"New York Stock Exchange, Wall and Broad Streets"
Ilargi: There were mass protests in Portugal today. The country has been largely left outside of the international media recently, but the people in Lisbon still hurt. Austerity raises electricity and gas prices at the same time that jobs are lost en masse.
No-one in southern Europe bats a surprised eye at this anymore. It's become a way of life. Both the new-found poverty and the rising protests. Or perhaps we should say: the rising spirit of protest. The first waves of it have passed this spring and summer, and have done nothing to stop the cuts.
Time for Protest 2.0. The more cuts there are, the more protests there will be. For now, the world is mesmerized by lofty notions of the Arab Spring, and how it was supposed to bring democracy to the backwaters of the planet.
1000’s of deaths later, there's precious little democracy, and countries like Portugal are set for the next wave of banners in the streets (along with who knows how many others along the Mediterranean and beyond). In Greece, protests already derail the IMF's assessment of the country's debt.
And now there's Wall Street. Greece sovereign debt is presently rumored to be up for a 75% cut in troika talks. Greek banks hold little else. French banks hold a lot of Greek debt, even own some of its banks. And -enter Wall Street stage left- Morgan Stanley owns a lot of French banks' assets and/or liabilities. Not least of all is in the shape of derivatives.
Hence, Morgan Stanley was down over 10% on Friday. If French banks go down because of their exposure to Greece, Morgan Stanley will go down too. And if Morgan Stanley goes, so does everyone on Wall Street who deals with it. Which is all of Wall Street.
It’s not like you can ringfence Greece, or its banks. There are way too many links between countries on the one side and their central and commercial banks on the other. And many more links between all other central and commercial banks on the planet. There's no way just one major bank will go down the abyss. Whoever's first will take down many others.
And so the vigilantes are licking their chops and waiting for Monday. Not as nervously, though, as all them market watchers all too eager to see the collapse. The vigilantes take too much pride and joy in picking them off one at a time. Pride and joy and profits.
Morgan Stanley is not a commercial bank. It dove 10.47%. Goldman Sachs isn't either. It lost 5.33%. BofA and Citi lost less, even though they're basket cases. It goes something like this: as per Aaron Lucchetti for the Wall Street Journal:
Morgan Stanley Takes HitsThe concern with Morgan Stanley stems from its small size relative to other global financial firms and its reliance on debt markets, rather than customer deposits, to fund its business.
Ilargi: Yeah, the most threatened banks on Wall Street are now those that don't have a direct grip on your cash. And/or are in bed with France's financial system. Which sleeps with Greece, which sleeps with Bulgaria and Albania and Romania. Oh, and French banks are way over their necks into Italy. Just so you know.
Funny how we haven't heard much about Wall Street banks and their risks lately, isn't it. Well, not to worry, what's happening to Morgan Stanley will make sure we’ll have them all back on our front pages soon.
In fact, Tim Geithner's trip to Europe recently is all about that: get Europe to cover Wall Street's losses and exposure to European banks. Europe's answer: you cover the losses, why should we?!
It looks pretty sure that Germany won’t play along. And it's hard to see from where I'm sitting how the intricacies are lined up exactly, but seeing as Morgan Stanley has $56 trillion in derivatives outstanding, much of which will of necessity be on European sovereign and bank debt, and knowing that JPMorgan and BofA have even larger derivatives portfolio‘s, that 10.47% Morgan Stanley loss on Friday looks like a harbinger of things to come.
No more Markets Mr. Nice Guy for Wall Street; the banks will be knocking on all those Fed windows again soon. And it’ll be interesting to see how Geihtner and Obama react. Feel lucky, punks? Care to risk your re-election? Or do you have your Wall Street funding lined up as we speak?
Methinks it might perhaps possibly be time for electronic pitchforks. If only just to lift our feet out of the morally depleted quicksand we haven't seemed able to get out of by any other means for all this time. For all we know it might feel liberating.
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Morgan Stanley Takes Hits
by Aaron Lucchetti - Wall Street Journal
Concern Over European Exposure Produces Volatile Month
Shares of Morgan Stanley sank 10% on Friday as the New York company continued fending off rumors about its exposure to troubled debt in Europe. The slump ended a month of harrowing volatility for investors in Morgan Stanley. Of the six largest U.S. banks, Morgan Stanley shares moved the most on 10 trading days in September, twice as many as Citigroup Inc.
The concern with Morgan Stanley stems from its small size relative to other global financial firms and its reliance on debt markets, rather than customer deposits, to fund its business. As jitters about potential European debt defaults grow, investors are steering clear of bank stocks that might be dragged down as collateral damage if conditions in Europe worsen.
Morgan Stanley feels the concern more acutely because it is a big player in derivatives, risky opaque contracts that can often backfire on a bank if its risk management doesn't limit losses. The situation at Morgan could turn dire if customers or lenders become skittish enough to flee. Three years ago, Morgan survived during such a panic, when it was essentially propped up by the federal government and secured a $9 billion investment from Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
Morgan Stanley has built up its cash hoard since then and raised more equity as a buffer against potential losses. It also has gotten out of many of the risky trading businesses that eat up capital and can force big, unpredictable losses.
But the firm still is a big player in derivatives. Recent data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency showed Morgan Stanley had derivatives contracts with a total notional value of $56 trillion at the end of June. While that number exaggerates the total amount at risk, Morgan's figures exceed the total notional amounts at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America were still well ahead of Morgan Stanley, which had the third- largest total, according to the OCC.
One of Morgan's next challenges might be holding onto key staffers, especially if cost-cutting plans and sluggish markets eat into this year's bonuses. This past week, two senior Morgan Stanley stock trading executives in London, Michel Sindelar and Cyrille Walter, announced they were leaving for Bank of America to work for former Morgan Stanley trading executive Fabrizio Gallo, people familiar with the matter said. Stock trading has been one of Morgan's strong business units of late.
Last week, investors also started focusing on Morgan's exposure to French banks after a website published a report about Morgan's 2010 annual report, which noted $39 billion in gross exposure to French banks. People familiar with the firm's finances said the figure in the report was outdated and included money being held on behalf of clients. The firm's net exposure, which takes into account hedges, is about zero, they added.
But investors don't necessarily trust hedges as much as they used to. And if the hedges are with other weakened banks, the exposure might actually be greater than zero, critics allege. "There's nothing the company can do with its statements because everyone thinks the banks are doing things off balance sheet," says Richard Bove, a Rochdale Securities analyst that has a "buy" rating on Morgan Stanley shares.
Mr. Bove suggested that Morgan Stanley use some of its $182 billion in cash and go back and buy some of its debt, whose yields have been increasing in recent days as concern about the firm grew. Friday, the firm's credit default swaps, which act as insurance against a possible default, rose to $490,000 for $10 million in protection, up from $434,000 a week ago. The debt was more expensive to protect against than Bank of America, Société Générale and Italian bank Unicredit, according to data provider Markit.
Earlier in September, Morgan did buy back some debt, and the firm's chief executive, James Gorman, talked to followers of the stock like Mr. Bove to calm market fears about the company's finances. Morgan Stanley has also attempted to clarify that its derivatives position isn't a concern, when taken in the context of its overall business and when comparing it to other large banks.
Mr. Bove also suggested that the firm could use the 17,000 brokers in its joint venture with Citigroup to boost its deposits, something he says wouldn't be difficult in the current market environment. Investors like to see more money in deposits because it is viewed as more sticky than money from bond investors who might demand exorbitant rates in unstable markets.
Separately Friday, Morgan Stanley settled a civil antitrust case with the Justice Department for $4.8 million involving its work with two New York area power companies.
Le Spleen de Morgan Stanley
by Lisa Pollack - FT Alphaville
All is not well in the kingdom of Stanley. The CDS spreads have blown out and the market is concerned. Very, very concerned. Moody’s Analytics is here to tell us all about why that is.The first [concern] is the exposure of MS to European institutions and the second is the level of trading revenues in the third quarter. MS reported in its second quarter earnings call that net exposure to the GIIPS countries was $5 billion on a gross and $2 billion on a net basis. However, some sources have recently focused on their FFIEC1 reported gross exposures of $39 billion to French banks, which we believe overstates their actual risks significantly.
Anyway, they have a footnote about that $39bn pointing out that it’s gross exposure and so doesn’t account for offsets or other mitigation. Given that, what does Moody’s Analytics conclude?…the recent weakness in their market pricing indicates the degree of sensitivity to any adverse news in the current difficult period. While the headline exposures have spooked the market, we would view this as a short term phenomenon. We expect a correction of this overreaction is very likely. We have viewed MS as a work in progress as they integrate their new retail joint venture (Morgan Stanley Smith Barney) and have recommended them as most appropriate for investors with a longer horizon.
Come on guys, Morgan Stanley(‘s pricing) is just feeling a little touchy. These are trying times, after all. So trying in fact that their CDS curve has become inverted over the past month.
This is indicative of a heightened sense of concern in the near term. The 5-year point, however, is the most liquid CDS contract, so let’s have a look at that. While we’re at it, let’s throw in some Italian banks, since that seems to be all the rage lately.
Not great, but let’s get a bit more perspective by going back a bit further in time.
Not another Lehman moment yet, then. After all, Morgan Stanley is a bank holding company now, and don’t anyone forget it.
How about a more direct peer comparison though.
Wow, they are winning the race to the bottom against… Bank of America. Now there’s a place you don’t want to be.
The S&P at 400 is almost inevitable
by Neil Hume - FT Alphaville
After his brief experiment with technical analysis (well, Killer Waves) uber bear Albert Edwards returns to more familiar ground in his latest Global Strategy Weekly.Jeremy Grantham of GMO says this is "no market for young men". Maybe now I am over 50 it is my time! Yet my forecast of the S&P bottoming at 400 is still met with utter derision. I have been underweight global equities since the end of 1996 and overweight government bonds. Meanwhile US 10y bond yields have fallen from 7% to 1?%, a hair’s breadth from our longstanding 1?% target. Similarly, in my very humble opinion, S&P at 400 is almost inevitable.
Edwards says those who take reassurance that the current 12-month forward S&P 500 PE of 10.5 times is cheap are fools, because earnings have peaked…
… and a third post bubble-recession is looming as are single digit PE’s.
Those who do not believe this can happen are still choosing to ignore the reality that has unfolded before their eyes since 2000. In phase 3 of the Ice Age we would apply a 7-8x forward multiple to recession-depressed forward earnings of say $70-75/sh. That gets us pretty close our 400 S&P target. Unbelievable and ridiculous? They said that about our 1?% US T-Note forecast this time last year!And it’s the same story for Europe, where equities could also fall a long way reckons Edwards.
The rout over the last couple of months in European equities may have been a lot worse than the US, but it has merely taken us back to the forward PE seen at the markets nadir in March 2009 albeit lower at 7,5x v 10x on the S&P. But add in the recessionary impact on profits which have already begun to decline and European equity prices might fall a lot further yet, producing probably the buying opportunity of a generation.
Something to look forward to, then.
One Of The Best Economic Forecasters Calls For A "New Recession" In The US
by Joe Weisenthal and Simone Foxman - Business Insider
Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI told Bloomberg Radio this morning the US is "tipping into a new recession."
He told Tom Keene that a recession is the "overwhelming message coming out of our forward-looking indicators." And more ominously: "It is not reversible." "There is virtually nothing that can be done to avert what is going to happen," he said.
Achuthan cites "dozens of leading indexes for the U.S." and "contagion in what is going on among those leading indicators. It's wildfire, it's recessionary, it is not reversible." He says that he cannot be sure when the recession will begin — or even if it has begun already — arguing, "this is not a double-dip" because the U.S. very clearly came out of the last recession. The best-case scenario is for a short recession, lasting about 6 months. However, he noted that he's seen no indicators pointing to a turnaround yet.
