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May 22, 2012 Neither the Fed Nor the ECB Will Be Able to Stop What's Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Today, we are witnessing the investment world's slow awakening to the fact that the monetary actions taken by the world's Central Banks have not in fact solved the issues leading up to the 2008 Crisis.

In point of fact, the Central Banks' actions have exacerbated pre-existing problems (excessive leverage) while simultaneously creating new problems (inflation).

This slow awakening has taken much longer than I would have expected, but with tens of thousands of careers on the line (financial professionals) as well as tens of trillions of dollars in portfolios at risk, the vast majority of professional market participants were highly incentivized not to realize these issues.

However, at this point, it is becoming clear that not only are financial professionals slowly realizing that 2008 was actually "the warm up," but that Central Banks themselves are aware that they've:

1) Failed to solve the issues leading up to 2008.

2) Created other unforeseen problems.

Indeed, this process of realization first began in the US where we had signs as far back as April 2011 that the Federal Reserve was aware that QE (AKA monetization of US debt) was less "attractive" as a policy (read: not such a good idea).

The vast majority of the media and Wall Street analysts failed to recognize this, though Bernanke himself admitted it in public:

Q. Since both housing and unemployment have not recovered sufficiently, why are you not instantly embarking on QE3? -- Michael A. Kamperman, Waco, Tex.

Mr. Bernanke: "Going forward, we'll have to continue to make judgments about whether additional steps are warranted, but as we do so, we have to keep in mind that we do have a dual mandate, that we do have to worry about both the rate of growth but also the inflation rate...

"The trade-offs are getting -- are getting less attractive at this point. Inflation has gotten higher. Inflation expectations are a bit higher. It's not clear that we can get substantial improvements in payrolls without some additional inflation risk. And in my view, if we're going to have success in creating a long-run, sustainable recovery with lots of job growth, we've got to keep inflation under control. So we've got to look at both of those -- both parts of the mandate as we -- as we choose policy"

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/how-bernanke-answered-your-questions/

This admission marked the beginning of a process through which the US Federal shifted its policies from those of aggressive monetization to those of verbal or symbolic intervention.

I addressed this at length in previous articles. But the main issue is that the Fed backed off from rampant monetization and began to simply issue verbal statements that it would ease if needed, thereby getting the same impact (boosting stock prices) without actually having to monetize debt/ print more money.

Indeed, the only monetary change the Fed has made in nearly a year was the launch of Operation Twist 2 in October 2011. However, even this policy was more about meeting immediate debt issuance needs in the US rather than printing money to prop up the market.

Operation Twist 2 was a policy through which the Fed would sell its short-term Treasury holdings and use the proceeds to buy longer-term Treasuries. The purpose of this policy was two fold:

1) To make up for the lack of foreign demand in long-term Treasuries.

2) To provide capital to banks by permitting them to unload their long-term Treasury holdings in exchange for new cash.

Regarding #1, the Fed is now obviously aware that the policies it has pursued in tandem with the Federal Government, namely maintaining low interest rates while running massive deficits and increasing the Federal Debt to the tune of $100-200 billion per month, have severely damaged the US Treasury market.

This is only common sense. By running Debt to GDP and Deficit to GDP ratios that are on par with the European PIIGS, the US has made it clear that those investors who lend to it for the long-term (20+ years) are likely going to experience a haircut or bond restructuring much as Greece bondholders recently experienced.

Because of a lack of foreign interest in long-term Treasuries, the Fed decided to step in to pick up the slack. As a result of this, the US Federal Reserve has accounted for 91% of all new debt issuance in the 20+years bracket. Put another way, the US Federal Reserve is now effectively the long-end of the US debt market.

Operations Twist 2 has also allowed US commercial banks to unload their long-term Treasury holdings in exchange for new capital: something most of the Primary Dealers are in dire need of. This in turn helps to explain why the US stock market has advanced despite the fact that retail investors have been pulling out of the market in droves.

Put another way, the markets have been ramped higher by more juice from the Fed (and corporate buybacks). However, the fact remains that this juice has come from the Fed reallocating its current portfolio holdings, NOT printing more money outright to monetize US debt via QE.

So while the media and 99% of analysts believe the Fed is and can continue to act aggressively to prop up the markets, the fact is that the Fed has been reining in its monetary stimulus over the last nine months, largely relying on verbal intervention from Fed Presidents to push stocks higher.

We have known this for some time. But the general public and financial media are only just starting to realize that the Fed, in some ways, is at the end of its rope in terms of monetary intervention. This has become increasingly clear in the Fed FOMC statements.

Consider the latest FOMC statement released a few weeks ago...

Fed Signals No Need for More Easing Unless Growth Falters

The Federal Reserve is holding off on increasing monetary accommodation unless the U.S. economic expansion falters or prices rise at a rate slower than its 2 percent target.

"A couple of members indicated that the initiation of additional stimulus could become necessary if the economy lost momentum or if inflation seemed likely to remain below" 2 percent, according to minutes of their March 13 meeting released today in Washington. That contrasts with the assessment at the FOMC's January meeting in which some Fed officials saw current conditions warranting additional action "before long."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-03/fomc-saw-no-need-of-new-easing-unless-growth-slips-minutes-show.html

Ignore the verbal obfuscation here. The Fed knows that inflation is higher than 2%. It also knows that US growth is faltering. The above announcement is the Fed essentially admitting its hands are tied regarding more easing due to:

Gas being at $4 and food prices not far from record highs.
This being an election year and the Fed now politically toxic.
Growing public outrage over the Fed's actions (secret loans, etc.) in the past.

Again, we are in a process of slow awakening to the fact that the Fed has not solved the problems that caused 2008. Instead, the Fed has exacerbated these problems (excess leverage) and created new problems in the process (inflation).

Fortunately for the Fed, the European Central Bank has picked up the intervention slack since the Fed began pulling back in mid-2011. Indeed, between July 2011 and today, the ECB has expanded its balance sheet by an incredible $1+ trillion: more than the Fed's QE 2 and QE lite combined (and in just a nine month period).

The two largest interventions were the ECB's LTRO 1 and LTRO 2, which saw the ECB handing out $645 billion and $712 billion to 523 and 800 banks respectively.

As a result of this, the ECB's balance sheet exploded to nearly $4 trillion in size, larger than the GDPs of Germany, France, or the UK.

This rapid and extreme expansion of the ECB's balance sheet (again it was greater than QE lite and QE2 combined... in nine months) indicates the severity of the banking crisis in Europe. You don't rush this much money out the door this fast unless you're facing something very, very bad.

This rapid expansion has also resulted in the ECB obtaining a similar political toxicity to that of the US Federal Reserve. Indeed, those European banks that participated in the LTRO schemes have found their Credit Default Swaps exploding relative to their non-LTRO participating counterparts.

The reason for this is obvious: any bank that participated in either LTRO implicitly announced that it was in dire need of capital. As a result of this the markets have stigmatized those banks that participated in the schemes, thereby:

1) Diminishing the impact of the ECB's moves.

2) Indicating that the ECB is now politically toxic in that those EU financial institutions that rely on it for help are punished by the markets.

Thus the two biggest market props of the last two years: the Fed and the ECB have found their hands tied. What will follow will make 2008 look like a joke. On that note, if you have not taken steps to prepare for the end of the EU (and its impact on the US and global banking system), you NEED TO DO SO NOW!

Merkel's In Hot Water... So No More Bailouts... Sorry Spain

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:03:00 +0000

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.

The reasons for this are clear: the IMF doesn't have the funds (nor will it as the US won't fund a European bailout during a Presidential election year). And the ECB is now backed into a political corner with Germany.

However, Spain is discovering that even ESM funding doesn't come without strings attached:

Germany Rejects Spain Banks Tapping Bailout Fund, Meister Says

Spain's rating downgrade at Standard & Poor's doesn't alter Germany's stance that banks can't have direct access to Europe's financial backstops, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party said.

"The German position is absolutely strict," Michael Meister, the deputy caucus chairman of Merkel's Christian Democrats, said in a phone interview in Berlin. "And since such aid programs require unanimity, there's not going to be any change. All sorts of people can try to set things in motion, but Germany won't vote for it."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/germany-rejects-spain-banks-tapping-bailout-fund-meister-says.html

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.

Indeed, Germany has no choice. If it decides to prop up Spain it will receive a ratings downgrade (something which France is about to experience anyway). Europe with a downgraded Germany is not a pretty sight.

Moreover, Germany's decision to prop up the Euro is finally beginning to arouse furor from the German population. In particular, the below story which reveals that Germany has in fact put German taxpayers on the hook for over €2 trillion in back-door EU rescue measures could be the proverbial tipping point that sends German voters over the edge.

German tempers boil over back-door euro rescues

Professor Hans-Werner Sinn, head of Germany's IFO Institute, said German taxpayers are facing a dangerous rise in credit risk from a plethora of bail-out schemes. "The euro-system is near explosion," he told Austria's Economics Academy on Thursday.

Dr Sinn said Germany is on the hook for much of the €2.1 trillion (£1.72 trillion) in rescue measures for EMU debtors - often by the back-door - that will saddle Germans with ruinous losses one day.

"It is a horror scenario," he said, warning that the euro system is splitting friendly countries into blocs of mutually hostile creditors and debtors, exactly the opposite of what was hoped.

Earlier this week, the Foundation for Family Business in Munich filed a criminal lawsuit against the Bundesbank, accusing the board of disguising the true scale of risk born by German citizens.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9215232/German-tempers-boil-over-back-door-euro-rescues.html

This is the last thing Angela Merkel needs right now. Between this and inflation arising in Germany she's in major political hot water. So expect Germany to push even harder when it comes to fiscal austerity in the future...

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.

April 30, 2012 The Secrets of the Spanish Banking System That 99% of Analysts Fail to Grasp

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:55:00 +0000

Spain is a catastrophe on such a level that few analysts even grasp it.
Indeed, to fully understand just why Spain is such a catastrophe, we need to understand Spain in the context of both the EU and the global financial system.
The headline economic data points for Spain are the following:

Spain's economy (roughly €1 trillion) is the fourth largest in Europe and the 12^th largest in the world.
Spain sports an official Debt to GDP of 68% and a Federal Deficit between 5.3-5.8% (as we'll soon find out the official number)
Spain's unemployment is currently 24%: the highest in the industrialized world.
Unemployment for Spanish youth is 50%+: on par with that of Greece

On the surface, Spain's debt load and deficits aren't too bad. So we have to ask ourselves, "Why is unemployment so high and why are Spanish ten year bills approaching the dreaded 7%?" (the level at which Greece and Portugal began requesting bailouts).

The answer to these questions lies within the dirty details of Spain's economic "boom" of the 2000s as well as its banking system.

For starters, the Spanish economic boom was a housing bubble fueled by Spain lowering its interest rates in order to enter the EU, not organic economic growth.
Moreover, Spain's wasn't just any old housing bubble; it was a mountain of a property bubble (blue line below) that made the US's (gray line below) look like a small hill in comparison.

