When it came time to vote in round one, more French youth voted for a party whose leader wants to break up the Euro, who wants to deal with immigration by ending dual citizenship, affirmative action, and by kicking out any immigrant who cannot adhere to French principles or who commits a crime, and who once compared the legal French tolerance of Muslims praying in the streets to putting up with Nazi occupation.
The situation in Europe is bad... How BAD? Well, France, Spain, and Germany have ALL implemented border controls. That's not a typo. Spain, France, and Germany can each close their borders for up to 30 days at any point if they so choose. Why are they doing this? Because they know that when the stuff hits the fan and the EU collapses (which it will in the next few months) people are going to attempt to flee with their money... so they have made it so that no one can get it... and no one can get out.
Germany is interested in the EU as a political entity, NOT the Euro as a currency. With that in mind, as well as Merkel’s recent political struggle, the stage is set for a possible exit from the Euro on the part of Germany.
The ESM funding idea is really just Spain playing for time (the ESM doesn’t actually have the funds to bail Spain out). But the fact that Germany is now making the ESM a political issue indicates the degree to which political relationships are breaking down in the EU. And once the political relationships break down... so will the Euro.
THIS is the fate that awaits the European banking system. Every single EU bank has leveraged itself based on financial models that consider sovereign bonds to be “risk free.” Moreover, EVERY EU bank is leverage to the hilt based on its OWN in-?house assessment of the riskiness of its loan portfolio.
By the look of things, French youth are celebrating Hollande’s victory by picking up all of their friends and then driving up and down the streets honking their horns incessantly. Most cars were packed to the brim with passengers hanging out of every window and even the sunroof waving French flags, singing, or simply yelling pro-Hollande slogans.
Remember, the core driving force in European policy-making is politics. Angela Merkel faces re-election in 2013. If inflation is already becoming a political issue in Germany now (though data shows that inflation actually slowed in April) Merkel is going to be highly incentivized to get it under control by appearing even more pro-austerity/ anti-monetization (more on this later). And if things get truly ugly she could even publicly threaten to pull out the Euro.
Spain, which is now at the forefront of the Great Western Debt Default Collapse, has opted to seek funding from the mega-bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) rather than going directly to the ECB or the IMF.
To give you an idea of how bad things are with the cajas, consider that in February 2011 the Spanish Government implemented legislation demanding all Spanish banks have equity equal to 8% of their “risk-weighted assets.” Those banks that failed to meet this requirement had to either merge with larger banks or face partial nationalization. The deadline for meeting this capital request was September 2011. Between February 2011 and September 2011, the number of cajas has in Spain has dropped from 45 to 17.
To give you an idea of how bad things are with the cajas, consider that in February 2011 the Spanish Government implemented legislation demanding all Spanish banks have equity equal to 8% of their “risk-weighted assets.” Those banks that failed to meet this requirement had to either merge with larger banks or face partial nationalization. The deadline for meeting this capital request was September 2011. Between February 2011 and September 2011, the number of cajas has in Spain has dropped from 45 to 17.
I do not believe that China or Russia are in any position to dump the US dollar, at least not in the near-term. The US Dollar may one day no longer be the reserve currency of the world. But that day is years and possibly decades out. But the notion that China or Russia could just dump the Dollar and move around the US in terms of trade is unbelievably naïve and greatly underestimates the importance of the US to the global economy.
The ECB has found its hands tied: if it continues to monetize aggressively, inflation will surge and Germany will either leave the Euro or at the very least make life very, very difficult for the ECB and those EU members asking for bailouts.
After all, doing this would score MAJOR political points for both Merkel and Weidmann who have both come under fire for revelations that the Bundesbank has in fact put Germany on the hook for over €2 trillion via various back-door deals.
On that note, I fully believe the EU in its current form is in its final chapters. Whether it’s through Spain imploding or Germany ultimately pulling out of the Euro, we’ve now reached the point of no return: the problems facing the EU (Spain and Italy) are too large to be bailed out. There simply aren’t any funds or entities large enough to handle these issues.
This spells MAJOR trouble for Spain and the rest of the EU. Unlike Greece, (which has its own elections, which could go very wrong for the EU, on May 6th by the way), Spain is too big to bail out. Indeed, the Spanish banking system is a toxic sewer of bad mortgage debt: over half of all mortgages were generated and owned by the unregulated cajas. If you're unfamiliar with the caja banking system, let me give you a little background...
With Spain today, we have a virtually unregulated banking system sitting atop HALF of ALL Spanish mortgages after a housing bubble that makes the one that happened in the US look like a small bump.