What's more, he told Keene that this quick succession of recessions "is very consistent with shifting into an era of more frequent recessions." As for the severity of this oncoming downturn, Achuthan says we just cannot know yet how bad things are going to get. "Whatever the shocks are that you're worrying about today, this morning, if they don't happen you're still going to have a recession, and if they do happen it's going to get a lot worse."
He added that he "wouldn't be surprised" if unemployment rose to double digits, and said that exports — which had held up the economy earlier in the year — were about to go down the tube. A recession, in Achuthan's terms, happens when "sales disappoint, so production falls, so employment falls, so incomes fall, and then sales fall again."
He clarified, "When I call a recession...that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it's not going to stop." Achuthan has a great track record. In Summer 2010, while the market was diving, he insisted there was no recession on the way.
Obama needs a euro solution; he wants to stay in the White House
by Dominic Rushe - Guardian
"Europe is going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world," Barack Obama said this week. For that, read: it's scaring the hell out of me. Barely a week goes by when the president of the world's most powerful nationdoesn't deliver a message to Europe to get its house in order, his comments betraying anxiety about his re-election prospects if the global economy continues to founder on the rocks of European debt and US growth fails to pick up before next November.
His treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, has been similarly outspoken, even travelling to the European finance ministers' meeting in Poland two weeks ago to urge more action. In addition, his fingerprints were seen all over the suggested rescue plan for the euro that emerged from last weekend's IMF meeting in Washington, reportedly involving an idea to write off half of Greece's debts, recapitalise the continent's banks and leverage up the eurozone bailout plan to a war chest of €2tn (£1.7tn) or more.
The clue was in another of Obama's comments when he said that Europe had "never fully dealt with all the challenges to their banking system", revealing that the White House and, for that matter Wall Street, believes Europe needs to come up with a more convincing show of intent to shore up their part of the global financial system.
It's been brewing for a while. As protests raged across Greece, the euro debt crisis deepened and Wall Street historian Charles Geisst had a worrying sense of deja vu. The author of Wall Street: A History and a finance professor at Manhattan College, Geisst was taking part in a panel discussion for American Banker magazine with William Rhodes, the financier who in the 1980s led a team attempting to tackle the developing nations debt crisis.
After the discussion he talked to Rhodes about his experience of the crisis. Thirty years ago, countries across the world were brought to the edge of collapse by crippling debts, austerity measures were imposed, riots broke out, opinion rounded on bankers, governments and the IMF as massive lending turned to major defaults. It all sounded painfully familiar.
In August 1982 Mexico defaulted on its debt, sparking financial chaos throughout Latin America. "The crisis was hitting European banks hard," said Geisst. But Rhodes told him US banks were more exposed than people realised. "Somehow Paul Volcker [then chairman of the Federal Reserve] managed to keep things very hush-hush. It's not like that now. The world has changed." Yet the fear and panic remain.
The current debt crisis may be further away geographically, but for the US stock markets it might as well be happening on Wall Street. They react to every twist in the ongoing eurozone credit crisis, rising and falling on fact and rumour alike. "We've become very international for a change," said Geisst.
In large part the US's nervy reaction to the euro circus is being driven by technology. The two markets have been close for decades but electronic trading has sped up how they react to each other and tied them closer together. At the same time, US and European banks are more heavily invested in each other. "Exports to the US over 20 years have probably not changed that much, but the exposure of US banks to European banks has rocketed as the US banks have tried to get access to other markets to increase their yields," said Paul Dales, US economist at Capital Economics.
Dales calculates that from 1994 to 2006, the correlation between the US's S&P 500 index and London's FTSE and Eurofirst measure of continental European stock markets was 0.88. A correlation of 1 would mean they moved in tandem, a correlation of 0 would mean they had no relationship. Between 2007-11 the correlation had risen to 0.93.
Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and a former IMF chief economist, tracks the new closeness of this unhappy union back to the 2008 financial crisis: "They've been close since the financial crisis developed, leaving European banks holding lots of US junk."
Johnson said that the current jitters reminded him of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, when the collapse of Thailand's currency sparked panic across the region, riots in Indonesia and fears of global contagion. Oil prices collapsed, sparking a crisis in Russia, contributing to the collapse of the giant US hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and panic around the world. "A lot of what happened then was more about perception than reality," said Johnson. He sees the same issue this time. "There's a pattern of euphoria followed by depression followed by euphoria," he said.
In many ways this is worse than the Asia crisis. The world is more entwined, the risk of contagion greater, and the economies affected larger and more resistant to change and outside pressure. It is little wonder then that Obama and Geithner have felt the need to be so vocal. Neither is it surprising that many European countries are unwilling to take lessons from the US, which has shown little appetite for fiscal prudence in recent years.
US markets plunged again on Friday, despite the German parliament agreeing to beef up the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) bailout fund. A bigger EFSF is a stop-gap measure, Johnson warned, not a solution.
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of Pimco, one of the world's largest bond fund managers, agrees: "The vote was an important step but it is only a small step along a still very long and difficult journey; and the destination remains uncertain. Germany's vote will only be materially meaningful if supported by a number of other urgent steps and, importantly, a clearer vision as to what the politicians wish the eurozone to look like in five years."
Johnson does see one possible way out. "The best parallel is with the US at its foundation, when Alexander Hamilton realised the country needed fiscal union," he said.
In 1790 the first US treasury secretary convinced the new federal government to take on the debts incurred by individual states in their revolutionary war against Britain. His opponents argued some of those states had been profligate and didn't deserve a bailout. Taking on that debt, wrote Hamilton, was "the price of liberty".
Some 220 years later it is the European Union that is being pulled apart by debt, but it's battering the US in the process. And as the crisis rumbles on, there is no sign yet of a leader like Hamilton to take control and determine the price of liberty, let alone who will pay it. Obama is hoping Europe finds the right leadership soon.
NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, and the death of EU Fiscal Union
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph
Judging by the commentary, there has been a colossal misunderstanding around the world of what has just has happened in Germany. The significance of yesterday’s vote by the Bundestag to make the EU’s €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) more flexible is not that the outcome was a "Yes".
This assent was a foregone conclusion, given the backing of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens. In any case, the vote merely ratifies the EU deal reached more than two months ago – itself too little, too late, rendered largely worthless by very fast-moving events.
The significance is entirely the opposite. The furious debate over the erosion of German fiscal sovereignty and democracy – as well as the escalating costs of the EU rescue machinery – has made it absolutely clear that the Bundestag will not prop up the ruins of monetary union for much longer. Horst Seehofer, the leader of Bavaria’s Social Christians, said his party would go "this far, and no further".
There can be no question of beefing up the EFSF to €2 trillion or any other sum, whether by leverage or other forms of structured trickery. "The financial markets are beginning to ask whether Germans can afford all this help. We must not risk the creditworthiness of the German state," he said.
The best-read story in today’s Handelsblatt is the mounting rebellion against the EFSF in the Bundesrat, the German senate representing the interests of the regions. While this chamber does not have the power to block budget deals, it has begun to express deep alarm about the drift of events.
Marcel Huber, Bavaria’s Staatskanzleichef, gave an explicit warning that the Free State of Bavaria will not take one step further towards an EMU fiscal union or debt pool. "A collectivisation of debts will under no circumstances be accepted. We oppose credit lines for the EFSF or leveraging through the ECB. Our message is simple and clear."
Since the existing EFSF is too small to make any material difference to the EMU debt crisis, this means that nothing has in fact been resolved. We are where we started, almost entirely reliant on the ECB to play the role of lender-of-last resort.
Can it realistically play this role after the double resignation of Axel Weber at the Bundesbank and Jurgen Stark at the ECB itself over bond purchases? Can it defy Europe’s paymaster state for long? You decide.
This great eruption of feeling in Germany has been the transforming political and strategic fact of Europe over the summer. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is no doubt scrambling around trying to find some formula to breach his pledge that there is no secret plan to leverage the EFSF into the stratosphere.
He will try to pretend that this is not a flagrant double-cross. But his scheming with the French is largely irrelevant at this point. Bigger events are rolling over him. If he really thinks he can dupe the Bundestag yet again, he is out of his mind. And will soon be out of office.
As Bundestag president Norbert Lammert said yesterday, lawmakers had a nasty feeling that they had been "bounced" into backing far-reaching demands. This can never be allowed to happen again. He warned too that Germany's legislature would not give up its fiscal sovereignty to any EU body.
In a sense, the Bundestag vote was much like the ruling by the Constitutional Court earlier this month. It too said "Yes" to the bail-out machinery, but that was not relevant fact. What mattered was the Court’s implicit warning that Germany had reached the outer boundaries of EU integration, that German democracy is under threat, and its explicit warning that the Bundestag’s fiscal powers could not be alienated to Brussels.
Something profound has changed. Germans have begun to sense that the preservation of their own democracy and rule of law is in conflict with demands from Europe. They must choose one or the other. Yet Europe and the world are so used to German self-abnegation for the EU Project – so used to the teleological destiny of ever-closer Union – that they cannot seem to grasp the fact. It reminds me of 1989 and the establishment failure to understand the Soviet game was up.
Our own Chancellor George Osborne has fallen into this trap. I can entirely understand why he is calling for quick moves towards EMU fiscal union, but such an outcome is not on the table.Repeat after me:
- THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL UNION.
- THERE WILL BE NO EUROBONDS.
- THERE WILL BE NO DEBT POOL.
- THERE WILL BE NO EU TREASURY.
- THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL TRANSFERS IN PERPETUITY.
- THERE WILL BE A STABILITY UNION – OR NO MONETARY UNION.
Get used to it. This is the political reality of Europe, since nothing of importance can be done without Germany. All else is wishful thinking, clutching at straws, and evasion. If this means the euro will shed some members or blow apart – as it almost certainly does – then the rest of the world must prepare for the day.
It has certainly been an electrifying few weeks. I happened to be in the room with a group of Nobel economists in Lindau last month when German President Christian Wulff lashed out at Europe, accusing the ECB of violating its mandate and subverting the Lisbon Treaty.
"I regard the huge buy-up of bonds of individual states by the ECB as legally and politically questionable. Article 123 of the Treaty on the EU’s workings prohibits the ECB from directly purchasing debt instruments, in order to safeguard the central bank’s independence," he said. "This prohibition only makes sense if those responsible do not get around it by making substantial purchases on the secondary market," he said.
Mr Wulff said Germany itself risks being engulfed by escalating debts. Who will "rescue the rescuers?" as the dominoes keep falling, he asked. "Solidarity is the core of the European Idea, but it is a misunderstanding to measure solidarity in terms of willingness to act as guarantor or to incur shared debts. "With whom would you be willing to take out a joint loan, or stand as guarantor? For your own children? Hopefully yes. For more distant relations it gets a bit more difficult."
More distant relations?
"All I heard was Germany, Germany, Germany. There was nothing about Europe. It was astonishing," said Myron Scholes, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize. Indeed it was. Fellow laureate Joe Stiglitz said that if President Wulff’s views reflected the outlook of the German government, monetary union would have collapsed already.
Well yes. Quite.
Strikes hamper Greek rescue effort
by Kerin Hope, Michael Mackenzie and Robin Wigglesworth - FT
Wildcat strikes in Greece have prevented the country’s bureaucrats from finalising next year’s vital budget figures, potentially holding up this month’s release of sorely needed fiscal aid and capping an ignominious quarter for global markets.Despite a tentative improvement in sentiment over the past week, mounting fears over a potential Greek default and the tepid pace of the global economic recovery led to one of the worst three months on record for financial markets.