In the US during the boom years, it was common to hear of people quitting their day jobs to go into real estate. In Spain the boom was so dramatic that students actually dropped out of school to work in the real estate sector (hence the sky high unemployment rates for Spanish youth).

Spanish students weren't the only ones going into real estate. Between 2000 and 2008, the Spanish population grew from 40 million to 45 million (a whopping 12%) as immigrants flocked to the country to get in on the boom.
In fact, from 1999 to 2007, the Spanish economy accounted for more than ONE THIRD of all employment growth in the EU.

This is Spain, with a population of just 46 million, accounting for OVER ONE THIRD of the employment growth for a region of 490 million people.
This, in of itself, set Spain up for a housing bust/ banking Crisis worse than that which the US faced/continues to face. Indeed, even the headline banking data points for Spain are staggeringly bad:

Spanish banks just drew €227 billion from the ECB in March: up almost 50% from its February borrowings
Spanish banks account for 29% of total borrowings from the ECB
Yields on Spanish ten years are approaching 7%: the tipping point at which Greece and other nations have requested bailouts

As bad as these numbers are, they greatly underestimate just how ugly Spain's banking system is. The reason for this is due to the structure of the Spanish banking industry.
Spain's banking system is split into two tiers: the large banks (Santander, BBVA) and the smaller, more territorial cajas.
The caja system dates back to the 19^th century. Cajas at that time were meant to be almost akin to village or rural financial centers. As a result of this, the Spanish country is virtually saturated with them: there is approximately one caja branch for every 1,900 people in Spain. In comparison there is one bank branch for every 3,130 people in the US and one bank branch for every 6,200 people in the UK.

Now comes the bad part...
Until recently, the caja banking system was virtually unregulated. Yes, you read that correctly, until about 2010-2011 there were next no regulations for these banks (which account for 50% of all Spanish deposits).
They didn't have to reveal their loan to value ratios, the quality of collateral they took for making loans... or anything for that matter.

As one would expect, during the Spanish property boom, the cajas went nuts lending to property developers. They also found a second rapidly growing group of borrowers in the form of Spanish young adults who took advantage of new low interest rates to start buying property (prior to the housing boom, traditionally Spanish young adults lived with their parents until marriage).

In simple terms, from 2000 to 2007, the cajas were essentially an unregulated banking system that leant out money to anyone who wanted to build or buy property in Spain.

Things only got worse after the Spanish property bubble peaked in 2007. At a time when the larger Spanish banks such as Santander and BBVA read the writing on the wall and began slowing the pace of their mortgage lending, the cajas went "all in" on the housing market, offering loans to pretty much anyone with a pulse.

To give you an idea of how out of control things got in Spain, consider that in 1998, Spanish Mortgage Debt to GDP ratio was just 23% or so. By 2009 it had more than tripled to nearly 70% of GDP. By way of contrast, over the same time period, the US Mortgage Debt to GDP ratio rose from 50% to 90%. Like I wrote before, Spain's property bubble dwarfed the US's in relative terms.

The cajas went so crazy lending money post-2007 that by 2009 they owned 56% of all Spanish mortgages. Put another way, over HALF of the Spanish housing bubble was funded by an unregulated banking system that was lending to anyone with a pulse who could sign a contract.

Indeed, these banks became so garbage laden that a full 20% of their assets were comprised of loan payments being made by property developers. Mind, you, I'm not referring to the loans themselves (the mortgages); I'm referring to loan payments: the money developers were sending in to the banks.

To try and put this into perspective, imagine if Bank of America suddenly announced that 20% of its "assets" were payments being sent in by borrowers to cover mortgage debts. Not Treasuries, not mortgages, not loans... but payments being sent in to the bank on loans and mortgages.

This is the REAL problem with Spain's banking system. It's saturated with subprime and sub-subprime loans that were made during one of the biggest housing bubbles in the last 30 years.
Indeed, 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.

Put another way, over 60% of cajas could not meet the capital requirements of having equity equal to just 8% of their risk-weighted assets. As a result, 28 toxic caja balance sheets have been merged with other (likely equally troubled) banks or have been shifted onto the public's balance sheet via partial nationalization.

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.

Here Comes Spain, be aware!

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:59:00 +0000

As expected Francois Hollande won the first round of the French elections. He and Nicolas Sarkozy will run against each other in the second round, which will occur on May 6th.
The Euro isn't taking this news well. As I write this Sunday night the Euro currency futures have gapped down. I've added this move to the chart below.

130 remains the line in the sand for the Euro. If we take it out with conviction then we're in BIG trouble.

I believe we're at most a month or so away from this. Spain has now stepped center stage in the Euro Crisis. And the Spanish Ibex has just taken out its 15-year trendline:

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 6^th 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...

Until recently, the caja banking system was virtually unregulated. Yes, you read that correctly, until about 2010-2011 there were next no regulations for these banks (which account for 50% of all Spanish deposits). They didn't have to reveal their loan to value ratios, the quality of collateral they took for making loans... or anything for that matter.

As one would expect, the cajas have been collapsing like dominos in the last few years. Spain's been trying to prop them up by merging them with larger (likely equally insolvent) banks with no success (the merged banks have all collapsed to new lows in the last month).

On top of this, Spanish Banks are drawing a record €316.3 billion from the ECB (up from €169.2 billion in February).

Things have gotten so bad that Spanish citizens are pulling their money out of Spain en masse: €65 billion left the Spanish banking system in March 2011 alone. And all of this is happening at a time in which relations are breaking down between Germany and the ECB as well as between Germany and France.

In other words, the EU collapse is about to enter its next round. Remember, all collapses follow the same pattern:

1) the initial drop
2) the re-test/ attempt to reclaim upwards momentum
3) the roll-over/ REAL fireworks

The most money is made during #3. Right now we've finished #1 and are now ending #2. When #3 hits (likely after the French election on May 6th), is when the REAL Fireworks will begin (assuming Spain's collapse allows things to hold up that long).
So if you're not already taking steps to prepare for the coming collapse, you need to do so now.

Forget Today's Bond Auction, Spain is an Absolute Disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:38:00 +0000

Well the financial world is awash with reports that the Spanish auctions went well. They did not. And you better believe the ECB and other Central Banks were involved in the buying.

Instead, Wall Street is using the auction (and just about every other announcement this morning) to shred and those who sold calls in their usual options expiration games. This has been the norm for years, but the mainstream financial media continues to find "fundamental" excuses for market action that is clearly just manipulation and nothing more.

Case in point, if the Spanish auction went so well, why are Spanish Credit Default Swaps widening? Ditto for Spanish yields (the ten year is back closing in on 6%)!

However, ultimately this auction means next to nothing. Spain is an absolute disaster on a level that few if any analysts can even grasp.

How else do you describe a country for which:

Total Spanish banking loans are equal to 170% of Spanish GDP.
Total Spanish private sector debt is near 300% of GDP.
Troubled loans at Spanish Banks just hit an 18-year high of over 8%.
Spanish Banks are drawing a record €316.3 billion from the ECB (up from €169.2 billion in February).

By the way, Spanish banks need to roll over 20% of their bonds this year too. Good luck with that. I'm sure it will all work out well. After all, the ECB and IMF have the funds to prop up Spain's €1 trillion economy.

Oh wait, they don't. In fact no one does. The IMF's requests for more funds have been rejected by both the US and Canada (you really think Obama will fund a European bailout during an election year?). And the ECB has already blown up its balance sheet to the point that Germany and the ECB are growing hostile to each other (I'm sure this will work out well too).

Forget today's auction and the spin being thrown about. Spain is a disaster. Its banking system is a sewer of toxic debts which the Spanish Government has attempted to fix by either merging insolvent banks together or spreading toxic garbage onto the public's balance sheet.

This might fly in the US (or has least has so far) where the economy is more robust and diversified than in Spain. But for a country whose housing bubble dwarfed that of the US and which is already posting unemployment of 24% (the highest in the industrialized world) and youth unemployment of 50%+, it's a tough sell.

Oh, and Spain's King decided to take time off from hearing about the Crisis to go elephant hunting. That should go over well with the Spanish populace, which is now facing austerity measures when the country is already in a Depression.

Just wait, once options expiration ends, we'll be back to the fireworks. In fact, smart investors should take advantage of this ramp job to prepare for what's coming.

Europe Will Collapse in May-June

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:48:00 +0000

Starting back in August, I began suggesting that we were approaching a Systemic Crisis/ Crash scenario in the markets.

The technical and fundamentals both supported this forecast, but I completely underestimated the degree to which the Central Banks and EU would attempt to prop up the market.

At that time, I thought it likely we'd see a Crash, which would then be met with another round of stimulus, which would push the economy temporarily into the green. It seemed the most logical outcome given that we were heading into an election year with a President whose ratings were at record lows.

Instead, the Federal Reserve, particularly those Fed Presidents from Financial Centers (Charles Evans of Chicago and Bill Dudley of New York) began a coordinated campaign of verbal intervention, hinting that more easing or QE was just around the corner.

These verbal interventions coincided with coordinated monetary interventions between the Federal Reserve and other world Central Banks: first on September 15 2011 and again on November 30 2011.

The effects of both coordinated moves were short-lived in terms of equity prices, but they did send a message that the Central Banks were willing to intervene in a big way to maintain the financial system. This in turn helped to ease interbank liquidity problems in Europe (more on this in a moment) and maintain the belief that the Fed backstop or "Bernanke Put" was still in effect.

Another issue that served to push the markets higher was European leaders' decision to go "all in" on the EU -bail out project. I've tracked those developments closely in previous articles.

Regarding this factor, I also underestimated the extent to which leaders would push to hold things together. After all, Greece had already received bailouts in excess of 150% of its GDP and still posted a GDP loss of 6.8% in 2011. It's hard to believe they'd want to accept more austerity measures and more debt.

Moreover, political tensions between Greece and Germany had reached the point that Greeks were openly comparing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble as Nazis while the Germans referred to Greece as a "bottomless hole" into which money was being tossed.

Looking back on it, the clear reality was that Germany wanted to force Greece out of the EU but didn't want to do it explicitly: instead they opted to offer Greece aid provided Greece accepted austerity measures so onerous that there was no chance Greece would go for it.

Well, Greece surprised many, including myself, and went for it. And so the EU experiment continues to exist today. However, before the end of this issue I will make it clear precisely why this will not be the case for much longer and why we are on the verge of a systemic collapse in Europe.

For starters, unemployment in Greece as a whole is now over 20%. For Greek youth (aged 15-24) it's over 50%. The country is in nothing short of a Depression.

Indeed, Greece has now experienced five straight years of contraction bringing the total contraction of Greece's GDP to 17%. To provide some historical perspective here, when Argentina collapsed in 2001 its total GDP collapse was 20% and this was accompanied by full-scale defaults as well as systemic collapse and open riots.

With new austerity measures now in place there is little doubt Greece will see a GDP contraction of 20%, if not more. I expect we'll see other "Argentina-esque" developments in the country as well. Put mildly, the Greek issue is not resolved.

