramp-out of late.

Hmmm… Non-event.

Then came the ECB press conference…

So much for the latest European bail out. Not even a full week after the last European dead of night summit, which supposedly "was different this time", and Spanish bond yields have already retraced virtually the entire move lower, and after sliding to as low as 6.1%, are now back to 6.62% as of this morning, 22 bps wider on the day, as a result of the now generic realization that nothing actually changed, and also following the latest abysmal and unsustainable (there's that key word again) auction out of Spain, which sold bonds due 2015, 2016 and 2022, even as its default risk is now wider than that of Ireland.