The S&P 500 was on Friday set for a drop of 5.7 per cent in September and a decline of 12.9 per cent over the third quarter, its worst performance since the final three months of 2008.
The FTSE All World index was also set for its worst decline since the three months following Lehman Brothers’ collapse in September 2008. It entered official bear market territory in September, shedding more than a fifth from its high in May. The FTSE 100 fell 13.7 per cent in the third quarter in its worst three-month performance since 2002.
Striking civil servants have blocked access to Greece’s statistical agency building in Athens since Tuesday, undermining efforts by Elstat, the statistics agency, to bring Greek figures in line with EU standards after years of fudging .The so-called troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF – are in Athens to inspect the budget figures before deciding whether to release the next €8bn ($10.9bn) tranche of its current bail-out loan.
"We will miss [Friday’s] deadline for sending final debt and deficit figures for 2010 to Eurostat, the Commission and the troika, because I and my team can’t get into the building," Andreas Georgiou, chairman of the Elstat statistics agency, told the Financial Times. "These detailed figures are urgently needed for the troika to recalibrate the draft budget, if required, before it goes to parliament on Monday."
Mr Georgiou, a former IMF official, was hired by the government last year with a brief to set up an independent statistical agency. He said members of the agency’s board have tried to undermine EU-mandated work practices. One former board member faces a criminal investigation for allegedly hacking into Mr Georgiou’s work computer.
Striking civil servants blockaded government ministries on Friday, including the headquarters of the finance, transport and health ministries, in order to prevent troika officials from collecting data needed for the current review.
Speaking after a meeting in Paris with George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said the Lehman collapse had plunged the world into economic crisis but Europe would not allow the same thing to happen. "The failure of Greece would be the failure of all Europe," Mr Sarkozy said. "It is not possible to let Greece fall for moral and economic reasons."
As the eurozone crisis gathered pace in the third quarter, the dollar rallied against all but two of the 31 largest currencies as investors fled riskier assets and piled into US treasuries and other havens. Emerging markets provided no succour. Fearing a rerun of the mayhem that followed the Lehman collapse, investors have withdrawn almost $6bn from emerging market bond and stock funds over the past week.
Hong Kong’s stock market suffered its biggest quarterly loss in a decade, and borrowing costs for emerging market governments and companies hit a one-year high on Monday.
Bankers and economists expect the last three months of the year to be bumpy as well, with much depending on the outcome of Greece’s sovereign debt negotiations. "It all boils down to what happens on the policy front," said Mark Bamford, head of global fixed income syndicate at Barclays Capital. "There are major issues still to be resolved on both sides of the Atlantic."
Greek Banks Face Nationalisation if Haircut Too Severe
by George Georgiopoulos - Reuters
Some of the biggest of Greece's debt-laden banks may be headed for nationalisation, particularly if debt restructuring becomes more aggressive and investors continue to dump their shares.
Hostage to about 40 billion euros (34 billion pounds) of toxic government debt on their books in the form of deeply discounted bonds, their fate is inextricably tied to the outcome of the crisis, which many analysts feel will end with a Greek default. Private creditors, including Greek banks, have agreed to take a 21 percent "haircut" -- a loss on the face value of the debt they hold -- as part of a second, 109 billion euro bailout deal agreed by Greece and its international lenders in July.
But a consensus is building among economists, politicians, and investors that without a bigger, 50 percent haircut, Greece will still stumble under its 350 billion euro debt load and lose its emergency funding. "The prospect of a larger haircut has got bigger. Certainly the CDS market sees a larger than 90 percent probability of such an event happening within 5 years," said analyst Niall O'Connor at Credit Suisse in London. "It is possible and could happen within a year, I would not rule it out."
On Tuesday, German and French government advisers joined the debate, arguing that Athens needs to halve its debt burden and calling for more support to recapitalise banks with large exposures to Greek bonds.
Greek media reported on Wednesday that the discussion over the size of bondholder losses has pushed more investors into agreeing to the 21 percent haircut in which they would swap bonds maturing up to 2020 with safer, longer-maturities.
Bankers have also suggested they would be open to another round of write offs later if the first amount is insufficient to stop a default that would trigger much deeper losses. If that speculation becomes reality, the impact on banks' equity base would be too big to repair in a depressed market and lenders would have to turn to a state Financial Stability Fund -- and nationalisation -- or collapse.
"The banks would (need to) be immediately recapitalised and obviously nationalised because the owners would not be able to supplement the capital gap," said Yannis Papantoniou, a former Greek finance minister and the architect of the Mediterranean state's entry into the euro. "So the state should come in."
Highly Dilutive
Battered by shrinking deposits and rising bad loans amid a deep and protracted recession, banks are deleveraging and cutting costs to shield their balance sheets and meet the 10 percent minimum core capital ratio demanded by the central bank.
The big five banks -- National Bank, Eurobank, Alpha, Piraeus and Hellenic Postbank have already taken a 4.3 billion euro hit on the debt swap plan that Athens wants to conclude next month. Greek bank shares have shed 64 percent year-to-date and 72 percent in the last 12 months. Once the Athens bourse's locomotives, they have sharply underperformed the broader market.
For the big five, the implosion in market value in the last 12 months was 10.7 billion euros, almost 5 percent of GDP, an amount that would only grow if banks turned to the FSF for funds. "The money to be raised would be multiples of their current market cap, rendering equity issues highly dilutive, vaporising shareholder ownership," said an Athens based analyst on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. "Given the size of the needed equity injections, the most likely outcome would be to turn to the FSF."
The FSF already has 10 billion euros to recapitalise and largely nationalise the Greek banking system. That amount should grow to 30 billion once euro zone parliaments ratify the EFSF safety net created to prevent the Greek crisis from spilling over into other countries like Spain or Italy and triggering a new global economic downturn.
Under the scheme, banks would issue common voting shares, which the FSF would buy, giving the state large equity stakes in the banks. It would buy the shares far below market prices so taxpayers stand a chance to make a capital gain when the economy returns to growth and the government can privatise the stakes.
Such a model would resemble the TARP plan executed by U.S. policymakers following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the nationalisation of two of Sweden's top banks in the early 1990s, long cited by economists as one of the most successful bank rescue operations in modern history.
But while in both of those cases governments managed to divest their shares and return their banking sectors to health, economists warn Greece has suffered a far deeper economic contraction, while the state has also proven a poor steward of sectors that traditionally thrive under private ownership. "This of course would be a negative thing, because state-owned banks in a country like Greece would be a disaster in terms of management, financing, and everything else," Papantoniou said.
An obvious parallel is Ireland. After a series of bailouts, two of the six domestic banks were closed and the government forced mergers and balance sheet cuts, leaving two banks virtually state-owned and only Bank of Ireland in majority private hands.
Core Capital Hit
Greek banks have been losing deposits since the debt crisis erupted in the start of 2010 due to outflows and recession-driven cash burn. Business and household balances had shrunk by 50.3 billion euros, or 21.2 percent, to 187 billion by July. If Greek banks were to take a 50 percent haircut on 40 billion euros of government paper, it would mean an after-tax writedown of about 16 billion euros.
Subtracting this writedown from an aggregate Core Tier 1 capital -- a measure of banks' financial strength -- of about 24 billion for the big five banks would leave them with just 8 billion euros in equity. Analysts say that, measured against 200 billion of risk weighted assets, the remaining equity would translate to a capital ratio of just 4 percent, far below the 10 percent minimum required by the central bank.
To claw their way back to the minimum ratio, banks would need to raise at least 12 billion euros when the combined market capitalisation for the big five is only 4.3 billion euros, a near impossible prospect in such a troubled market. While in theory some banks could generate capital through deleveraging and asset disposals, analysts say this would be a long shot given the time pressure to restore their financial strength and reassure depositors.
While underwriting rights issues would be a tough call, finding a deep-pocketed willing investor cannot be entirely ruled out. Alpha and Eurobank unveiled a merger deal in August that included a capital injection by Alpha's Qatari shareholder Paramount, which will pump in half a billion euros through a convertible bond issue.
But analysts said the prospect of buyouts from foreign peers looks dim as long as sovereign debt default fears persist. Potential investors looking for cheap prey would probably wait until Greece's economy stabilises and cherry pick from the FSF, which will be looking to divest stakes in two years' time.
"It is highly unlikely that a foreign bank would come in and inject capital in a Greek bank as long as the risk of default is so alive," said Deutsche Bank analyst Dimitris Giannoulis. "The FSF remains the only option for banks," he said.
Troika report key to rethinking Greek haircut: officials
by Jan Strupczewski - Reuters
The next international inspectors' report on Greece's progress toward its fiscal targets will play a crucial part in any re-examination of private sector involvement in the second bailout package for Athens, euro zone officials said.
The report from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission -- the 'Troika' of lenders -- could be ready in 2-3 weeks. It will show if Greece met conditions for the next 8 billion euro tranche of aid under the existing loan plan, without which it will default next month.
Officials said that if Greek growth forecasts in the report were revised down, Greek revenue projections would be cut too. As a result, Greek financing needs would be bigger than foreseen on July 21, when EU leaders agreed on a 109 billion euros new bailout framework from public funds, on top of a private creditor contribution via a bond exchange which would inflict 21 percent losses.
"The framework conditions might have changed since the last review was done and the Greek growth forecast also," one euro zone official said. "When we put all of that together we have to see what kind of conclusions will be drawn."
Officials said if faced with higher financing needs, euro zone governments would be unlikely to agree to shoulder the extra burden alone and could ask private Greek bond holders to contribute more than the already agreed 21 percent haircut. "This is a discussion that is taking place," a second euro zone official said.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos was reported last Friday as telling lawmakers he saw three scenarios to resolve the debt crisis, including one involving an orderly default with a 50 percent haircut for bond holders.
"Nobody knows how much bigger the involvement could be. It could come much closer to the market rate possibly. There has been talk about 50 percent, but that does not mean anything," the second official said. "The issue is whether the current approach leads to a viable solution or not. Currently there is no definite view on that -- it is for the Commission, IMF and ECB to say whether it is possible or not possible," the official said.
Slower Greek Growth, Bigger Financing Needs
The "troika" inspectors forecast in early June that the Greek economy would contract 3.8 percent in 2011 but grow 0.6 percent in 2012 and 2.1 percent in 2013. But Venizelos told the Greek parliament on September 15 that Greece would remain in recession for a fourth year in 2012.
"If the troika says that Greece will not return to growth until 2013 or 2014, the assumptions of the second bailout from July will have changed," a third euro zone source said. "The additional funding needs can either be shouldered by the governments, which is politically very difficult, or shared with the private sector," the official said. The publication of the "Troika" report is likely to coincide with the completion of the ratification process of new operational powers for the euro zone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
Once Slovakia approves it, something it has pledged to do before October 17, the 440 billion euro EFSF will be able to extend precautionary credit to governments under market pressure like Spain or Italy, buy their bonds on the market and lend to governments to recapitalize banks. With such instruments in place, the euro zone would be better equipped to handle potential contagion effects from a Greek technical default, to which a renegotiation of the private sector haircut would amount, officials said.
"The deeper haircut is a rating or credit event that would be selective default or default by the rating agencies," a fourth euro zone official said. "The July 21 agreement was carefully crafted to limit to the extent possible the potential duration of a ratings downgrade -- anything that goes beyond that entails different consequences in terms of a downgrade, but it does not mean that Greece will not pay its bills anymore," the official said.
No Big Decisions Before Late October
The last Troika report from June said "debt restructuring in Greece would have a severe contagion impact on other EU sovereigns."