The one thing that would stop me here would be if Greece staged a full-scale default. While the political leaders and others view a total default as a nightmare (and it would be for Greek pensions, retirees, and many EU banks), it is only a total default that could possibly solve Greece's debt problems and allow it to return to growth.

Defaults are akin to forest fires; they wipe out all the dead wood and set the stage for a new period of growth. We've just witnessed this in Iceland, which did the following between 2008 and 2011:

Had its banks default on $85 billion in debt (the country's GDP is just $13 billion).
Jailed the bankers responsible for committing fraud during the bubble.
Gave Icelandic citizens debt forgiveness equal to 13% of GD.

Today, just a few years later, Iceland is posting GDP growth of 2.9%: above that of both the EU and the developed world in general. In plain terms, the short-term pain combined with moves that reestablished trust in the financial system (holding those who broke the law accountable) created a solid foundation for Iceland's recovery.

Now, compare this to Greece which has "kicked the can" i.e. put off a default, for two years now, dragging its economy into one of the worst Depressions of the last 20 years, while actually increasing its debt load (this latest bailout added €130 billion in debt in return for €100 billion in debt forgiveness).

Iceland staged a REAL default, and has returned to growth within 2-3 years. Greece and the Eurozone in general have done everything they can to put off a REAL default with miserable results. I'll let the numbers talk for themselves:

Country	2011 GDP Growth	2012 GDP Growth Forecast
Iceland	2.9%	2.4%
EU (all 27 countries)	1.5%	0.0%
17 EU countries using Euro	1.4%	-0.3%

* Data from EuroStat

The point I'm trying to make here is that defaults can in fact be positive in the sense that they deleverage the system and set a sound foundation for growth. The short-term pain is acute (Iceland saw its economy collapse 6.7% in 2009 when it defaulted). However, a combination of defaulting and debt forgiveness (for households) can restructure an economy enough for it to begin growing again.

However, EU leaders refuse to accept this even though the facts are staring them right in the face. The reason is due to one of my old adages: politics drives Europe, NOT economics.

And thanks to the Second Greek Bailout (not to mention the talk of a potential Third Bailout which has already sprung up), we now know that EU leaders have chosen to go "all in" on the EU experiment.

Put another way, EU leaders will continue on their current path of more bailouts until one of two things happens:

1) The political consequences of maintaining this strategy outweigh the benefits

2) The European markets force EU leaders' hands (hyper-inflation or widespread defaults and the break up the EU).

Regarding #1, this process is already well underway for those countries needing bailouts. Investors must be aware that the Governments of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy have all watched/are watching the Greece situation closely.

Moreover we can safely assume that the topic of defaulting vs. asking for bailouts in return for austerity measures has been discussed at the highest levels of these countries' respective Governments (more on this in a moment).

These discussions are also underway at those countries that are providing bailout funds. German politicians have won major political points with German voters for playing hardball with Greece. As I've stated before Germany may in fact be the country that ends up walking if EU continues down its current path of bailout madness.

With that in mind, there are three key political developments coming up.

1) Ireland's upcoming referendum

2) Greece's upcoming election

3) France's upcoming elections (April and May)

Regarding #1, Ireland will be staging a referendum regarding the new fiscal requirements of the EU sometime before October. While the actual date has yet to be set, Ireland will likely stage its referendum after the French elections in (April and/or May... more on this in a moment).

Ireland has already staged two referendums which Irish citizens voted AGAINST until various concessions were made. This time around the primary concession being discussed is potential debt forgiveness (the country definitely needs it). Indeed, according the Boston Consulting Group, Ireland needs to write-off some €340 billion in debt just to make its debt levels "sustainable."

So Ireland could easily be a wildcard here. The country is already in recession. So we need to monitor developments there as this referendum could go very, very wrong for the EU.

However, the BIG election of note is that of France where the current frontrunners are Nicolas Sarkozy (Angela Merkel's right hand man in trying to take control of the EU) and super-socialist François Hollande.

A few facts about Hollande:

1) He just proposed raising tax rates on high-income earners from 41% to 75%.

2) He wants to lower the retirement age to 60.

3) He completely goes against the recent new EU fiscal requirements Merkel just convinced 17 EU members to agree to and has promised to try and renegotiate them to be looser.

Currently polls have Sarkozy and Hollande securing the top slots in the first round of the election on April 22. This would then lead to a second election in May which current polls show Hollande winning (this has been the case in all polls for over two months).

However, there's now another leftist wildcard coming into the mix: communist Jean-Luc Mélenchon who is now taking 11% in the polls (he was at 5% last month). And Mélenchon's primary campaign message? Rejecting austerity measures completely via "civic uprising."

Now, Mélenchon could end up taking votes away from Hollande therby allowing Sarkozy to win. It's difficult to say how this will play out. But if Sarkozy loses to either of these candidates, then the EU in its current form will crumble as Germany loses its principle ally in pushing for fiscal reform and austerity measures.

Finally, let's not forget Greece where politicians are now pushing for an election on April 29 or May 6 (the Second Bailout was passed based on new parliamentary elections being held soon after).

This could be yet another wildcard as it is around the time of the French elections, which Greek politicians will be watching closely. Remember, the key data points regarding Greece's economy:

1) A 20% economic contraction over the last five years

2) Unemployment north of 20% and youth unemployment over 50%

3) Unfunded liabilities equal to 800% of GDP courtesy of an aging population and shrinking working population (which is shrinking all the time as youth leave the country in search of jobs)

These facts will not play out in a victory for "pro-bailout" politicians. So the Greece deal, which is supposed to solve Greece's problems, could actually be in danger based on a change in politics.

Remember, as stated before, politics rule Europe, 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.

That's the political analysis of Europe. Now let's take a look at what the various EU economies/ markets are telling us.

Spain's current economic condition matches that of Greece... and it hasn't even begun to implement aggressive austerity measures. Unemployment is already 20+% without any major austerity measures having been put in place.

Anecdotal reports show Spain to be an absolute disaster. Spanish banks GREATLY underplay their exposure to the Spanish housing market ("officially" prices are down 20% but most likely it's a lot more than that).

In simple terms, things are getting worse and worse in Spain... and the market knows it. Indeed, the charts of most EU indexes, particularly Spain, are telling us in no uncertain terms that the markets are expecting a truly horrific collapse sometime in the not so distant future. Timing this precisely is difficult but the window between May-June is the most likely time, as it will coincide with:

1) The end of seasonal buying (November-May)

2) The French, Greek, and Irish elections/ referendums all of which could go very wrong for the EU (April-May)

3) The end of the Fed's Operation Twist 2 Program (June).

Now, having said all of this I have to admit I have been very early on my call for a Crash. I'm fine with admitting that. Calling a crash is difficult under normal conditions, let alone in a market that is as centrally controlled as this one.

Indeed, going back to March 2009, it is clear that the Fed has been the ONLY prop under the markets as QE 1, QE lite & QE 2, and now Operation Twist 2 have all been announced any time stocks staged a sizable correction (15+%).

In fact, on a weekly chart of the S&P 500 going back four years, we find two items of note:

1) The Fed will only tolerate a 15% drop or so in stocks before it announces a new monetary program

2) Each successive Fed program has had a smaller and smaller impact on stock prices (QE 1: 44%, QE 2 and QE lite: 33%, Operation Twist 2: 22%).

Aside from these monetary interventions, we also have to deal with the Fed's verbal interventions: every time stocks start to break down some Fed official (usually Charles Evans or Bill Dudley) steps forward and promises more easing... or the Fed releases some statement that it will maintain ZIRP an additional year... and VOOM! stocks are off to the races again.

With that in mind, I will admit I've been caught into believing a Crash was coming several times in the last few years. In some ways I was right: we got sizable corrections of 15+%. But we never got the REAL CRASH I thought we would because the Fed stepped in.

So what makes this time different?

Several items:

1) The Crisis coming from Europe will be far, far larger in scope than anything the Fed has dealt with before.

2) The Fed is now politically toxic and cannot engage in aggressive monetary policy without experiencing severe political backlash (this is an election year).

3) The Fed's resources are spent to the point that the only thing the Fed could do would be to announce an ENORMOUS monetary program which would cause a Crisis in of itself.

Let me walk through each of these one at a time.

Regarding #1, we have several facts that we need to remember. They are:

1) According to the IMF, European banks as a whole are leveraged at 26 to 1 (this data point is based on reported loans... the real leverage levels are likely much, much higher.) These are a Lehman Brothers leverage levels.

2) The European Banking system is over $46 trillion in size (nearly 3X total EU GDP).

3) The European Central Bank's (ECB) balance sheet is now nearly $4 trillion in size (larger than Germany's economy and roughly 1/3 the size of the ENTIRE EU's GDP). Aside from the inflationary and systemic risks this poses (the ECB is now leveraged at over 36 to 1).

4) Over a quarter of the ECB's balance sheet is PIIGS debt which the ECB will dump any and all losses from onto national Central Banks (read: Germany)

So we're talking about a banking system that is nearly four times that of the US ($46 trillion vs. $12 trillion) with at least twice the amount of leverage (26 to 1 for the EU vs. 13 to 1 for the US), and a Central Bank that has stuffed its balance sheet with loads of garbage debts, giving it a leverage level of 36 to 1.

And all of this is occurring in a region of 17 different countries none of which have a great history of getting along... at a time when old political tensions are rapidly heating up.

We Are Nearing the End Game of Central Bank Intervention

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:33:00 +0000

Consider the latest FOMC statement released last week...

Fed Signals No Need for More Easing Unless Growth Falters

The Federal Reserve is holding off on increasing monetary accommodation unless the U.S. economic expansion falters or prices rise at a rate slower than its 2 percent target.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-03/fomc-saw-no-need-of-new-easing-unless-growth-slips-minutes-show.html

Gas being at $4 and food prices not far from record highs.
This being an election year and the Fed now politically toxic.
Growing public outrage over the Fed's actions (secret loans, etc.) in the past.

The two largest interventions were the ECB's LTRO 1 and LTRO 2, which saw the ECB handing out $645 billion and $712 billion to 523 and 800 banks respectively.

As a result of this, the ECB's balance sheet exploded to nearly $4 trillion in size, larger than the GDPs of Germany, France, or the UK.

1) Diminishing the impact of the ECB's moves.

2) Indicating that the ECB is now politically toxic in that those EU financial institutions that rely on it for help are punished by the markets.

In simple terms, the Fed's hands are tied and the ECB is out of ammo. The End Game for Central Bank intervention is approaching. And it won't be pretty... First Europe. Then Japan. Then the US. The Debt Implosion will spread throughout the global financial system.

If you're not already taking steps to prepare for the coming collapse, you need to do so now.

Europe's Bazooka Will Fire Blanks... Good Luck Killing the Crisis With That

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Europe continues to take a page out of Hank Paulson's "Crisis Combat" booklet, by unveiling one monetary "bazooka" after another. Obviously, EU leaders didn't notice that Paulson's "bazooka" completely failed to stop the 2008 Crash.

