Our feeling is that Germany is establishing a "Plan B" in place in case it needs to leave the Euro at some point. The catalyst(s) that might provoke this are the upcoming French, Irish, and Greek elections, which could see a resurgence in leftist, anti-austerity measures in these countries.Moreover, inflation is kicking up in Germany which will exacerbate tensions between it and the ECB.
Much of the fiscal and monetary insanity that has come out of the EU over the last two years can be summated by one of my central global theses: politics determine Europe's policies, not economics. And Europe now appears to be shifting towards a more leftist/ anti-austerity measure political environment. If this shift is cemented in the coming Greek, French, and Irish elections/ referendums, then things could get ugly in the Eurozone VERY quickly.
Because of its interventions and bond purchases, ¼ of the ECB’s balance sheet is now PIIGS debt AKA totally worthless junk. And the ECB claims it isn’t going to take any losses on these holdings either. No, instead it’s going to roll the losses back onto the shoulders of the individual national Central Banks. How is that going to work out? The ECB steps in to save the day and stop the bond market from imploding… but the minute it’s clear that losses are coming, it’s going to roll its holdings back onto the specific sovereigns’ balance sheets?
Taking Bernanke’s statement to indicate that QE is coming in April is wishful thinking at best. Bernanke’s actual words imply, if anything, that the Fed may have failed to fix the US economy. This is more of the Fed playing damage control because the reality is that Bernanke is well aware of this: by the Fed’s own data we’re clearly in a structural Depression, NOT a cyclical recession.
Big picture: the markets are being held together via a very tenuous balancing act on the part of EU leaders and the world Central Banks. The short-term bias will be bullish due to the factors listed above. But big trouble is lurking just beneath the surface. And should anything upset the current balance being maintained, we could see some real fireworks in the markets in short order.
I firmly believe we will see Europe start to crumble during the May-June window of time. We have a confluence of political (French, Greece, Irish elections), fundamental, seasonal, technical, and monetary factors (Operation Twist 2 ends in June) occurring in that time period make the possibility of a banking Crisis in Europe higher than at any other point in the last three years.
I know many of you are thinking “the ECB or Fed could just print money.” That answer is wrong. If the ECB chooses to do this, Germany will walk. End of story. They’ve already seen how rampant monetization works out (Weimar). And if the Fed chooses to monetize everything to hold things up, then the US Dollar collapses, inflation erupts creating civil unrest, interest rates rise killing the banks, US corporations and the US economy… all during an election year.
If Spain doesn’t opt for austerity measures in return for bailouts, the EU collapses. If Spain does opt for austerity measures in return for bailouts, it’s quite possible Germany will bail on the EU. Either way, we'd see a Crisis far greater than that of 2008.
Watching your debates and speeches of late, it is clear that you are all (with possibly the exception of Ron Paul) missing the point and only continuing to widen the gap between the US Government and the American people.
The Fed is not a “dealer” giving “hits” of monetary morphine to an “addict”… the Fed has permitted cancerous beliefs to spread throughout the financial system. And the end result is going to be the same as that of a patient who ignores cancer and simply acts as though everything is fine. That patient is now past the point of no return. There can be no return to health. Instead the system will eventually collapse and then be replaced by a new one.
I believe Central Bank intervention is not a drug or “hit” for an addict. Instead, it is a cancer that has spread throughout the financial system’s psyche and which is killing the markets and Democratic capitalism.
We must consider that it is highly likely the option of simply defaulting is being discussed at the highest levels of the Spanish and Italian government. Should either country decide that austerity measures don’t work and it’s simply easier to opt for a default, then we are heading into a Crisis that will make 2008 look like a joke.
Do not, for one minute, believe that the folks involved in the Crisis will get away with it. The only reason why we haven’t yet seen major players get slammed is because no one wants the system to crumble again. And the only way for the system to remain propped up is for the Powers That Be to appear to have things under control and be on good terms with one another. However, eventually things will come unhinged again. When this happens, the relationships between Wall Street, the Fed, and the White House will crumble to the point that some key figures are sacrificed.
The coming years will be marked by a seismic change in the economic landscape in the US. Firstly and most importantly, we are going to see economic growth slow down dramatically. The reasons for this slow down are myriad but the most important are: 1) Age demographics: a growing percentage of the population will be retiring while fewer younger people are entering the workforce. 2) Excessive debt overhang.
Folks, this is a DE-pression. And those who claim we’ve turned a corner are going by “adjusted” AKA “massaged” data. The actual data (which is provided by the Federal Reserve and Federal Government by the way) does not support these claims at all. In fact, if anything they prove we’ve wasted money by not permitted the proper debt restructuring/ cleaning of house needed in the financial system.