The report said that countries with high, but not obviously excessive, debt levels could face a significant increase in risk perceptions by creditors, which could "tip the balance into illiquidity, even without a change in the underlying fiscal position of the countries concerned."
But officials said that since June the atmosphere has changed and many politicians were now openly talking about the possibility of a Greek default, previously taboo. "The benefits of the voluntary private sector involvement deal can be questioned when you look at the final figures -- if it makes sense from the governments' point of view," a fifth official said.
"Greece will get the sixth tranche of aid because nobody wants Greece to default in two weeks," the official said. "But then we might be in for some reopening of issues that were settled already in the summer, in October and possibly also in November," the official said.
"I don't have any high expectations for any of the upcoming meetings, not the Eurogroup on October3, not the Eurogroup on October 13 and the European Council on the 17th. I think the crunch time will be in end-October and November," the official said.
German bailout vote is 'too little, too late'
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph
Germany's Bundestag has voted overwhelmingly to boost the scope of the EU's rescue fund but implicitly capped its firepower at €440bn, leaving it no clearer whether Europe has the means to halt debt contagion to Italy and Spain.
Chancellor Angela Merkel won her "own majority" for the bill, narrowly averting the collapse of her government, but only after pledging that there was no grand plan committing Germany to vast and unlimited liabilities.
Horst Seehofer, leader of Bavaria's Social Christians CSU, said his party would go "this far, and no further", insisting any expansion of the rescue machinery was out of the question. "The financial markets are beginning to ask whether Germans can afford all this help. We must not risk the creditworthiness of the German state," he said.
Norbert Lammert, the Bundestag's president, said lawmakers felt they had been "bounced" into backing far-reaching demands and warned that Germany's legislature would not give up its fiscal sovereignty to any EU body.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said reports of a secret plot to boost the guarantees of the fund (EFSF) were scurrilous. "It will not be raised. There can be no debate about this. These suspicions are indecent," he said, acknowledging only that the money will deployed as "efficiently as possible".
Officials in Berlin say Mr Schäuble has been careful not to rule out use of leverage. The finance ministry has no specific plan to lever the fund but is aware of six or seven options "floating about" – pushed by France and Brussels – that might offer a solution.
One variant would be to guarantee a 20pc slice of debt in countries needing help. This would allow the fund to lever up to €2 trillion, the tradeable public debt of Italy and Spain. This resembles the structure of US subprime debt securities. It could go horribly wrong if the crisis deepens.
Italy struggled to roll over debt on Thursday, paying 4.68pc for €3.1bn of three-year debt, up 81 basis points from last month. Rome announced plans to sell €30bn of state assets, mostly property. It may include €10bn of CO2 emission rights – a form of debt reshuffling to gain time.
Silvio Peruzzi from RBS said the rescue fund is too small to stabilize the eurozone, leaving the European Central Bank (ECB) with the unwelcome task of propping up the system "There is no choice. The ECB will have to keep buying bonds, moving ever closer to debt monetisation. If this firewall is removed, contagion will accelerate dramatically," he said. "We think the eurozone is falling into recession and this is a big risk. It will call into question the budget consolidations of Italy, Spain and even France."
The EU's index of economic sentiment fell sharply in September, following a collapse in August. Howard Archer from IHS Global Insight said the falls match declines after the Lehman crisis in late 2008. "It is clearly very worrying," he said. French president Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the vote as an "important step", calling on others to ratify the measures quickly. Slovakia will be last in mid-October.
Yet the package merely enacts the EU summit deal agreed in July, which empowers the EFSF to buy bonds pre-emptively and recapitalise banks. The landscape has changed radically since then as the global downturn plays havoc with debt trajectories.
The bond crisis spread to EMU's "soft core" in August, pushing Spanish and Italian 10-year yields above the danger level of 6pc. The ECB stepped into the breach and has been buying their debt ever since to stop the crisis spiralling out of control, despite bitter protests from the Bundesbank. This is politically untenable over time. Yet the revamped EFSF is not up the task either. "The EFSF in its current guise is too little, too late," said Suki Mann from Societe Generale.
China is unlikely to come to the rescue. Jin Liqun, head of China Investment Corporation, told an Economist forum that Beijing is worried about the "unravelling of the situation" in Europe. "China cannot be expected to buy into high risk in the eurozone without a clear picture of debt workouts. Sorry if I have ruffled feathers," he said.
Stefan Homburg, head of Germany's Institute for Public Finance, said the EMU crisis had already gone beyond the point of no return. "The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable. The Chancellor should have no illusions about this," he said. "The eurozone's leaders and the ECB have breached all the stability rules, the debt ceiling, and the ban on bond purchases. This isn't the rule of law, it's the rule of the jungle," he said.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has approved an additional $675m under a standby arrangement for Romania. The IMF said Romanian authorities "have indicated that they will continue treating the arrangement as precautionary and therefore do not intend to draw under it".
France is in denial as fragile banks add to economic woes
by Angelique Chrisafis - Guardian
The second biggest economy in the eurozone is grappling with public debt, stalled growth and high unemployment
In her small fashion boutique in a village near Saint-Étienne, Valérie Dongrazi was feeling the pressure of French banking jitters and the economic rut.
The 44-year-old shopowner has not paid herself a salary for more than a year. When she did, it was €1,300 (£1,130) a month. She's had to start buying cheaper foreign stock as clients in her village in south-eastern France who once paid €270 for a good winter coat, can now afford just €150. To stay on top of overheads, she relies on going to her bank to increase costly overdrafts or ask for loans.
But with a big question mark over French banks' stability, shares in the biggest banks plummeting and talk of a state bailout, the lifeline of bank credit to businesses like Dongrazi's is drying up. French banks are nervous about lending money, companies are struggling and consumer confidence has fallen to the lowest level since February 2009, when France was suffering its worst recession since the second world war. "There's a mood of fear; people are not buying for pleasure, barely for necessity. I'm not optimistic," she said.
Rumours about the fragility of French banks and their ability to cope with losses from Greek debt has thrown a spotlight on the wider woes of the economy and its slippery hold on its triple-A rating. The shares of France's biggest banks have lost half of their value in just three months. In any other country, this might signal panic on the streets, but France believes it is battling bigger economic problems: spiralling public debt, stagnant growth, low business morale and high unemployment.
French banks continue to insist they do not need a state bailout and can withstand losses. Although big international firms have begun moving funds out of Paris banks, households are not rushing to withdraw savings. A Northern Rock-style bank run would be unlikely in France, where savings have high state protection. As one economist said, there is a notion that the state will "always step in" as protector. There is little chance of a major French bank going under because it has been made clear that the government could, within minutes, take the decision to recapitalise.
But the banking wobble has highlighted serious wider problems in the sluggish economy. Just as the omnipresent state offers a safety net for the banks, business lobbies say its suffocating grip on the country's financial workings are more of a problem than ever.
France didn't fall quite as low as Britain or Ireland in 2008 but – famous for red tape, regulation and high labour costs – it is still struggling to bounce back. The eurozone's second biggest economy failed to grow at all in the second quarter as consumer spending nosedived. "I think the seriousness of the banks' situation was exaggerated," said Marc Touati, economist at Paris-based Assya. "The real problem is growth. Unfortunately, a recession is approaching."
He sees the risk of a slowdown that could last into 2012. With no growth, there would be higher unemployment and more public debt. Failure to rein in France's public deficit – one of Europe's highest – could threaten credibility abroad and social cohesion at home. "In France, even more than elsewhere, all this depends too much on politics and political decisions," he added.
With seven months until a presidential election, the role of politicians is crucial. The priority is to plug the hole in state coffers created by decades of the state living beyond its means. France has a vast social security deficit, as well as big holes in local authority and central government finances. The country hasn't balanced a budget since 1974.
Sarkozy, desperate not to be the president that loses France its triple A rating, has published belt-tightening budget proposals for 2012, to raise taxes. The government wants to stick to its target to cut the deficit to 3% of GDP in 2013. But, though it has cut its growth predictions to 1.75% for 2011 and 2012, economists fear growth will not be strong enough to generate the tax revenues the government is counting on.
Some politicians privately acknowledge that taking measures severe enough to correct the public deficit would mean "blood and tears" for the French. But few political figures on any side are prepared to announce such drastic measures while they are busy trying to get elected. Economists believe the government is merely trying to steady the ship, the country will have to wait until June 2012, after the presidential election, for a concrete economic action plan.
"What's the economic strategy for the next decade? I don't think anyone has a clue," said Alexander Law, chief economist at Xerfi. "There is an idea France will have to start copying Germany, be slightly less generous to households and more accommodating fiscally to companies. That hasn't seeped through into the political echelons; the 2012 budget is taxing everyone a bit more.
France's fiscal structure favours household consumption as opposed to investment. "Tax will move from companies towards consumers – people know that's going to happen, but they don't know when and how, or how unpopular it's going to be – ranging from very unpopular to horrendously unpopular," he said.
Jean-Guilhem Darré, of the SDI union for businesses with fewer than 20 staff, said the next six months would be hard. "We're not yet in the same state as in 2008, but we see the elements returning to have the same type of crisis as 2008."
Pierre Coinaud, who represents business leaders in the old industrial heartlands of the the central Limousin region and runs an office supplies firm with 80 employees, blames the overweening state. "State rules and regulations are so rigid it's difficult for firms to react quickly or adapt to economic realities," he said. "France's problem is that we don't export enough, we live in an internal market, kept afloat and helped along by the state. Now the state needs to tighten its belt and that will have an effect on the market. French businesses need more freedom, more air to breathe."
Sarkozy pledges to fast-track eurozone rescue as slump fears grow
by David Gow - Guardian.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy is to hold urgent talks in Germany with chancellor Angela Merkel on speeding up the rescue plan for the euro.
Sarkozy said on Friday the talks would take place within days as uncertainty about the eurozone's stability and worries about deepening recession returned to European markets. Declaring after talks with Greek premier George Papandreou that "a failure of Greece would be a failure for all of Europe", the French president praised Athens for its determination to meet its commitments and said: "There can be no question of dropping Greece."
His comments came as European leaders turned up the heat on Slovakia to approve the enhanced eurozone rescue fund amid growing fears it could yet scupper the scheme. Only a day after huge relief at Germany's decision to endorse the expanded bailout fund, anxiety stalked markets and the corridors of power as eurozone inflation rose to a three-year high of 3%, shares in French banks plunged as much as 10% and Denmark's central bank offered 400bn krone (£46bn) in emergency liquidity for the country's banks.
There was renewed talk of a Greek debt default and larger "haircuts" for private bondholders as Papandreou sought backing for a further €8bn (£6.8bn) lifeline to save his country's treasury from bankruptcy.
Sarkozy said: "There is a moral and economic obligation of solidarity with Greece." Papandreou in turn told reporters that his nation was making all the required sacrifices and reforms. "I wish to make it perfectly clear that Greece, I myself, our government, the Greek people, are determined to make the necessary changes."
Yet conflict sprang up anew over plans to set up an even bigger rescue fund for the eurozone, with leading European bankers demanding an outline agreement on a new scheme by the time G20 finance ministers meet in mid-October.
Austria brought some solace, becoming the 14th eurozone member to endorse enhanced powers for the €440bn European Financial Stability Facility when its parliament voted 117 to 53 to raise their country's contribution to €21.6bn. After the Bundestag voted overwhelmingly in favour on Thursday, Germany's second chamber, the Bundesrat, followed suit – leaving only Malta (next week), the Netherlands (on 6 October) and Slovakia to vote.
The first two are expected to endorse the enhanced EFSF even though the Dutch minority government will have to rely heavily on the opposition for support. But the coalition government of Slovakian premier Iveta Radicova – who has held private talks with Merkel on the issue – has been seeking concessions from its eurozone partners. One of the four parties in the coalition, the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, is, according to varying reports, either digging in its heels, refusing to endorse the expanded EFSF, or moving closer to a compromise.