Even more strangely, they keep pulling out bazooka after bazooka, first unveiling the EFSF which was supposed to raise €1 trillion but failed to raise even €10 billion without having to intervene in its own bond auctions.

Then came the ESM, which was supposed to be another mega-bailout fund, which as before, is having trouble raising funds. After all, if one bailout fund is a dud, why would launching another fix anything?

Oh, and I forgot to mention that both bailout funds will be leveraged... which Europe obviously doesn't have enough of already (the EU banking system as a whole is leveraged at 26 to 1. Lehman Brothers was at 30-to-1 when it imploded).

Indeed, you don't even need to look at the math (though the math is impossible and makes the premise of "saving Europe" even more insane) to know that this can't work. Which is why the idea that the EU as a whole can create mega-bailout funds to put up a "firewall" around its banking system is outright absurd.

The EU is 27 countries. Of these, only 17 use the Euro. And these countries have a long, bloody history of political conflicts with one another. We've already seen hints of this with Germany calling Greece a "bottomless hole" to which Greece responded by portraying German politicians as Nazis.

Spain, France, and the others aren't exactly the best of friends either. And as their respective economies collapse at varying speeds (even Germany posted negative QoQ GDP for 4Q11), political tensions will rise even more rapidly.

So in the end, Europe's bazookas will be firing blanks (assuming they even can fire at all, which their respective efforts to raise capital call into doubt). Which brings me back to one of my central themes for Europe: that you cannot band together such disparate economies and cultures in one monetary union and expect it to work.

Again, this is common sense. And when we add in the math, it becomes even more clear just how insane these political proposals are.

Consider Germany, for instance. As I've noted for months now, that country sports a REAL Debt to GDP of 200% (from former Bundesbank officials' own admissions) when you include unfunded liabilities. And Germany is somehow going to bailout Italy or Spain (which both sport REAL Debt to GDPs north of 300%)?!

Again, the whole thing is absurd. The entire European financial system is just one big house of cards, propped up by the hopes that the ECB can hold this thing together.

But it can't. Europe isn't the US. And the ECB isn't the Federal Reserve. What I mean is that you can maybe fool investors into believing that a financial system is fixed if you're only dealing with one country and one Central Bank. But when you're dealing with 17+ countries, many of which have their own national Central Banks, and you're trying to save this system with a larger regional Central Bank (the ECB) the whole thing is impossible.

Indeed, because of its interventions and bond purchases, 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.

So... PIIGS debt is essentially just a monetary "hot potato" that the various Central Banks in Europe are tossing around? And this is supposed to save Europe? Good luck with that.

On that note, I fully believe the EU is heading into a Crisis in the May-June window of time. We have a confluence of negative factors (monetary, political, technical, etc.) hitting during that window of time, which is unlike anything I've ever seen before. And unlike the 2008 Crisis, the Central Banks won't be able to rein this one in.

Why? Because Europe's banking system is $46 trillion in size. And the Fed and ECB are already leveraged to the max having spent all their ammunition combating the Crisis this far.

The geopolitical complexity in Greece (Arms)

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:20:00 +0000

BBH analysts point out the political and economic issues that are faced when it comes to the structural reforms in Greece, as the country is the no.1 arms importer from Germany and no.3 from France. These arms dealing relationships explain why creditor countries don’t insist much on Greece’s defense budget cutting.

“If, over the past decade Greece would have spent only the euro zone average of 1.7% of GDP on defense, rather than 4%, it would have saved a little more than 50% of GDP or roughly 150 bln euros--more than the second aid package”, wrote Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at BBH, pointing also to the €900 M extra spending in defense in 2010, while social spending got cut by €1.9 bn.

BBH analysts regard the export-oriented models in Europe as one of the casualties of the crisis as the consumer countries no longer have the ability to keep up with creditors’ production. Creditor nations “were essentially engaged in producer financing”.

Mounting to those issues is the fact that Greece is a NATO member, with vast geostrategic assets that could be used against Europe and US interest, having already conceded the port of Piraeus to China for 35 years. Russia could be next!

A Tenuous Balance is in Place

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:01:00 +0000

The markets will likely try to rally this week based on the following items:

1) End of quarter performance gaming

2) Last week's weak stock performance

3) Angela Merkel signaling that Germany will increase the pointless "firewall" around Europe's banking system

4) Bernanke's hint that more QE is coming in April in this morning's speech

#1 is a regular phenomenon in the markets and needs not be explained. #2 is closely tied in with the latest policy of verbal intervention on the part of the Fed: any time stocks weaken some Fed official, usually Charles Evans of Chicago or Bill Dudley of New York, gives a speech suggesting more easing is just around the corner and VOOM! stocks take off again.

#3 is just the next step in Germany trying to hold the EU together long enough to see how the French elections turn out in April/ May. Given that Merkel's political ratings drop like a stone any time she spends more German money and explode higher any time she plays hardball with the EU, we can take this move to be mainly posturing and playing for time.

Indeed, France is now a wildcard in the great EU bailout scheme. Most polls show a socialist winning in the second round of the elections. And not just any socialist, but François Hollande.

A few facts about Hollande:

1) He just proposed raising tax rates on high-income earners from 41% to 75%.

2) He wants to lower the retirement age to 60.

3) He completely goes against the recent new EU fiscal requirements Merkel just convinced 17 EU members to agree to and has promised to try and renegotiate them to be looser.

So Merkel knows that if Hollande wins in France, her campaign to turn the EU into a fiscally responsible German-led group of colonies will be over. Europe could very well collapse before then as the Spanish and Italian bond markets are flashing danger signs again (despite the world believing LTRO's 1 and 2 solved everything). And the facts remain that the entire EU banking system is a disaster waiting to hit (anyone notice that EU banks continue to park cash at the ECB like there's a systemic catastrophe looming?)

Finally, Bailout Ben Bernanke just hinted at more QE in his speech at the National Association for Business Economics this morning. With gas prices at $4 and food prices not far off from their all time highs, I cannot see how Bernanke can possibly unveil more QE without unleashing major political outrage and destroying Obama's chances at re-election (Obama did re-elect Bernanke as Fed Chairman).

So I view this hint as more posturing from Bernanke. He likely is aware that seasonal adjustments have made all economic data from the last three months look better than reality and is simply trying to prep the markets for what's likely going to be a slew of bad data started in 2Q12. We also have to note that stocks took it on the chin last week, so Bernanke could very well be maintaining item #1 on the list above: verbally intervening to keep the markets up.

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.

Best News for YOU: Scam: Global Finance Online Ltd, Briskremit

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:36:00 +0000

Best News for YOU: Scam: Global Finance Online Ltd, Briskremit

HelpDesk

Scam: Global Finance Online Ltd, Briskremit

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:06:00 +0000

Be very careful if you are offered a loan and asked to open an account with
Global Finance Online Limited and their Briskremit service!

This company with registered UK number 03768746 will ask you to send
400 Pounds to "verify" your account via Western Union or Moneygram
to a person NOT directly associated with the company.

Global Finance Online Limited and their Briskremit service are saying,
that the 400 Pounds are going into "your" account and will be for your
use only, but they also tell you "not to panic" in case you can not login
to your account and simply try again.

Naturally you will never be able to login to your account after you sent
the money to a person not directly associated with the company.

Be also very careful if you receive offers to accept money for companies,
they might let you have 100 Pounds and ask you to give them the rest
of 300 Pounds. May be you can do this up to five times, until you get
blacklisted by Western Union or Moneygram and never may receive
legitimate money for yourself again.

Global Finance Online Limited and their Briskremit service-website
seems like a professional operating company asking you for your
photo and orginal signature to open an account, but in the NEXT
step they ask you to send 400 Pounds. Don't do this, even if an
other company like WFS Capital Financing UK register number
07090142 offered you to send a good amount of money into your
Briskremit account, after you have opened it.

It is the old game like: "We, WFS Capital Financing, do not ask for
any upfront fees to give you a loan, you only have to open an account
with our service provider."

And the service provider Briskremit then asks you for 400 Pounds
to "verify" your account, which would be at your disposal; but they
never will. Your money will be gone and no loan will be come.

And according to the latested companycheck Global Finance Online Limited
had 579 Pound in their bank account, so clearly they need your 400 Pound
to come over the next week...

The Big Fat Greek Lie Is Now Obvious to Spain... So Who's Next to Default?

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:37:00 +0000

The big fat Greek lie being spread throughout the financial community is that "Greece has been saved". It's a lie for the following reasons:

1) Greece did in fact default.

2) Greece now has more debt than it did before the bailout (how does writing off €100 billion Euros in debt and taking on €130 billion Euros in more debt improve this situation?)

3) The Greek economy continues to implode (youth unemployment over 50%, one in ten Greek youth looking for jobs abroad, Greek GDP fell 7% in 4Q11)

4) This Second Bailout was indeed a "Credit event" which the markets have yet to discount (though German investors are already lining up litigation)

5) Germany's finance minister has already admitted Greece may need a third bailout.

Anyone who thinks that Greece is better off, let alone "saved" is out of their minds. The Euro may have been saved for a few more weeks/ months. But Greece is in worse shape than ever.

Indeed, if anything, the Greek situation has made it clear that the whole "give up fiscal sovereignty and implement austerity measures in exchange for bailouts" formula is a waste of time and money. Let's take a look at the progression here.

1) Greece claims it doesn't need a bailout at all (January 2010-March 2010)

2) Greece begins to ask for a bailout (April-May 2010)

3) Greece gets a bailout equal to 57% of its GDP (May 2010)

4) Greece posts a GDP of -4% in 2010

5) Greece announces it won't be able to meet budget requirements/ payback the first bailout on time and asks for an extension (January-February 2011)

6) Greece asks for another extension (May 2011)

7) Talk of Second Greek Bailout begins (July -October 2011)

8) Greece posts a GDP of -6.5% in 2011

9) Second Greek bailout announced/ finalized (February/March 2012)

10) Talk of third Greek bailout begins (March 2012)

No other EU country could look at this progression and think "this looks like a good approach." Indeed, Spain and Italy must be watching what's happening in Greece and asking themselves whether they want to go through this whole process of negotiating for bailouts via austerity measures or not?

Mr. Market: Get It Through Your Head, The PSI DOESN'T Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:02:00 +0000

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but I'm saying it again.

Greece and the Euro are finished. The math is impossible. There is no way on earth that this Second Bailout accomplishes anything worthy of note. The idea that this country will somehow return to economic growth within two years, based on an additional €130billion in bailouts is outright insane.

Remember, Greece already received €110 billion in bailout funds in 2010... and still posted GDP growth of -4.5% in 2010 and -6.8% in 2011. Greece's economy is only €227 billion, so the country failed to post any economic growth and in fact saw its economic collapse accelerate after receiving a bailout equal to 57% of its GDP!!!

And somehow another 130€ billion is going to get this country back to economic growth in two years' time? Greece hasn't experienced any growth in five years.

Again, this entire deal is just stupid. And all it's done is alert Spain and Italy to the fact that handing over fiscal sovereignty and implementing austerity measures in exchange for bailouts is a waste of time.

As I wrote several weeks ago:

Meanwhile, on the other side of EU equation, Spain and Italy must be watching what's happening in Greece and asking themselves whether they want to go through this whole process of negotiating for bailouts via austerity measures.

Both countries have already had a small sampling of the austerity measure medicine. Spain recently implemented a meager 19€ billion in austerity measures while Italy passed 30€ billion in austerity measures in 2011... hardly a drop out of their respective 1.06€ trillion and 1.5€ trillion economies.

Yet, even these tiny moves resulted in protests and riots. One can only imagine what Spanish and Italian politicians are thinking as they witness the widespread civil unrest, country-wide strikes, and economic depression that have occurred in Greece as a result of that country's full commitment to the EU's austerity measure demands.

Spain's official Debt to GDP is only 64%, but its private sector debt is at an astounding 227% of GDP. And the Spanish banking system is leveraged at 19 to 1 (worse than Greece).

Moreover, the country is already experiencing an economic Crisis with an unemployment rate of 20+% and an economy that has been contracting since mid-2011 (in fact Spain's GDP just actually went negative in the first quarter of 2012)...

So... 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.

Well, Spain just woke up and smelled the coffee:

Spain's sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel's Europe

As many readers will already have seen, Premier Mariano Rajoy has refused point blank to comply with the austerity demands of the European Commission and the European Council (hijacked by Merkozy).

Taking what he called a "sovereign decision", he simply announced that he intends to ignore the EU deficit target of 4.4pc of GDP for this year, setting his own target of 5.8pc instead (down from 8.5pc in 2011).

In the twenty years or so that I have been following EU affairs closely, I cannot remember such a bold and open act of defiance by any state. Usually such matters are fudged. Countries stretch the line, but do not actually cross it.

With condign symbolism, Mr Rajoy dropped his bombshell in Brussels after the EU summit, without first notifying the commission or fellow EU leaders. Indeed, he seemed to relish the fact that he was tearing up the rule book and disavowing the whole EU machinery of budgetary control.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100015432/spains-sovereign-thunderclap-and-the-end-of-merkels-europe/

So... if you still think the Greek PSI matters in any way, you're not thinking past the next 24 hours. Spain has just told the EU to "shove it." Having seen Greece enter a depression and get pushed around by Germany and France for two years, Spain's just told the EU that it's not going that route.

So... if Greece, whose economy is roughly the size of Massachusetts, nearly took down the European banking system... what do you think will happen when Spain decides to it doesn't want to play ball and would rather just default.

Hint: It will be Lehman times ten.

You Cannot Build a Strong Economy or a Bull Market on Fudged Numbers and Lipstick

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:36:00 +0000

Let's say that you just spent a large sum, to the tune of several trillion Dollars, bailing out various businesses that were literally run into insolvency by shortsighted and greedy business practices.

Having spent this money, your next concern becomes avoiding popular outrage as sooner or later folks will find out that this money was practically given away and that everyone else got a raw deal.

So, at that point your primary focus must become convincing the world that your policies worked and that you did in fact save the world.

How do you do this?

1) The businesses you bailed out need to appear successful and profitable again

2) The economy you "saved" needs to look to be in recovery

This is precisely the blueprint for what the Powers That Be have followed post 2009.

Regarding the bailed out businesses, the large banks are posting great profits by writing down bonds they own (and recording this as a profit) and by lowering loss reserves.

Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported an aggregate profit of $26.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, a $4.9 billion improvement from the $21.4 billion in net income the industry reported in the fourth quarter of 2010. This is the 10th consecutive quarter that earnings have registered a year-over-year increase. As has been the case in each of the past nine quarters, lower provisions for loan losses were responsible for most of the year-over-year improvement in earnings...

Fourth-quarter loss provisions totaled $19.5 billion, about 40 percent less than the $32.7 billion that insured institutions set aside for losses in the fourth quarter of 2010. Net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income) was $3.8 billion (2.3 percent) lower than a year earlier, due to a $4.4 billion (7.4 percent) decline in noninterest income.

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2012/pr12023.html

Nevermind that most of these profits are illusory and that the policies used to create them (not thinking ahead but focusing on the near-term) are precisely what caused the 2008 Crisis. As long as headlines ready "great profits" all will be well.

Then of course there's General Motors, the other bailout darling.

GM's Crowded Truck Stop

A year ago today analysts rained on General Motors' parade. Wall Street's finest pointed out that GM's strong February 2011 sales were boosted by extremely generous incentives to customers. These turned out to be wholly unnecessary too: Japan's earthquake 10 days later wrecked competitors' supply chains. U.S. carmakers gained market share, slashing inventory and making record profits with solid pricing over the next several months.

While not wishing natural disasters on anyone, GM could use a deus ex machina of some sort this year. Not only did it lag every major carmaker last month with a mere 1.1% U.S. sales gain (fellow bankruptcy victim Chrysler notched 40%). But GM's dealer inventories are also at a post-bankruptcy record of 667,000 vehicles, up 29% versus a year ago and 59% compared to two years ago.

And it's the wrong sort of inventory to boot: With pump prices surging, GM has 116 selling days' worth of trucks gathering dust. Zero percent financing, anyone?

http://blogs.wsj.com/overheard/2012/03/01/gms-crowded-truck-stop/

In this situation, GM is seeing some sales growth, though it's the worst of any major carmaker. However, what the company is really excelling at is delivering cars to dealers, in a sense, maintaining the appearance of economic growth, when in reality the cars are just sitting on the lots unsold.

Here again, the "success" is illusory in nature.

As for the other issue, (making the economy you "saved" look like it's in recovery), you've got Government bean-counters with an entire arsenal of seasonal adjustments and other accounting gimmickry to make the economy look far better off than it really is.

Case in point, the BLS claims we ADDED 243,00 jobs in January. That's an odd claim given that the BLS admits, in the very same report, that without adjustments, the US actually LOST 2.69 MILLION jobs in January.

This is roughly a discrepancy of 3 MILLION jobs. And this 243,000 jobs number for January also comes along with upward revisions that saw roughly 50,000 jobs added in both October and November.

So according to the BLS, the US is on the upswing again, maybe not in a HUGE way, but overall things are improving: we're adding jobs and unemployment is falling (from 8.5% to 8.3%).

In the end, both policies (making the bailed out businesses look successful and the economy strong) essentially boil down to fudging the numbers. And whether or not people fully understand these issues, most Americans have a sense that the Government is lying to them about the "success" of the 2008 bailouts and the recovery.

Put another way, most Americans know that all this talk of recovery is just putting lipstick on a pig. They know that the economic reality facing the US is in fact far worse than the numbers claim. Heck, it's the people are on unemployment, food stamps, and are unable to find jobs that know the real situation in the US.

An equally dangerous problem is the fact that professional investors (institutions, hedge funds, traders) are investing based on this fudged data. We've already seen how this kind of situation plays out before (2007-2008). What happens when the REAL situation in the economy and the financial system comes home to roost? What happens when Americans' retirement accounts get decimated by yet another collapse as most asset managers and financial advisors have yet to even regain their 2008 losses.

Big hint: it won't be pretty.

Make no mistake, the entire "success" of the 2008-2009 bailouts and stimulus is just a mirage. And the people simply aren't buying it. Which is why they're pulling their money from the markets en masse (investors pulled $132 billion from Us-stock based mutual funds in 2011, that's only $15 billion short of the record amount they pulled in 2008).

Fearless Prediction: On March 20, Greece Will Default

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:53:00 +0000

On March 20, Greece has to come up with €14.3 billion—or else it will be bankrupt.

Of course, Greece doesn’t have €14.3 billion—that’s why the Troika of the IMF, the EC and the ECB are trying to hammer out a deal to bail them out again: A bailout to the tune of €136 billion. They’ve had marathon-length negotiating sessions, one “crucial emergency meeting” after another—hell, they even called the Pope to send them a case of holy water and a truckload of wooden stakes. I’m serious!

Last Monday, a deal seemed to have emerged: That’s what the announcement sounded like. In fact, it looked so much like a done deal—it was spun so decisively as a done deal—that I was all set to write something snarky like, Greece Takes It Greek Style: “Thank You Troika, May I Have Another” Bailout On Its Way. (What can I say: I’m a vulgar bastard.)

But then . . . then we all started looking at the fine print of the deal. And that’s when everyone who follows this stuff started to realize that the deal wasn’t a deal—merely the illusion of a deal.

A motto of mine: Never try to do the work someone else has already done for you. In the case of analyzing the Greak “deal”, I turn to John Ward, who pretty much nailed the critique of the deal:

1. [A]lthough the ECB has made a reasonable fist of complicating its subordination of the private bondholders – money out, profits redistributed, local central banks reinvesting and so forth – it remains a preferential deal done outside this so-called ‘bailout with PSI’. The IIF creditors have sort of voluntarily taken the extra 3.5% hit, but the coupon they’ve been offered is worth less than the original. In a statement issued by representatives of private bondholders, the new interest rates – 2% for the first three years, 3% for the next five, and 4.2% thereafter were described as “well below market rates”, and the creditors will lose money on them. The tone of the statement screams ‘involuntary’. In English, all these factors spell default.

2. Nobody has actually signed up to anything yet: as usual with all things EuroZen, the bankers are alleged to be on-board, but the IIF statement made after the press conference suggests otherwise: ‘We recommend all investors carefully consider the proposed offer, in that it is broadly consistent with the October agreement’. That’s not true for one thing: but as a recommendation, it’s somewhat limp. Further, there is still a body of hardline ezone sovereigns who don’t want to do the deal – and in Germany itself, a growing rearguard campaign to stop it. (See this morning’s Spiegel for immediate evidence). And finally, most Greek citizens themselves will react violently to some of the more pernicious clauses.

3. The ‘agreement’ contains almost a full bottle of poison pills: Berlin has got its debt Gauleiters in the end, only 19 cents on the euro will go to the Greek Government itself, 325 million euros in additional spending cuts have been found, Athens has agreed to change its constitution to make debt repayment the top priority in government spending, the escrow account must have three months debt money in it at all times etc etc. The idea that Greece can now toddle off and have a liberal democratic general election without any of these being issues is Brussels space-cadet stuff at its most tragi-comic. (An opinion poll taken just before the Brussels deal showed that support for the two Greek parties backing the rescue package had fallen to an all-time low while leftist, anti-bailout parties showed gains.)

4. Several Grand National leaps lie ahead before the default is avoided. Parliaments in three countries that have been most critical of Greece’s second bailout – Germany, the Netherlands and Finland – must now approve the package. In Greece itself, further violence will test political resolve about yet more cuts in wages, pensions and jobs. Greece’s two biggest labour unions have already lined up protests in the capital tomorrow. Very significantly, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg and the IMF’s Christine Lagarde stressed at the press conference that Greece still had to live up to a series of “prior actions” by the end of the month before eurozone governments or the IMF can sign off on the new programme. If ever I saw a get-out clause, that’s it.