Opposition support is said to be uncertain. Radicova wants to secure the Slovak parliament's endorsement before she attends the next EU summit on 17 October, but her requests for concessions to help her win that backing have been rejected so far.
In Brussels, aides to Olli Rehn, the economic and monetary affairs commissioner, ruled out any changes to the 21 July package to enhance the EFSF. Asked by Slovak reporters if there was a Plan B, as Radicova could not deliver, they said: "There's no Plan B as Plan A was unanimously approved by all the 17 leaders in July as the vital tool to ensure financial stability in the euro area."
Reuters reported from Bratislava, the Slovak capital, that Maros Sefcovic, a European commissioner, had said: "I cannot imagine renegotiation of [EFSF] documents and agreements beyond what they agreed … after so many countries, including Germany, approved it."
A Slovak no vote might force eurozone leaders to conclude a new deal without Bratislava, or they could take on the country's €3.5bn contribution to the enhanced EFSF guarantees of €780bn and share it out among themselves. Alternatively, they could agree to shave those guarantees by a small amount. The uncertainty spilled over into markets worried that the surge in eurozone inflation to 3% could stop the European Central Bank cutting interest rates when it meets in Berlin next week.
The ECB meeting, the last of his eight-year term for its president, Jean-Claude Trichet, is expected to reverse the two rate increases it imposed this year, amid widespread criticism that its erroneous judgment had simply deepened the prospects of renewed recession. The bank is now thought more likely to continue to offer more liquidity to eurozone banks, which are terrified by the merest hint of a Greek default.
As German coalition ministers continued to fall out over "leveraging up" the EFSF, it was being said in banking circles that the key response would be to get the ECB to endorse proposals to turn the facility into an insurance scheme for providing first-loss guarantees. Wilbur Ross, the private equity billionaire, told Bloomberg TV: "I not convinced that this bailout package is going to be remotely enough … I think it should start with a T [for trillion], not a B [for billion]."
Bank of America debit card fee plan met with resistance and anger
by Joe Rauch - Reuters
Wells Fargo and Chase also considering $5-per-month fee, which US senator Richard Durbin calls 'overt and unfair'
Bank of America plans to charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases a $5 monthly fee beginning early next year, joining other banks scrambling for new sources of revenue. US banks have been looking for ways to increase revenue as regulations introduced since the financial crisis limited the use of overdraft and other fees.
The Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin amendment, due to go into effect on 1 October, caps fees banks can charge merchants for processing debit card transactions at 21¢ per transaction from an average of 44¢, potentially costing banks billions of dollars. Banks also face broader operational challenges as low interest rates and higher capital requirements hit profitability, and the sluggish economy depresses loan demand.
Other large US banks including Wells Fargo, Chase and SunTrust are testing or planning monthly debit card fees. "The economics of offering a debit card have changed," Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace said on Thursday. Bank of America is the largest US bank by assets.
Senator Richard Durbin, the architect of debit card interchange fee reform, bashed the proposed monthly fee. "Bank of America is trying to find new ways to pad their profits by sticking it to its customers," he said in a statement. "It's overt, unfair, and I hope their customers have the final say."
Even before introduction of the Durbin amendment's rules on debit fees, Bank of America's fee income was dropping at its deposits and card services units. The bank's deposits unit reported fee income of $1bn in the second quarter of 2011, down 34% from $1.5bn a year before. Card services, which includes the bank's credit and debit card operations, reported fee income of $1.9bn, down 23% from $2.5bn in second quarter 2010.
"This might be a fee too far," said Ed Mierzwinski, director of the consumer program for the US PIRG, a federation of state public interest research groups. Mierzwinski said such fees could push customers to smaller banks that have not introduced checking and debit-related fees.
Pace said customers expect certain features for their accounts, like overdraft and fraud protection, and the fee would offset some of those costs. The fee will be waived for the bank's premium or platinum privileges accounts tied to its Merrill Lynch brokerage. It will also not be charged for using the card to access the bank's ATMs, Pace said. She declined to say how much the bank expects to earn through these fees or how many customers would be affected.
Some banks have pushed back against debit fees. Citigroup said earlier this month that it would not impose debit card usage fees as part of a broader account restructuring. The head of banking products for Citi's US consumer bank said customers had told the bank that a debit card fee would be "a huge source of irritation."
BofA, Wells Fargo, Citigroup Left TARP Early To Avoid Restrictions On Executive Pay, Report Finds
by Alexander Eichler - Huffington Post
In the wake of the financial crisis, a number of the nation's largest banks were excused from the government's rescue program before they had returned to a position of complete financial security -- in part because they wanted to avoid restrictions on how much their executives would get paid, according to a new report from the program's government overseer.
Citigroup, Wells Fargo, PNC and Bank of America successfully lobbied to leave the federal bailout program early in 2009, even though the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had recommended they take additional steps to shore up their assets, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Relief Asset Program, a government watchdog office.
Regulators, including the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board, eventually "relaxed" their criteria for letting the banks out of the program, the report says, leaving questions about whether the banks had strengthened their holdings enough to be able to withstand another systemic crisis.
"Ultimately, the federal banking regulators ended up bowing to pressure" to let the banks leave early, said Christy Romero, Acting Special Inspector General for TARP and the author of the report. Romero added that in the event of another shock, many banks could be left with too little capital to endure, raising the possibility that "it could potentially trigger and avalanche of severe consequences to the broader economy."
SIGTARP's findings do little to change widespread impressions that the government's Wall Street rescue handed out billions of dollars in taxpayer funds without extracting lasting change in return, with many institutions able to continue operating much as they had before the crisis.
The new report shows how several major banks were allowed to exit the program by paying back their government loans even before they had returned to full health. According to SIGTARP, in 2009, these four banks repeatedly tried to leave the bailout program, also known as TARP, ahead of schedule, claiming that the stigma attached to the bailout would damage investor confidence in their stability.
Bank of America was especially persistent, submitting 11 separate exit proposals to the Federal Reserve Board in less than a month. The banks, particularly Citigroup and Bank of America, also expressed concern that if they stayed in TARP, they would be subject to the program's restrictions on executive compensation.
Romero told The Huffington Post that the matter of executive payment was "a recurring theme" throughout the banks' requests to exit the program. Once it was clear that these banks wanted to leave TARP sooner rather than later, the Federal Reserve undertook stress tests to determine how much capital the banks would need to have on hand in the event of another emergency, and issued recommendations for how the banks could raise the money.
However, each of the banks ended up negotiating different terms for their exits, and between December 2009 and February 2010, all four banks were allowed to repay their bailout funds and leave TARP, even though doubts remained about whether they'd taken sufficient steps to secure a big enough safety cushion of capital. In the end, the process by which these banks exited TARP was "ad hoc and inconsistent," the report says.
As a result of this lenience, Romero told The Huffington Post, the financial system is still carrying considerable systemic risk from huge, interconnected banks, well after the meltdown of 2008. "The institutions that were 'too big to fail' ... are bigger than they were before," said Romero. "It's very critical that regulators remain vigilant to banks' demands to relax capital requirements."
California Pulls Out of Foreclosure Talks
by Ruth Simon and Nick Timiraos - Wall Street Journal
Move Is Serious Blow to Federal and State Effort to Reach $25 Billion Deal With Banks Over Questionable Practices
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris pulled out of settlement negotiations with the nation's biggest banks over alleged foreclosure abuses, calling the proposed deal "inadequate for California homeowners." The decision by Ms. Harris delivers a serious blow to efforts by the Obama administration and 50 state attorneys general to forge a $25 billion settlement with the nation's largest banks over "robo-signing" and other questionable foreclosure practices.
Her actions follow the withdrawal of New York from the talks. Without the participation of California and New York in the negotiations, banks will be far less likely to agree to the multibillion dollar settlement that federal and state officials have spent months pursuing.
California remained a critical constituent for any deal because it has more borrowers who are underwater, or owe more than their homes are worth, than any other state. California also has more borrowers that are behind on their mortgages or in foreclosure than any other state but Florida.
The move by Ms. Harris, who took office in January, comes after 11 months of often-frustrating negotiations between big banks such as Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. Representatives for the three banks declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Ally Financial Inc., the fifth-largest mortgage servicer and parent of GMAC Mortgage, called the decision "disappointing for borrowers in California" who are in financial distress.
One key point of contention has been the extent to which banks should be released from additional legal claims involving the mortgage crisis in exchange for signing onto the foreclosure settlement. In recent months, other states, including Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada, Minnesota and Kentucky, have also expressed concerns over the scope of any settlement. Some states and critics of the banks argue that officials haven't done a thorough investigation of other potential improprieties.
In a letter sent Friday to Associate U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perrelli and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who have been leading the negotiations, Ms. Harris said her decision to break off from the group was driven in part by those two key concerns. "It became clear to me that California was being asked for a broader release of claims than we can accept and to excuse conduct that has not been adequately investigated," she said.
She added that "the relief contemplated would allow too few California homeowners to stay in their homes." Ms. Harris also cited a recent "troubling surge in foreclosures," which had plummeted in the wake of the robo-signing scandal. In a statement, Mr. Miller called California "an important part of our team" but said that the states "fully expect to reach a settlement with the banks." A Justice Department spokeswoman said that discussions would continue "to ensure that the banks are held fully accountable for their actions."
The split highlights a broader disagreement between some government officials involved in the negotiations. The Obama administration has argued that a settlement could help provide immediate benefits to borrowers, while creating certainty for the housing market. "We are 100% focused on providing relief to homeowners while it can still make a difference and save homes from foreclosure," said Mr. Miller. "Providing relief after the foreclosure crisis is over would be a hollow victory indeed."
Friday's decision by California wasn't completely unexpected. As the talks have dragged on, political pressures have mounted, with both sides expressing unhappiness with any deal. Conservatives denounced the settlement as a "shakedown" of banks, while labor unions and liberal political groups warned of a bank giveaway.
Ms. Harris and other Democratic state attorneys general have faced intense lobbying from different factions, including critics who want the states to hold out for a bigger deal and the Obama administration, which has shepherded the deal. A spokesman for Ms. Harris said the attorney general made her decision based on "the evidence and the merits of the deal, not other considerations."
The loss of California dims the Obama administration's push to force banks to write down loan balances as part of any settlement. Even if the remaining states and federal agencies reach a deal, it is likely to cover far fewer borrowers as the price tag drops. The settlement talks were prompted by so-called robo-signing, where bank employees signed off on hundreds of loans a day and falsely claimed they had personally reviewed documents to give the bank the right to foreclose.
The mess deepened as judges raised questions about how banks documented their ownership of loans and whether financial firms fabricated other paperwork. Regulators have found what they said are widespread weaknesses in mortgage-servicing operations. Over the past year, banks have sharply slowed down foreclosures. Foreclosure delays have been most pronounced in "judicial" states where banks must foreclose on borrowers by going before a court. California allows foreclosures through a non-judicial process.
Regulators and banks say they have uncovered very few cases where borrowers entered foreclosure without missing payments. But the crisis has exposed numerous cases where banks couldn't prove they had the right to take back homes or where borrowers believed they were receiving loan modifications, only to lose their home. The unraveling of any settlement also raises the prospect that banks will face separate legal action from a handful of state attorneys general.
Ms. Harris traveled to Washington last week for a meeting with banks and state negotiators in an effort to resolve her concerns. She said that her office will continue to investigate questionable mortgage practices and will push for additional legislative and regulatory reforms. This year, she announced the creation of a "mortgage fraud strike force" to study all stages of mortgage lending, from origination to the servicing of troubled loans to the packaging of loans into securities.
China ruffles Europe's feathers
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph
I have just come from The Economist’s forum on High Growth Markets (ie BRICS +) at The Connaught. For those still expecting China to rescue Europe – a region with a per capita income nine times as high, with debts to match – the head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund could hardly have been clearer.
"We in China are concerned about the unravelling of the situation in the region," Jin Liqun, chairman of China Investment Corporation – which has $300bn to play with. "China cannot be expected to buy into high risk in eurozone without a clear picture of debt work-out programmes." "Sorry if I have ruffled feathers," he said, not looking remotely sorry.
"Over time, economies in the EU will be out of woods. We’re optimistic for the outlook," he allowed. However, nothing can be achieve unless EMU states secure the popular consent of their citizens for austerity policies.
Mr Jin, a graduate of Boston University, said there are two big risks in China that "have to be taken seriously":
- The $1.7 trillion debts of the local government finance vehicles. Half of this is concentrated along the Eastern seaboard in the so-called G7 provinces. Roughly 10pc of the debt is bad. However, most of the credit went into infrastructure projects that will generate money.
- The real estate "bubble" , as he called it. This can be managed provided there is no further build-up in debt leverage. First time buyers must put down 60pc in equity, mitigating excess. The wild extremes so widely reported in the media are an "insignificant part of the market".
- Risk three is of a different kind. China is "quickly losing competitiveness" as labour costs shoot up. The surrounding countries in Asia are starting to eat China’s lunch. The only option for China is to move up the technology ladder. Just thought I would pass it along.
**
Now on to Germany where Angela Merkel has just secured an "own majority" from her coalition for the revamped bail-out fund (EFSF), and saved her career.
All we need next is a fresh vote to boost the fund from €440bn to €2 trillion, the sum needed to prevent contagion to Italy and Spain. Today's vote solves nothing.
Denmark gives banks $72.6 billion lifeline
by Clare MacCarthy - FT
Denmark’s central bank on Friday threw a lifeline to the country’s myriad small struggling banks and businesses saying it would provide as much as DKr400bn ($72.6bn) in emergency liquidity.
"The expansion of credit facilities is intended to supplement the banks’ access to raise loans, thereby easing the transition to a situation without government guarantees when these guarantees expire in 2012 and 2013," said Nils Bernstein, governor of the central bank.
In essence, Nationalbanken’s move extends a fresh line of credit to small banks that could have faced bankruptcy with the expiry next year and in 2013 of earlier emergency measures.
In a significant departure from the existing benchmark on acceptable collateral, the central bank will expand the collateral basis from government and mortgage bonds to include the banks’ own credit claims.
Such claims, the central bank said, must be "simple loans and agreed overdrafts in kroner or euro". Implicated debtors must be non-financial corporations, public authorities or households, it added. An additional requirement is that debtors whose borrowings are used as collateral must be legally resident in Denmark.
Despite the central bank’s assurances that this new collateral class would be subject to rigorous audit and inspections, local market pundits sounded a cautious note. "The use of the banks’ own loans introduces an element of uncertainty because it will be up to the banks themselves to judge which loans are sound," said Jacob Graven, chief analyst at Denmark’s Sydbank. "But on balance this is probably a good step at the right moment. Not taking action could have had very severe consequences," he added.
The central bank’s move was applauded by bodies representing small enterprises and farmers who have been struggling with a liquidity squeeze caused by a harsh borrowing environment for provincial Danish banks. The credit noose tightened this year after two small banks failed and senior creditors suffered losses. The implicit risk of further failures made markets reluctant to provide funds to peripheral Danish banks.
The central bank’s new six-month credit facility will run parallel to its existing seven-day facility, and will track the benchmark lending rate which is at 1.55 per cent. While such a low interest rate would be attractive to distressed banks, local pundits said on Friday that larger and healthier banks would be unlikely to take advantage of the facility as they could borrow elsewhere.
Italy looks to historic property for funds
by Guy Dinmore - FT
A chapter in the rich shipping history of Venice is drawing to a close as the state puts a "for sale" notice on a grand, neo-gothic palace overlooking the Giudecca canal. The four-storey Palazzo Molin, founded in the 16th century and complete with its own gardens, threw open its doors on Friday to prospective buyers for the offices of a state-owned shipping company that is to be sold off, Murano chandeliers and all.
Market conditions for the auction are far from ideal, but the sale is being closely watched as Silvio Berlusconi’s government considers radical steps to slash Italy’s debt mountain of more than €1,900bn. Even if Palazzo Molin manages to bring in €10m to €15m, the sum is still a drop in the lagoon for the debt-strapped country.
Launching their "Manifesto to Save Italy" on Friday, an alliance of private industry, banks and insurers presented the government in Rome with a list of reform proposals which included "massive disinvestment in the still huge real estate wealth" of the state.
Rather than selling property outright, Giulio Tremonti, finance minister, has proposed that investors back a state property "fund of funds", managed by the Treasury with oversight from the Bank of Italy, that would seek long-term income from sales, leases and concessions.
An official tally of centrally and locally owned government real estate has estimated their value at €425bn, of which €25bn to €30bn have been identified as possible candidates for the fund, with January 2012 set as a potential launch date. Individual properties were not identified.
Fund managers, however, said they saw in the proposal a government struggling to regain the credibility it has lost on debt and equity markets over the past three months. Corruption scandals and internal divisions cast doubt over whether Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition can struggle on long enough to implement the reforms it has been promising for years but failed to deliver.
On the canal-side beneath the Palazzo Molin, the autumn sunshine is warming the marble of the impressive façade, added in the 18th century, as prospective buyers and their agents enter for the sales presentation. "Palazzo Molin is prestigious, historic and presents an unusual opportunity," says Vincenzo Pellegrini, head of Numerica SGR, a property fund specialising in northern Italy and which is not planning to bid.
Unlike previous failed attempts to sell off historic properties, such as a former army barracks in central Bologna, Palazzo Molin comes with no binding conditions. As long as the façade and gardens are preserved, a future owner is free to convert its 3,100 square metres into a hotel, divide the building into apartments or keep it as one grand residence.
Right outside a quay on the Giudecca canal, a main shipping lane, can take a superyacht – Hollywood star Angelina Jolie is said to have moored her vessel there recently. The palace also backs on to the narrow Rio Ognissanti canal with its own spot for a more modest vessel.
Originally part of the Adriatica shipping company, set up by the Fascist regime in 1937 as a demonstration of Italy’s maritime prowess, the palace served as a setting off point for cargo, postal and passenger ships heading to Cyprus, Egypt and other points across the Mediterranean. Up until 1974 the ground floor was still used as check-in and waiting room, next door to the offices of the Venice port captain and the French consulate.
Its future owner will savour the history alluded to in the architecture of the palace. Of more immediate significance for Silvio Berlusconi’s government is the signal the sale will send to a country hunting for revenue with which to placate the markets.
New Zealand’s credit rating downgraded by 2 of 3 major ratings agencies
by AP
New Zealand’s credit rating has been downgraded by two of the three major ratings agencies amid increased global concern over high debt burdens in developed nations. Fitch and Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded New Zealand from an AA+ rating to AA.
In the past, New Zealand has enjoyed strong sovereign credit ratings due to relatively low levels of government borrowing that offset worries about the country’s high private debt. But the ratings agencies have become less sanguine after an earthquake and weak economic growth strained the government’s finances.
The agencies are taking a harder line on any form of debt in the wake of the global financial crisis. Countries such as Ireland, which was forced to bail out banks after the global recession, have demonstrated how private debt can easily become a problem for the government.
The downgrade weighed on the New Zealand dollar. It was trading late Friday at $0.7639, down from $0.77 the previous day. It was worth as much as $0.88 two months ago. In its review, Fitch said New Zealand’s high level of external debt is "an outlier" among comparable developed nations, a situation which is likely to continue given that the current account deficit is projected to increase. A current account deficit typically shows that a country is spending more than it earns and relying on borrowing to make up the gap.
Standard & Poor’s cited increased spending by the government following February’s earthquake that killed 181 people and devastated the center of Christchurch, New Zealand’s second biggest city. According to S&P, negative factors include the country’s high levels of household and agricultural debt, its reliance on commodities for income, and an aging population. "Rising savings will be an important component for keeping the country’s current account deficit in check," said S&P analyst Kyran Curry.
New Zealand has a poor track record of personal savings, something that recent governments have attempted to address with a voluntary retirement contribution scheme called KiwiSaver. The latest downgrade will likely increase pressure on the government to make the scheme compulsory.
New Zealand’s finance minister Bill English defended the country’s economic performance. In a statement, he said the government has been attempting to reduce foreign debt, which remains the country’s "biggest economic vulnerability." "New Zealand’s private savings have started to increase and as a result we have started to reduce our total external debt," English said. "But it still remains high."
International liabilities have decreased from 86 percent of GDP two years ago to 70 percent of GDP in the year ending June, according to English. In its review, Fitch pointed to some positive features of the New Zealand economy, which it listed as moderate public debt, fiscal prudence, and strong public institutions. New Zealand remains rated AAA by the third major rating agency, Moody’s.
78 comments:
comments open for a couple of hours
And, right in line; a fairly surprising story for the Wall Street Journal:
http://tinyurl.com/3plsxbf
"Now is not the time to let yourself be suckered into getting back into stocks.
"Sure, the markets had a couple of spectacular days last week, but don't let that fool you into thinking all is well again with the world.
"It's not."
Hard to remember such a broad and firm suggestion that "this is a bad time to buy stocks" - ever- in the WSJ.
http://tinyurl.com/4x3a66a
now we see how it begins...
Ogardener,
Sory for the bad link. Here is a good link to the website of the Community Exchange System.
The Community Exchange System (CES) is a community-based exchange system that provides the means for its users to exchange their goods and services, both locally and remotely. It could also be described as a global complementary trading network that operates without money as it is commonly understood.
Unlike the conventional money-based exchange system, the CES has no physical currency. The idea that such a currency is required before any trading can take place is an ancient one and increasingly irrelevant in this day and age of computers and the Internet. Information can replace currencies and at the same time eliminate most of the problems associated with regular money.
Yes, it's pretty clear the derivatives exposure of a lot of banks on both sides of the pond are what could turn this whole thing into a major blow-out.
Strange how we have to get the important news about the USA from platforms in Russia, Iran, and occasionally the UK. Reinventing collapse. Remember the ads for Radio Free Europe being jammed by the Soviets while Russian families huddled around their radios? May our families huddle around their laptops. Speaking of a Russian platform, Rosane Barr has an interesting interview on the latest Mad Max. Also Charlie McGrath on RT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBwvZn4tdg&feature=player_embedded
I really like this guy. He has a day job in Boseman MT selling for a wholesale construction material distributor and then does a radio show on the Rense network 5 nights a week with electronic gear on the fritz half the time. Wish I had half his energy. He saw combat at 20 in the first Gulf War and now hates the never ending USA resource wars.
opening comments
Cops Accused Of Trapping Wall Street Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge For Mass Arrests
I have much less time to look in on TAE these days, but great stuff Ilargi / Stonelady
Ilargi wrote - "...but seeing as Morgan Stanley has $56 trillion in derivatives outstanding, much of which will of necessity be on European sovereign and bank debt, and knowing that JPMorgan and BofA have even larger derivatives portfolio‘s, that 10.47% Morgan Stanley loss on Friday looks like a harbinger of things to come..."
These are the kind of realities that most of us--not savvy in world economics--don't have a handle on. Are these huge derivative %'s among these banks common knowledge in financial circles? - Political circles? How/where are the data sources?
po1 - Hello yourself
El G - Got your point of disagreement last post--no problem. I'm also thinking of posting a related question concerning the "lifeboat."