5. Other loose ends are left hanging everywhere. Nobody has elicitied any response so far from the Hedge Fund creditors. Entirely absent from comments was the IMF’s contribution to the €130bn bail-out. Christine Lagarde would say only that the contribution would be ‘significant’, but my information is that she’s lying through her $240,000 teeth as usual: the IMF will only contribute €13bn to the in new Greek funding. Not exactly a resounding vote of confidence for the deal. Juncker said he was optimistic that ezone members would cough up more cash at the EU summit in March, but this too simply doesn’t bear examination: Portugal is broke, Spain is technically insolvent, Italy has asked to be excused from this dance, and Germany has already shown extreme reluctance to to increase its exposure further still. Fritz Schmidt in dem Strasse isn’t too keen either. Finally, as Bruno Waterfield notes in his latest column at the London Daily Telegraph, the agreement remains ‘overshadowed by the pessimistic debt sustainability report compiled by the IMF, ECB and Commission, that warned of a “downside scenario” of Greek debt hitting 160 per cent of GDP in 2020 – far higher that the agreed 120.5 per cent target’.

6. This is where we get to what the MSM will largely dismiss as ‘conspiracy theory’….but for which the circumstantial and corroborative evidence gets increasingly compelling: whole crowd-scenes of actors off-stage (and several on it) simply do not want this deal to reach fruition: they have factored in a Greek default, and believe that the best way to avoid further debt-crisis contagion is for the money earmarked for bailouts to be invested in bank-propping and growth.

The cast of players who think this include David Cameron, Mario Monti, Mario Draghi, Wolfgang Schauble and most of the German Finance ministry, Christine Lagarde, probably Angela Markel herself, Tim Geithner, huge swathes of the German banking community, The White House – and elements in both Beijing and Tokyo.

( Emphasis added.)

John Ward nails the essence of the Greek deal: There is no Greek deal—just the illusion of one.

My only quibble with Mr. Ward is his point 6.: He writes that “whole crowd-scenes of actors off-stage (and several on it) simply do not want this deal to reach fruition”, which I think is accurate—but not for the reason Mr. Ward posits: I think the eurocrats have given up on Greece not because they “believe that the best way to avoid further debt-crisis contagion is for the money earmarked for bailouts to be invested in bank-propping and growth,” as Mr. Ward writes.

Mr. Ward is making a smart financial analysis of the situation. But the big decisions in macro-economics are never financial: They are always political—always. And politics is ultimately about psychology.

I think the eurocrats won’t bail out Greece not because they believe letting Greece default is the best way to avoid contagion: No, I believe the eurocrats will let Greece default because they no longer trust the Greeks or the Greek leadership.

Trust is like virginity: Once you lose it, it’s gone for good. Add to that truism a basic observation: If two parties truly want to make a deal happen, then the deal happens as if it’s on rails.

The key players of the Troika and the eurodrones generally just don’t trust Greece anymore. The Greeks have burned through that particular capital a long time ago. And by the passive-aggressive negotiation style of the eurocrats, they’re making it crystal clear that they do not want a deal with Greece. If they truly wanted a deal, it would’ve happened by now.

They don’t want a deal because the eurocrats and Establishment drones charged with saving Greece—for all their obvious flaws—are neither stupid nor blind: They realize that Greece is in all likelihood a never-ending hole. Whatever deal they hammer out now, they’ll have to hammer out yet another bailout package in 12 to 24 months’ time.

They realize—even if they don’t want to or can’t articulate it—that saving Greece is simply throwing good money after bad.

So they won’t. They will let Greece default. And the way they will do that is by demanding such egregious conditions—such as giving up Greek sovereignty—that Greece will refuse the bailout, or get locked into more and more negotiations, until March 20 finally rolls around.

Then it’s game over for the Greeks: They will default, exit the eurozone, go to the drachma, devalue, and go through hell for a few years.

It has now become too expensive—financially, politically, psychologically—to save Greece. The holes in the Monday deal show that there is no deal—and there won’t be any deal.

So on March 20, Greece defaults.

Now . . . if Greece defaults . . . then what about the rest of the eurozone?

Ahhh : That is the real question.

Greece is Not Lehman 2.0... As I'll Show You, It's Far Far Worse...

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Investors simply do not understand the significance of Greece. Comparisons are being made to Lehman, but these comparisons are moot for the following reason: Greece is a country not a private institution.

This is not a subtle difference. True, Lehman's derivatives were spread throughout the global financial system just as Greek sovereign debt is. However, investors are missing the true scope of the fall-out a Greek default would create.

First, let's think about Lehman. When Lehman went under, half of the other institutions that were in trouble had already been merged with larger entities (Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch) or had been nationalized (Fannie and Freddie). Those that were still standing after Lehman went under, changed to bank holding companies (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) in order to receive special access to Fed lending or were nationalized (AIG).

None of these options exist regarding the sovereign crisis in Europe today. If Greece defaults, Portugal can't merge with Spain. And Italy can't be nationalized by Germany or suddenly change itself to a new type of country that gets special treatment from the ECB (it's already getting special treatment from the ECB by the way).

This cuts to the core issues for sovereign defaults in the EU. Here are the facts regarding those EU countries on the verge of collapse:

1) You cannot solve a debt problem with more debt

2) Austerity measures slow economic growth which in turn makes it harder to meet debt payments

This is simple basic common sense. But these are the policies being promoted by EU leaders: we'll give you more money if you implement more austerity measures to get your finances in order. (Stupidity!)

The fact of the matter is that there is simply no way on earth that Greece can get its finances in order (short of a massive default). Greece has terrible age demographics, a lack of economic growth, and cultural issues (e.g. paying taxes is for suckers) that make it impossible for the country to solve its financial problems.

In plain terms, Greece racked up too big of a tab and simply doesn't have the means of paying it. End of story. The world needs to realize this. Because Greece will default and it will default in a big way!!!

The impact of this will be tremendous. For one thing, pretty much everyone is lying about their exposure to Greece. Consider Germany for instance. According to the Bank of International Settlements German bank exposure to Greece is only $3.9 billion (though they state this is only on an immediate borrower basis).

This is a bit odd as according to The Guardian German banks have nearly 8 billion Euros' worth of exposure to Greek debt. And they only include 11 German banks in their analysis. However, of those 11 banks, THREE of them have Greek exposure equal to more than 10% of their total outstanding equity.

But even these numbers are far below the mark. By my own analysis one of the "strongest" banks in Germany alone, by its own admission, has twice the exposure to Greece that the Guardian claims. And this is one of the strongest banks in Germany.

So, when Greece defaults, the fall-out will be much, much larger than people expect simply by virtue of the fact that everyone is lying about their exposure to Greece.

Secondly, when Greece defaults, the other PIIGS (Italy, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal) will have to ask themselves... "do we opt for austerity measures and more debt which obviously didn't work for Greece and will only stifle our economies more? Or do we also default?"

That's a very tough question to answer. But I'd wager more than one of them will opt for default. And if you think European bank exposure to Greece is understated, you don't even want to know how bad exposure to Italy and Spain is (to give you an idea, the German bank I referred to earlier, again by its own admission, has total PIIGS exposure equal to 60% of its equity)!

Folks, the European banking system is literally on the edge of the abyss. This won't be Lehman 2.0. This is going to be something far, far worse. Some of these countries are already sporting unemployment of 20%. What happens when their largest banks go under?

Also, remember that the EU is:

1) The single largest economy in the world ($16.28 trillion)

2) China's largest trade partner

3) Accounts for 21% of US exports

4) Accounts for $121 billion worth of exports for South America

The global impact of an EU banking Crisis will be tremendous. And it's clear the EU is already heading into a recession without a banking crisis hitting. What do you think will be the impact when Europe as a whole experiences its own "2008" only on a sovereign level?

The answer is: we are literally on the eve of a Crisis that will make 2008 look like a picnic.

On that note, if you have not already taken steps to prepare for the next round of the Crisis now is the time to do so while the system is still holding together.

The Triumvirate of Wall Street/ The Fed/ and the White House is Beginning to Crumble

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000

The Obama administration, as it pursues re-election in 2012, is doing all it can to claim that the US economy is in fact not quite as bad as previously thought. One of the tactics is to massage GDP and jobs data. True, this practice has been in place for over a decade, but the recent January jobs report from the BLS has set, shall we say, a new high-water mark for "adjustments."

According to the BLS, we ADDED 243,00 jobs that month. That's an odd claim given that the BLS admits, in the very same report, that without adjustments, the US actually LOST 2.69 MILLION jobs in January

This is roughly a discrepancy of 3 MILLION jobs. And this 243,000 jobs number for January also comes along with revisions that saw roughly 50,000 jobs added in both October and November.

So according to the BLS, the US is on the upswing again, maybe not in a HUGE way, but overall things are improving: we're adding jobs and unemployment is falling (from 8.5% to 8.3%).

These numbers make the Obama administration look good, at least relative to how it's looked in the previous 12 months. However, they're not reflecting as positively on two of Obama's primary support groups: Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve.

As a brief refresher, let's take a look at Obama's top campaign contributors in 2008:

Altogether, the finance industry ponied up $24 million for Obama in 2008. And Wall Street has not only been cutting their growth forecasts but has actually been firing people based on the fact the economy is so rough.

N.Y. faces 10,000 Wall St. cuts through 2012

(From October 2011)

Bank of America Corp. plans to cut 30,000 jobs over the next few years, while UBS AG intends to shave 3,500 jobs and Goldman Sachs Group expects to eliminate 1,000 jobs.

As for the forecasting component:

Wall Street banks curb economic growth forecasts

(From January 2012)

Wall Street banks lowered their outlook for U.S. economic growth due to concerns over the European debt crisis, oil prices, regulatory uncertainties and "continued disarray in Washington," according to a financial industry survey released on Tuesday.

The survey, which included bankers from Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Securities and Citigroup, forecast that the U.S. economy will grow at a rate of 2.2 percent this year, down from a previous forecast of 3.1 percent.

The January jobs report not only makes these guys look like they can't forecast anything... but that they don't even know how to run their own businesses. It also adds to the image that they're heartless and will lay people off to maintain profits (if the economy is improving, why are they firing people?)

This is not exactly the best policy to maintain for constituents who have put up some big money for Obama's campaigns in the past. One wonders if Obama's campaign managers considered this.

The January jobs report also reflects poorly on the White House's monetary buddy, the Obama's administration's "go to" guy for any kind of uptick in economic data: Ben Bernanke. After all, the Fed has also been cutting its growth forecasts and expecting higher unemployment.

US Fed cuts growth forecasts for 2012

(From November 2011)

The Federal Reserve said it now expects US growth to be weaker and unemployment higher than it thought in its last set of forecasts, as the central bank left the door open to fresh measures to help the world's biggest economy.

Also...