This is a must-read. Nobody can corner your consciousness like Chris Hedges. Snippets:
"There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil."
"They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs."
Some times a find links that I find educational which could help others. Here is one.
We need more Chartered Accountants telling us the working of how scams, (funny bookkeeping) are being perpetrated against us every day.
The wealthy have always tried to maximize their wealth and minimize all adverse impacts to their wealth and their wealth accumulation schemes.
The title of the following should really be “Cash or Debts”.
http://www.accountabilityresearch.com/advisor/index.php/media
Cash or Trash? What to Watch for with cash flow statements
Al and Mark Rosen, Advisor.ca
El G
About Charlie McGrath I will likely learn to appreciate the guy, if he learns the difference between socialism and fascism. It tends to get up my nose when banks and corporations steal from the public, through the offices of government, and then, not only the MSM but the independent media as well, call that socialism.
"Higher education" student debt in Usanistan is larger than credit card debt - over $1 T. Our young people are starting out in life as individual debt slaves as well as sovereign debt slaves, unable to find jobs for the most part beyond burger flippers with their economically worthless sheepskins and unable to discharge the debt through personal bankruptcy. Student loans certainly rank as one of the great financial scams of the past half century, foisted upon young and clueless marks. Time for a student loan Jubilee. Let the bondholders of the TBTF pay for it.
scrofulous said...
El G
It tends to get up my nose when banks and corporations steal from the public, through the offices of government, and then, not only the MSM but the independent media as well, call that socialism.
________________________
Couldn't agree with you more in general. I keep a couple of juicy il Duce quotes on my laptop just for such occasions. I think Charlie makes this error less than most though. However, whenever he does, I will send him an email correcting it :-)
Unfortunately, Charlie has a variety of regular "co-hosts" on with him every week, and the most frequent one is a butthead by the name of Pollack who touts himself as an economic genius and is loaded with a variety of personality disorders which he subjects the listening public to. However, to his credit, he discovered that the world is headed into a deflationary collapse - about a month ago. Charlie's greatest weakness is that his strength of personal loyalty clouds his clarity of vision.
Hombre
"How/where are the data sources?"
Try this , at Jesse's Cafe, which is an amendment to this, also at Jesse's Cafe.
After you read and understand what is going down get back to me and let me know, at least - 'Who is on First'!
@Scrofulous - Thanks. And from your link...
"The US Office of the Currency Comptroller (OCC) issues a Quarterly Report on the Derivatives exposure of US Banks and Trust."
Now, my question is (and it is actually somewhat rhetorical) how many of those in leadership positions read these things, understand them, and apply such to their economic and political policies and decision making?
Potus Obama? The UK PM? German Chancellor?
Who's on first?--Only "the Shadow knows!" (That's a geezer lark) :)
Hombre said...
Now, my question is (and it is actually somewhat rhetorical) how many of those in leadership positions read these things, understand them, and apply such to their economic and political policies and decision making?
_____________________
LOL. The Congress doesn't even read the laws they pass. They just allow the lobbyist in conjunction with their staff to write them. Dodd-Frank and the Obamacare (sic) acts were both over 2000 pages of crap only a lawyer could love. We are all outlaws as no one can keep track of this trash. But that is part of the plan.
I liked Roseanne Barr's comment when interviewed on Max. Max asked her if she were president what is the first thing she would say to Jaime and Lloyd. Roseanne's reply was, "You're under arrest."
@ el G...
Good Morning. :)
Student loans seem to have been a way for TBTB to increase the money supply while other credit markets that depend upon production implode.
Debt moratoriums sound like ideal solutions but they, however, disproportionately affect those students who pursued education without debt.
What is to be said about those young people who pursued education with the virtue of fulfilling promises, or not making promises they knew they could not keep?
Do we honestly expect the creditors to forgive over $1 Trillion in principle and the promise of a generation of interest payments & debt slavery?
Student loans are a double edged sword. Debt slavery on one side and lack of purchasing power on the other; It is reasonable to assume that most students who have loans have negative net purchasing power. Even if you dull the debt side of the blade via debt jubilee the other side of the sword still cuts to kill.
The burden of Student debt may be forgiven, but students will be thrust into a socioeconomic collapse with no purchasing power and rapidly decreasing discount rate of the future. Future prospects of students to make a living will also be greatly hindered in a deflationary depression.
-most students do not have the means of subsistence under their control or access to arable land and appropriate tools.
-most students do not own productive assets or know how to grow food/ raise livestock
-Massive unemployment will increase competition for a limited number of jobs that pay less and less over time
-Students will be trained for complex socioeconomic positions that no longer exist due to collapse in socioeconomic complexity.
Demand is not what you want, but what you can pay for. Unfortunately, the contemporary western student wants it all, but can’t pay for any of it. The expectations and entitlements of an entire generation will be wiped away. The resulting social upheaval could become quite a problem. Just look at the way the British were rioting over tuition increases. That is just the beginning.
IMHO, the intelligent students left/finished school to get a real education, while preparing lifeboats of their own.
Cheers
I thought this wasn't supposed to happen with "return-the-keys-of-house-to-the-bank" -policy. Bank is suing ex-customer as his house was worth only a quarter in depressed market.
The "Morgan Stanley Takes Hits" article from the WSJ mentions "net exposure" and "hedges". I don't understand this stuff very well so maybe someone here can help me. I'll start with a hypothetical example:
Banks ABC and XYZ are the exact same (including their gross exposure to French banks), however the CDS price for Bank ABC is 50% more than that for bank XYZ. I think this implies that Bank ABC is less netted and/or less well hedged than Bank XYZ. So how do the buyers of CDS get this information?
1. Is this "insider" information only?
2. Is Bank ABC less "liked" in the investment community (maybe like Lehman was after they didn't want to help out with some previous bailout thing).
3. Combo of 1 & 2.
4. Neither 1 or 2 - other.
agftec: "Do we honestly expect the creditors to forgive over $1 Trillion in principle and the promise of a generation of interest payments & debt slavery? "
keep in mind- most if not all of that trillion was NOT hard earned pennies the banks naively risked- they were newly printed imaginary debt dollars from the federal government- made up of whole cloth. None of the banks have any real "skin in the game" . They just want their bonuses.
Re: the imperative to get out and demonstrate, finally - we went through some of that discussion back in 08-09, here.
I'll reiterate my fantasy- someone (perhaps a reader here?) will become disenchanted with their cardboard "Live Simply" signs; and ask a carpenter friend to make and bring to the Wall Street Occupation park - a nice, working, guillotine.
They could use it to make coleslaw, for everyone. Vegan, preferably. But wouldn't that be fun? And get just a little attention? :-) Sure got noticed in Israel last month!
Blogger bosuncookie said...
Ogardener,
Sory for the bad link. Here is a good link to the website of the Community Exchange System.
Not a problem bc. Thanks for the reference. Quite a bit to digest there.
I continue to learn a great deal by scanning the NHK news feed. They blurt out all kinds of bald realities; that either never make it to MSM, or wind up presented to the world with tornadic spins. Today's very nasty economic statistic, in toto:
'Listed firms lose 38% of paper gains on stocks
'Japanese listed companies have seen the profit on their shareholdings decline by more than 38 percent in the past half year.
'Japanese brokerage Nomura Securities says that as of Friday, the profit on shares held by about 1,800 listed firms had fallen to the level marked immediately after the financial crisis began in September 2008.
'The difference between the current market value of the shares and their acquisition price was 4.1 trillion yen, or 53 billion dollars.
'The unrealized gain, which indicates the firms' financial strength, has declined by more than 38 percent.
'The TOPIX index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has lost more than 100 points or 12 percent in the half-year period due to concerns that the European credit situation will have an adverse impact on the global economy.
'Some listed companies will have to book significant amounts of extraordinary losses in their first-half results.
'It is feared that low share prices will put pressure on corporate earnings, undermining the recovery from the March 11th disaster.'
Sunday, October 02, 2011 16:28 +0900 (JST)
----------------------------------
http://tinyurl.com/4vvp3ex
They also still run stories on radiation; like the fact last week that they were finding plutonium in the soil 45 kilometers away from Fukushima; in case you're keeping up there.
progressivepopulist (from last thread),
"Reciprocity and Barter were the currencies of many pre-money and money-poor societies."
I believe "barter" as a term of art used by classical economists necessarily relied on a definition that involves exchange of "equivalents" (i.e. 20 chickens for 2 cows). Using this conception, they predicted that enough repeated transactions of that nature would eventually lead to the development of a few common goods acting as a standardized unit of account and medium of exchange. The research of Graeber and others before him has debunked these predictions by demonstrating quite conclusively that these types of pre-money barter systems never really existed. Once money is already in existence, though, it is easy to see why "money-poor" environments would lead those within them to construct those fixed equivalent barter systems.
@ el gal
quote from Nouriel Roubini in the Charlie McGrath interview.
NR
I'm not predicting WWIII but seriously, if there was a global financial crisis after thee first one, then we go into depression: the political and social instability in Europe and other advanced economies is going to become extremely servere. And that's something we have to worry about.
Re Charlie's fascist/socialist confusion. Given his locale and background it's a wonder he's as progressive as he is. Not a lot of support for free--thinkers in that region of the UPL (United Parking Lot).
Our local television news--Vancouver B.C.--has totally blacked out any news regarding demonstrations, be it Greece, Wall St. or Boston.
I worry what will happen if they shut down our ability to communicate on blogs like TAE. Then news we be what we can see out our windows.
arghhhh... should read: news will be what we can see...
About Canadian currency
For now it is easy to have an USD account in Canada.
It is just like having a Canadian account,
I am wondering if the Canadian government will change the rules to deter people from having USD accounts.
If that happens than what will happen to USD accounts in Canada.
About bartering
A person would have to have a product that will be much in demand.
Otherwise you are going to be 1 in a million of people offering all kinds of dumb things like messages or haircuts, etc.
You would also have to issue something like money or credit coupons.
The good thing is you dont need banks to do any of these things.
Max Kaiser
Even thought I don't agree with him on pushing gold all the time I am becoming a fan of him because of his stand on the corrupt bankers.
He himself talked about severe punishment for these guys and he had Roseanne Bar and she said the same and always brings people with views like that.
It would be nice if the average person could have justice for a change.
@Ash
"The research of Graeber and others before him has debunked these predictions by demonstrating quite conclusively that these types of pre-money barter systems never really existed."
I understood that pre-money barter systems involving coincident valuation of barterable goods by transacted equivalency couldn't be found in economotive history, and that the value of barterable goods was always being gauged to some common unit of account involving a delayed reciprocity metric within culturally embedded value-systems, such as labor to food ratios.
Direct double coincidence of wants wouldn't facilitate barter systems because a series of coincidences does not create a logical system, but within a delayed reciprocity system of accounting, based on some common metric of effort, the goods are still exchanged by valuated equivalency as gauged to this metric, perhaps with a temporal discounting function.
The temporal discounting function attached to this reciprocity metric might have originated the use of currency to account for delayed utility.
The argument is actually that a system of delayed reciprocal valuation of barterable goods is equivalent to trading on credit, and that this credit originated currency.
Patrick said...
Re Charlie's fascist/socialist confusion. Given his locale and background it's a wonder he's as progressive as he is. Not a lot of support for free--thinkers in that region of the UPL (United Parking Lot).