Fed foresees weak US growth through 2014

(From January 2012)

The Federal Reserve cut its US growth forecast Wednesday and said that with business investment and the housing sector depressed, it expected to keep interest rates near zero for another three years

Despite an upturn late last year, the Fed said ongoing economic weaknesses and strains in global financial markets mandated continued easy-money policies...

"I don't think we're ready to declare that we have entered a strong phase at this point.

So add the Fed to the group of people Obama's jobs report leaves looking less than on top of things. On a side note, it also makes the likelihood of more QE or monetary easing from the Fed more remote (if the economy is improving, they have no reason to announce more policies... which is not positive for asset prices... or Wall Street).

This all returns to two primary themes I've been expounding on for months now: that the political environment has changed dramatically in the US and that we are going to see escalating tension between Wall Street, the Fed, and the White House.

The reason for this is simple: the public is growing more outraged by the minute. That anger will have to be directed somewhere. And when push comes to shove, it's likely we're going to see some actual real litigation relating to what happened in 2008-2009.

When this happens, the whole Fed/ Wall Street/ Politician triumvirate will begin to change dramatically. Some of these groups will try to portray themselves as "men of the people" (Obama is doing this, and so is the Fed with its recent town-hall meetings and Bernanke's efforts to appear like a average joe who reads his kindle). Others will prepare for battle (Goldman Sachs' CEO has hired a defense attorney).

How this will all play out remains to be seen. But the debt markets are going to speed this process up dramatically as Europe implodes and the great debt implosion comes to the US. With 48% of US citizens living in a house in which at least one person receives Government aid, you can imagine the impact that the sort of large cuts in social welfare programs that a debt restructuring in the US would have on the political process in here.

My assessment, this January jobs report is the tip of the iceberg. Tensions will be rising in the US over the next 12 months. How exactly this will play out remains to be seen (there are too many factors), but changes are coming to the political arena as well as the monetary balance between Wall Street and the Fed (remember, the Fed actually sued Goldman Sachs last year). These changes will be dramatic.

Greece has No Idea What It's Gotten Itself Into

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:40:00 +0000

The Greeks have no idea what they've gotten themselves into.

A few facts about Greece...

First off, demographics wise, Greece is a disaster.

Real Clear Markets shares the following facts.

Greece's fertility rate is 1.3 children per women. This is nearly a full child below the "replacement rate": the number of children needed to maintain the current population.
Greece's population of 65 and over has soared from 11% in 1970 to 24% in 2010. It will hit 33% by 2050. Meanwhile, Greece's working population will decline to 20% over the same time period.
Because of this, Greece spends 12% of its GDP on pensions.

As if this weren't bad enough, the unemployment rate for Greeks aged 15-24 is 40%. For Greeks aged 24-34 it's 22%. Imagine being a young person, not being able to find a job, and then knowing that huge percentage of your efforts (42%) are going to be taxed to fund all the crazy social welfare programs for Greece's aging population. Small wonder that seven out of ten young Greeks want to work abroad and four of out ten are actively seeking work outside of Greece.

Also, it's no surprise that those Greeks who do have jobs, don't want to pay this massive tax load. Consider that the Greek working population is roughly seven million people. 95 percent of them declare annual income of less than 30,000 euros.

So that's the situation in Greece. Terrible age demographics, an economy that's in the toilet, and politicians who simply don't get it.

Now let's consider who's actually got the cash to potentially help Greece from a default, and what they want in return.

We're talking about Germany.

For most of the Greece Crisis, the supposed "saviors" were the IMF, the ECB, and Germany. That all changed in the last month. The IMF has called for more funds. Those funds aren't coming. Remember, the IMF is largely a US-backed organization. And the US sure as heck won't go for a US-backed bailout of Europe.

So the IMF is out of the picture in terms of helping Greece in any meaningful way.

Now, how about the ECB? Well Germany has told the ECB to its face that if it continues to monetize EU sovereign bonds that Germany will walk out on the Euro. So the ECB may continue to meddle in the bond market to avert a Crisis, but if it ever decides to publicly state it will be monetizing EU debt going forward, Germany's out and the Euro implodes.

Which leaves Germany as the official backstop/ savior for Greece. And here's how Germany recently address the IMF when the IMF asked Germany for help with the Greek situation.

Berlin resists pressure to give Greece more

Germany, the biggest and richest country in the euro zone, has provided the bulk of the funds for the bailouts of Ireland, Portugal and Greece. Now it is firmly rejecting calls to come up with yet more funds for Greece to compensate for any shortfalls in a debt relief deal with private creditors.

On Friday Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle defended Berlin's tough stance. The Greeks, he insisted, should show that they are willing to implement reforms before getting more money.

"We Germans do not expect from anyone in Europe more than what we are asking from our own citizens. We cannot explain to taxpayers in Germany that they have to do things that others do not want to do while at the same time asking for their money," Westerwelle said in Brussels.

He pointed out that Germany had already come up over 200 billion euros ($262 billion) for the bailout funds. "It makes no sense" he said, to give more money to Greece, "if we don't know whether the reforms which have been agreed upon will be really implemented." He argued that coming up with more money just lessened the pressure to reform.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/120127/berlin-resists-pressure-give-greece-more

Diplomatically, this is about as close as Germany can come to telling the IMF to "stuff it." Germany knows the IMF doesn't have the funds and won't be getting them (the IMF is primarily a US-backed entity and the US won't stand for a US-backed European bailout).

Indeed, just a few days after Germany said "nein" to more Greece bailouts, it then threw the following suggestion out:

German proposal seeks EU commissioner with sweeping powers to directly control Greece's budget

Germany is proposing that debt-ridden Greece temporarily cede sovereignty over tax and spending decisions to a powerful eurozone budget commissioner before it can secure further bailouts, an official in Berlin said Saturday.

The idea was quickly rejected by the European Union's executive body and the government in Athens, with the EU Commission in Brussels insisting that "executive tasks must remain the full responsibility of the Greek government, which is accountable before its citizens and its institutions."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/markets/german-proposal-seeks-eu-commissioner-with-sweeping-powers-to-directly-control-greeces-budget/2012/01/28/gIQAxHWgXQ_story.html

In plain terms, push has now to come shove in Europe. Germany permitted the ECB to implicitly monetize various EU sovereign nations' debts during 2011 because Germany hadn't yet taken the steps to prepare for a collapse of the EU.

It now has. In the last six months, Germany has:

Passed legislation permitting it to leave the Euro without leaving the EU.
Passed legislation permitting it to nationalize German banks during times of Crisis.
Demanded that German banks in general raise capital.

In plain terms, Germany is now prepared to walk away if it has to. And it's made its demands very clear: if you want German funds, you will need to give up fiscal sovereignty.

It's also made it clear that it will tolerate neither the issuance of Eurobonds OR direct and open monetization by the ECB.

In other words, Germany has said "it's our way or the highway." True, this borders on an act of financial warfare, but in the end, Germany has never truly been interested in a monetary union so much as a political union.

Germany will not suffer inflation (they've seen how monetization works out, e.g. Weimar), nor internal discord (in November 78% of Germans thought the Euro would survive... by December 60% of them though the Euro was a "bad idea".)

In plain terms, Germany is going to look after its own domestic interests.

Put another way, if Greece wants to remain Greece it's no getting any more funds and its bond markets will implode. The alternative is that if Greece wants German funds, it's going to have to give up its fiscal sovereignty and essentially become a vassal state for Germany. End of story.

With that in mind, I believe the next round of the Euro Crisis is now at our doorstep. Indeed, this latest short-covering rally in the Euro (Euro shorts were at a record high) looks ready to end and reverse.

So if you think the EU Crisis is over, think again. True we've got until March 20th for the Greek deal to be reached, but things have already gotten to the point that Germany has essentially issued its ultimatum. Either Greece hands over fiscal sovereignty, or it defaults in a BIG way.

Why Notions of Systemic Failure Are On Par with Bigfoot and Unicorns for Most Investors

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:54:00 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to address the notion of serious collapse and/or systemic failure and why it's so hard for most investors to conceive.

First off, most people in general tend to be optimists or to generally believe that things will work out fine. So the idea of catastrophe is not something they spend much time thinking about.

Because of this, and other factors I'm about to explore, the notion of systemic failure is virtually impossible to grasp for most investors. Most professional traders are usually under the age of 40 (in fact they're typically in their mid to late 20s). As a result of this, they:
1) Didn't experience the 1987 Crash
2) Have never seen a Crisis that the Fed/ IMF/ etc. couldn't handle
Let's add a secondary element to this. Most institutional traders today operate, for the most part, based on trading models. These models, in general, are quantitative and based on correlations and patterns, not qualitative judgments.

This goes a long ways towards explaining why the market has developed such simplistic trading patterns. Consider the "Monday market rally" phenomenon we saw throughout 2009-2010. Or how about the Aussie Dollar/Japanese yen correlation to the S&P 500 we saw throughout much of 2010-2011. As one asset manager put it to me recently, the market has essentially become "one big trade" with virtually all asset classes moving tick for tick relative to each other.

Let us consider the mentality these age demographics and professional working tools engender. In general, both of these factors make for short-term thinking and a lack of qualitative analysis. They also mean that items or developments that exist outside the universe of trading models (most of which are entirely based on post-WWII data), are outside the scope of these traders' thinking.

This issue doesn't merely pertain to traders either. Going back 80+ years, there's never been a time in which the markets didn't have a backstop in the form of the Fed/ IMF/ or some other entity. No matter the Crisis that erupted, there was always money printing and other monetary policies to calm the storm.

Now, let's expand our analysis outside of professional traders to include asset managers and other institutional investors, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 60 or so.

Based on this age demographic, we find that there is an entire generation of investment professionals (aged 35-60) who:

Have never witnessed nor invested during a bear market in bonds
Have never witnessed, nor invested during a credit market collapse
Have never witnessed a secular shift in the global economy

Consequently, the vast majority of professional investors are unable to contemplate truly dark times for the markets. After all, the two worst items most of them have witnessed (the Tech Bust and 2008) were both remedied within about 18 months and were followed by massive market rallies.

Because of this, the idea that the financial system might fail or that we might see any number of major catastrophes (Germany leaving the EU, a US debt default, hyperinflation, etc.) is on par with Bigfoot or Unicorns for 99% of those whose jobs are to manage investors' money or advise investors on how to allocate their capital.

If this doesn't worry you, you need to start looking at the actual numbers behind the financial system today. Here are just a few worth considering:

US commercial banks currently sit atop $248 TRILLION in derivatives
The US Federal Reserve is now buying 91% of all long-term new US debt issuance (at the same time China and Russia are dumping US bonds)
Japan already spends roughly half of its annual tax revenues on debt payments and has relied on debt issuance more than tax revenues to fund its budget for four years now (how much longer can this last?)
Europe's entire banking system is leveraged at 26 to 1 (Lehman Brothers was leveraged at 30 to 1 when it failed)
!
Folks, bad times are coming. It doesn't matter what the trading programs or "professionals" think about it... the math simply doesn't add up to us having a calm, profitable time in the markets over the next few years.
On that note, the time to be preparing for what's coming is now.

The Fed Cannot Act Without a Crisis... And One is Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:54:00 +0000

Well the Fed disappointed as I stated it would. How anyone could be surprised by this is beyond me. The Fed was admitting that the consequences of QE rendered it less "attractive" as an option as far back as May 2011.

Moreover, the last six months have shown the Fed to be relying heavily on verbal intervention rather than direct monetary intervention. Every FOMC meeting (and any time the market takes a dive) some Fed official steps forward and promises that the Fed stands ready to help if needed.

The reasons for this are three fold:

1) Why bother with monetary intervention when you can get the same effect from verbal intervention?

2) The Fed is too politically toxic now to simply unveil a massive new monetary scheme without a Crisis hitting first.

3) The Fed is well aware of the consequences of QE (higher food and gas prices) and while it focuses on CPI as the measure of inflation, the political pressure engendered by higher costs of living are certainly on the Fed's radar.

In plain terms, the bar for more QE is set much, much higher than the vast majority of analysts realize. The reason is that the Fed can no longer simply prime up the printing presses if the economy takes a dip.

We've seen this clearly in the last two Fed FOMC statements, in which the Fed downgraded its view of the US economy to posting "modest growth" (Fed speak for next to none) and then offered a "highly accommodative stance," (Fed speak for "we're out of ideas but can always hit the 'print' button") as way of dealing with this.

Let's cut the BS here. The Fed has maintained a more than highly accommodative stance for three years now and U-16 unemployment, food stamp usage, home prices, and virtually every other economic metric indicate that they've done little to boost the US economy in any meaningful way. QE has and always will be about boosting asset prices in the hope that the Fed can stimulate a recovery by getting the S&P 500 to some level.

The only problem with this is that people don't engage in financial speculation to pay their bills. Incomes have and always will be the single most important metric for gauging consumer strength. And the Fed's policies of the last few years have done nothing to boost incomes (unless you work on Wall Street).

If you read headlines stating "Fed Gave Trillions to Banks" and you've been laid off and are living off food stamps, your blood pressure might tend to rise.

And you might tend to vote based on that.

Folks, the reality is that the Fed's hands are tied. That's why they keep issuing these innocuous policies (keeping interest rates low until 5056 or some insane future date) without actually doing anything. They know that additional easing means inflation soaring, which makes the Fed that much more a target of popular outrage.

So if you're counting on the Fed propping the market up throughout 2012 as it did in 2011, you may be in for a rude awakening in the coming months. Every day that we get closer to the 2012 Presidential election, the bar for more QE goes higher and higher. Truly unless we get some kind of major Crisis, the Fed won't be doing much of anything.

So let the traders run their "end of the month" games this week. But don't be surprised if stocks start to take a dive in early February.

They do NOT get it

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:50:00 +0000

The market is rallying... again... on hopes of a Greek deal... and QE 3.

This is the very same game we've been playing for over two years now. Greece is broke. Everyone knows it. The Greeks know it. Greek politicians know it. EU politicians know it. Even the IMF knows it. The only people who don't seem to "get it" are stock investors that invest for one reason only:

1) The hope of more juice/ intervention from Governments/ Central Banks

That one sentence dictates ALL market action today: the hope of a stupid policy (spending more money), which has failed to solve anything. It's amazing that this is what the markets have become. What's even more amazing is that people are actually paid (large salaries) to engage in this stupid behavior.

Honestly, how many times have we heard rumors that Greece was solved? How many "officials" claimed a deal was close? How many investors bought based on these outright lies?

Moreover, it's not as though the actual proposals that do get announced are worth the paper they're written on. A 50% haircut on private bondholders of Greek debt accomplishes nothing (Greece's Debt to GDP would still be north of 120%). The only way Greece gets back to some semblance of solvency is a complete and total wipe out of all debt other than that held by the Troika (though they should take a hit as well).

This whole mess will end terribly. Greece will default. The default will be bigger than 50% (likely 70-80%). Italy, Spain, and other EU members will default as well. This will happen. There is no question about it.

However, right this week, the market is waiting for more juice from the Fed's Jan 25 FOMC and the hope of a Greek deal out of Europe. For that reason stocks have gone almost straight up for the last two weeks.

By the look of things we've got a messy bearish rising wedge here. We're now testing resistance in the form of the upper trendline.

What's truly interesting here is that the Emerging Market space has been lagging US stocks in a big way on this move: a marked difference from the market action that preceded QE lite and QE 2.

The same goes for commodities and other "Risk On" assets, which are not even close to exceeding recent highs:

So... are stock investors smarter than everyone else... or are they just gunning the market on low volume yet again regardless of reality? We'll find out this week once we get past the Fed FOMC and Europe's decision on Greece.

Germany's Fed Up and Getting Ready to Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:35:00 +0000

For months I've been warning that when push come to shove Germany will bail on the Euro.

The reasons for this are simple:

1) The German public and court system won't stand for QE from the European Central Bank

2) Issuing Euro bonds goes against the German constitution

3) Germany has its own share of domestic problems with a REAL Debt to GDP ratio north of 200% and its banks needing tens of billions of Euros in new capital

All of these factors lead me to believe that Germany would refuse to be the ultimate backstop for the EU. You could also see Germany preparing the legislation to allow it to walk if it wanted to:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party voted to allow euro states to quit the currency area, endorsing the prospect of a move not permitted under euro rules.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-11/german-cdu-is-set-to-back-motion-allowing-euro-member-exit-1-.html

The resolution reads:

"Should a member [of the euro zone] be unable or unwilling to permanently obey the rules connected to the common currency he will be able to voluntarily--according to the rules of the Lisbon Treaty for leaving the European Union--leave the euro zone without leaving the European Union. He would receive the same status as those member states that do not have the euro."

I believe Germany implemented this legislation for itself... not some other country. And by the look of things, Germany's getting a lot closer to walking.

BBK Thiele: Current ECB Government Bond Buys Violate Treaty

The European Central Bank's government bond buys are a violation of the Maastricht Treaty, Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele said Monday.

Thiele's comments depart form the official Bundesbank line. While the German central bank has warned that larger purchases may be illegal, it has said that current purchases do not violate the prohibition of monetary financing.

Thiele recalled that the decision to buy Greek government bonds had found no support from German ECB Governing Council members. "Germany was over-ruled on the Council," Thiele said.

"These buys were a violation against the prohibition of monetary financing, that is the basic principle that a central bank should not give credit to a state," Thiele said in a speech text provided by the Bundesbank.

https://mninews.deutsche-boerse.com/index.php/bbk-thiele-current-ecb-government-bond-buys-violate-treaty?q=content/bbk-thiele-current-ecb-government-bond-buys-violate-treaty

Bundesbanker says euro zone must forget idea of QE

Europe must abandon the idea that printing money, or quantitative easing, can be used to address the euro zone debt crisis, Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele said on Monday.

Thiele called for euro zone countries to exercise fiscal discipline and said that boosting the resources of Europe's rescue funds would buy time to address the bloc's debt woes.

"But lasting confidence cannot be bought with money alone," he added in the text of a speech for delivery in Hamburg.

"One idea should be brushed aside once and for all - namely the idea of printing the required money. Because that would threaten the most important foundation for a stable currency: the independence of a price stability orientated central bank."

http://www.sharenet.co.za/news/Bundesbanker_says_euro_zone_must_forget_idea_of_QE/d02483d59237b6eb2c6ae98f17b3e1ce

These are extremely strong statements coming from the Bundesbank. Remember, Merkel is the German political leader, but she doesn't control the purse strings to Germany: the German courts and Bundesbank do. And if they don't support more bailouts, there's nothing Merkel can do.

We see similar warnings coming out of German CEOs:

Linde CEO says Germany should mull euro exit-paper

Germany should consider leaving the euro if efforts to impose fiscal discipline upon indebted euro zone countries fail, the head of industrial gases firm Linde (LING.DE) told German weekly paper Der Spiegel.

"I fear the willingness of crisis countries to reform themselves is abating if, in the end, the European Central Bank steps in," Linde's chief executive Wolfgang Reitzle was quoted as saying.

"If we do not succeed in disciplining crisis countries, Germany needs to exit," said Reitzle who was previously a board member at carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) and head of Jaguar and Land Rover.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/01/15/eurozone-linde-idINDEE80E07Z20120115

I firmly believe Germany is already makings moves to prepare for precisely this outcome. No EU member state is going to submit to German authority regarding fiscal policies. Indeed, virtually every EU legislation passed in the post-WWII era was aimed at limiting Germany's power.

And Germany isn't going to simply prop up the EU out of the goodness of its heart. As I mentioned before, Germany has its own domestic issues to deal with. And when push comes to shove, Germany will look after its own interests rather than Greece's or Italy's.

With that in mind I believe it's only a matter of time before Germany walks out of the EU. When this happens the Euro will collapse a minimum of 20-30% and we will see numerous sovereign defaults.

When the smoke clears the EU in its current form will be broken and we will have passed through a Crisis far worse than 2008.

Many people see their portfolios go up in smoke with this. Don't be one of them. The time to prepare your portfolio for the collapse is NOW before it starts.

EU Central Banks Are Already Preparing For a Euro Breakup

noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

It is now clear that the Euro will be broken up
in the coming months.

Consider the following statement from Italy's largest bank:

Euro break-up cited as risk in UniCredit prospectus

UniCredit, Italy's largest bank by assets, has cited the
break-up of the euro zone and the collapse of the single
currency as risk factors in the prospectus of its 7.5
billion euro rights issue.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/unicredit-ceo-euro-idUSL6E8C547I20120105

Or how about this one straight from two German lawmakers:

Greek Euro Exit Weighed By German Lawmakers, Seen as Manageable

Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party are
stepping up pressure on Greece as it struggles to meet
the terms of its second bailout, saying that a Greek exit
from the euro region would be manageable.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-12/greek-euro-exit-weighed-by-german-lawmakers-seen-as-manageable.html#1_undefined,0_

There are simply stunning comments coming out of
VERY high level sources in Europe. Remember,
as much as Merkel talks about maintaining the Euro,
she needs German lawmakers to back her on that
decision.

And that simply isn't going to happen. The German
courts and German voters simply won't stand for it.

So while Merkel and Sarkozy talk time and again about
solving this situation, the fact remains that moves are
already being made behind the scenes to prepare for
the end of the Euro.

This is not mere conjecture. Numerous EU central
banks have already begun preparing for the possibilty
of printing their old currencies again. Germany is one
of the countries doing this by the way.

In plain terms, the Euro in its current form is finished.
When it breaks up we will see widespread defaults
across the EU. And what follows will make 2008 look
like a joke.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for the next
round of Euro Crisis... you need to do so now!
Once the Euro breakup is announced it will be too late
as panicked selling pushes the market into collapse.

Many people will see their portfolios destroyed by this.
Now is the time to make sure you're not one of them.
I can show you how. Indeed, few investors can match
my ability to make profits out of a Crisis.

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noreply@blogger.com (Generalfoundation) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:31:00 +0000

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