____________________
If Charlie heard you call him a "progressive," it would given him heartburn. He was an early member of the Tea Party but quit in disgust when the Koch Brothers took it over and now refers to it with contempt. He tells his listeners not to be sucked in by the blue team / red team bullshit. It is just a stupid dance to confuse people from real issues. His co-hosts range from a total new-ager truther (Karen Testado) to a gun toting ex-marine libertarian (Eric Lovely). I'll say this for Eric - he hates the continuous resource wars and the attack on our constitutional rights at least as strongly as I do. He also has a black (as in African- American) freelance professional stock trader on every week (Dex) who has some very unorthodox ideas. Charlie is really great at building consensus among groups which the elite wish to divide and attack each other. For an "ordinary person," he has a very strong command of economic and political reality and is able to communicate it to other "ordinary" people. He also has a rigid sense of economic morality and he leans to the idea that the elites planned this collapse all along (as do I) to consolidate a global hegemony.
I download his radio show as a podcast and listen to it late at night on my iPod which allows me to scroll past the repetitious Rense commercials with ease.
About bartering
A person would have to have a product that will be much in demand.
Otherwise you are going to be 1 in a million of people offering all kinds of dumb things like messages or haircuts, etc.
Jack,
You are absolutely right.
As an experiment, I have bought 200 leather shoes for toddlers. They cost $1000 (including shipping to Australia).
Right now, I am looking at getting a small container with 200 boxes of shoes - around 3,500 shoes, trainers and sandals for women, kids and men - for an average total cost of $10 each. If you knew the price of shoes in Melbourne, and the fact that nothing is made locally, you would understand my reasoning. It certainly beats US Treasuries or gold.
dudes, "wall up of worry...slope down of hope".
Gravity,
"The argument is actually that a system of delayed reciprocal valuation of barterable goods is equivalent to trading on credit, and that this credit originated currency."
I believe your understanding is much closer to what actually happened in these pre-money societies, than what the classical economists posited as spot transactions in "barter" societies. The other important factor, though, is that many times there was no strict, rationally-motivated method of valuation in these socioeconomic "transactions".
Graeber:"It seems to me because it goes back precisely to this notion of rationality that Adam Smith too embraced: that human beings are rational, calculating exchangers seeking material advantage, and that therefore it is possible to construct a scientific field that studies such behavior. The problem is that the real world seems to contradict this assumption at every turn. Thus we find that in actual villages, rather than thinking only about getting the best deal in swapping one material good for another with their neighbors, people are much more interested in who they love, who they hate, who they want to bail out of difficulties, who they want to embarrass and humiliate, etc.—not to mention the need to head off feuds.
...This not only demonstrates that the Homo Oeconomicus which lies at the basis of all the theorems and equations that purports to render economics a science, is not only an almost impossibly boring person — basically, a monomaniacal sociopath who can wander through an orgy thinking only about marginal rates of return — but that what economists are basically doing in telling the myth of barter, is taking a kind of behavior that is only really possible after the invention of money and markets and then projecting it backwards as the purported reason for the invention of money and markets themselves. Logically, this makes about as much sense as saying that the game of chess was invented to allow people to fulfill a pre-existing desire to checkmate their opponent’s king."
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/david-graeber-on-the-invention-of-money-%E2%80%93-notes-on-sex-adventure-monomaniacal-sociopathy-and-the-true-function-of-economics.html
Insightful and entertaining (tho' old news to most TAE readers) "Blame the Fed" interview with David Stockman on Chris Martenson 9-30-2011.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-david-stockman-blame-fed
It seems as though that brilliant idea generated by the SNB to peg the Swiss Franc (CHF) to the Euro is already vying for the title of the shortest-lived and least effective major monetary decision ever undertaken in the history of money and decisions.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/currency-peg-causes-50-surge-swiss-national-bank-balance-sheet-major-fx-losses
Ash,
Nice selection on the Graeber quotes. This is exactly what I thought was missing from much of the discussion on barter/etc.
@Ash
The excerpted chapter 'The myth of Barter' suggests that temple bureaucracies originated bookkeeping of large credit systems, yet in the 'marketplaces' most of the traders were presumably too illiterate to keep books of accounting themselves. Written documents denoting complex schemes of loans and payments of barterable goods wouldn't be in common use, books of credit kept by ancient bureaucracies may have been the only place where barter-credit systems were documented in writing.
Without written documentation of credit, containing the names of debtors, the complexity of debit trade in the marketplace would be limited, unless substituted by physical representation of credit in the form of currency, grain-tokens mostly, but not necessarily coinage.
Some would suggest that writing itself was primarily invented to facilitate the complexity of credit systems in large [agrarian] communities, in order to attach names to delayed transactions.
The irrationality argument is also vital, in that no trade valuations are ever linear to the utility function of the transacted good, but are always [made] linear to the social utility of the transaction itself.
...And that this social utility of the transaction is not expressible in price or value equivalency of goods, making the rationality of the transaction undefinable.
@el gallinazo
Confusion between socialism and fascism is easily remedied.
Under pure socialism, private corporations wouldn't exist as the government would subsume all private capital.
Under pure fascism/corporatism, corporations would subsume all public capital and the government wouldn't exist outside the body corporate.
This system does look like corporate fascism to me.
If the system were inclined towards socialism, the banks would've been nationalised by now.
re: Cash or trash? What to watch for with cash flow statements
jal,
When I studied accountancy in 72/73, as part of a business degree, we had a brilliant teacher (Jewish of course) by the name of Silkin. Many of us students were engineering graduates so he had to convince us that accountancy was an art, not a science. He taught us how the balance sheet and the profit and loss account (income statement) could be massaged by unscrupulous accountants in all sorts of ways. It was a revelation. He told us that the cash-flow statement was much more difficult to manipulate. Sadly, it seems that is no longer the case.
Well, I thought the question I asked earlier would easily be answered with all the apparent brain power that I&S should attract...but no dice..so I'll try again, and add the "previous Lehman bailout thing" was LTCM. This question is on-topic by the way.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "Morgan Stanley Takes Hits" article from the WSJ mentions "net exposure" and "hedges". I don't understand this stuff very well so maybe someone here can help me. I'll start with a hypothetical example:
Banks ABC and XYZ are the exact same (including their gross exposure to French banks), however the CDS price for Bank ABC is 50% more than that for bank XYZ. I think this implies that Bank ABC is less netted and/or less well hedged than Bank XYZ. So how do the buyers of CDS get this information?
1. Is this "insider" information only?
2. Is Bank ABC less "liked" in the investment community (maybe like Lehman was after they didn't want to help out with some previous bailout thing).
3. Combo of 1 & 2.
4. Neither 1 or 2 - other.
Gravity,
In addition to "non-state bureaucracies" as a potential source of money to account for transactions in a credit-based market system, Graeber also notes that legal systems appear to be a more common source. These were systems that would establish fixed damages for various offenses, and it is proposed that people would be more likely to insist on these equivalences when they were egregiously wronged. That, in turn, could lead to the adoption of a standardized money/pricing system that makes it easier for exact compensation to be paid.
And speaking of rationality, or the lack thereof, JMG continues his discussion of peak oil and magic with some philosophical lessons in his latest post:
A Preparation for Philosophy
"Such obvious difficulties in the Stoic approach fed the growth of a different philosophical school, which eventually became the philosophical core of late classical culture: Neoplatonism, which took Plato’s tentative probings toward an answer to the third question and ran with them. Central to Neoplatonism was the idea that the human mind had irrational as well as rational dimensions, and that there had to be better options than ignoring or browbeating the irrational side of the self. In one of his dialogues, Plato had compared the whole self to a chariot in which reason was the driver and two irrational parts, the biological appetites and the social reactions, were two very unruly horses.
The challenge that had to be solved, to the Neoplatonists, was how to train these horses so that they would pull the chariot the way the charioteer wanted to go. Several centuries of work went into finding the best ways to meet that challenge, and the toolkit that became central to Neoplatonism from the third century CE on—well, that’s where magic comes in."
Joe in NC,
If we are positing the banks are the exact same on the surface, then I would have to say the answer to your question must be #3 (combo of #1 and #2), with #2 encompassing a whole variety of things. For example, after the speculative investors decide to target ABC for whatever reason, other investors see this derivative price action and decide its a sign that some other, more well-informed people know that ABC is more likely to default than XYZ. Or, perhaps the investors think they can make a quick profit buying and selling the contracts. Probably a combination of both and other bizarre machinations of an imploding derivative market system.
Sorting through my attic and ran across this video which I had stuffed away meaning to watch when I had time Time for Change from 2010. If one hasn't seen it I think one should, at least that is what I did today.
@Ash
Thanks...that was my guess. Too many unknowns everywhere it seems. I appreciate the answer.
In case you didn't catch this interview with Michael Hudson on 09/02, you may want to read it now:
Debt Deflation
in America
snip:
"So what you’re seeing today as a purely technical financial crisis is actually a stage in the class war. The financial sector’s tactic is to threaten to wreck the economy if politicians don’t surrender and strip the economy bare to pay the creditors. This is its weapon of mass financial destruction."
.
Gift Economy Wikipedia.
"A gift economy normally requires the gift exchange to be more than simply a back-and-forth between two individuals. For example, a Kashmiri tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to fulfill their obligations for alms-giving simply by giving alms back and forth to one another. On their deaths they were transformed into two poisoned wells from which no one could drink, reflecting the barrenness of this weak simulacrum of giving"
Sounds akin to what we have devolved to:
" It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there." Hard Times by Charles Dicken
Gravity, and others: "most of the traders were presumably too illiterate to keep books of accounting themselves."
eeeh. You may be underestimating the sophistication of primal peoples. Are you familiar with the stone money of Yap?
http://tinyurl.com/2458wcu
I "know" some things about the dynamics of the money that are not in the Wikipedia thing- my father built an airport for Yap- the knowledge about the money, the particular stone, all the people who owned shares of various sizes in each stone- was known very precisely by all the adults in the family/village/ unit.
Keeping track of it was partly business, and I think partly entertainment- remember they didn't have cable. To me, the Yap system is most important not because of its specifics, and the various weird interpretations outsiders superimpose on it; but because it does illustrate a very ancient, complex, and sophisticated system of tracking "money"- all evolved long before European or Chinese contact, and independently.
I think that suggests such systems may well have existed in many primal situations- and we simply are too dumb/snooty to see them or pay attention.
How much of the "barter is crap" stuff is just based on the good old "Europeans invented everything, of course" bias that floats around in our discipline of "History"?
scrofulous,
That reminds me, Graeber also wrote a very insightful article about the French sociologist Marcel Mauss, his book "The Gift" and a modern set of intellectuals who call themselves M.A.U.S.S.
Give It Away
"As a result, some of the most interesting scholars in France today you never hear about at all. One such is a group of intellectuals who go by the rather unwieldy name of Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales, or MAUSS, and who have dedicated themselves to a systematic attack on the philosophical underpinnings of economic theory. The group take their inspiration from the great early-20th century French sociologist Marcel Mauss, whose most famous work, The Gift (1925), was perhaps the most magnificent refutation of the assumptions behind economic theory ever written.
At a time when "the free market" is being rammed down everyone's throat as both a natural and inevitable product of human nature, Mauss' work – which demonstrated not only that most non-Western societies did not work on anything resembling market principles, but that neither do most modern Westerners – is more relevant than ever. While Francophile American scholars seem unable to come up with much of anything to say about the rise of global neoliberalism, the MAUSS group is attacking its very foundations."
Greenpa,
"How much of the "barter is crap" stuff is just based on the good old "Europeans invented everything, of course" bias that floats around in our discipline of "History"?"
I'm not sure how your example of stone money in Yap would undermine the "barter is crap" argument. That argument simply states that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that barter with "spot transactions" did not lead to the creation of money and money systems, as first proposed by Western economists.
Belgian/French banking/insurance giant Dexia set to be perhaps THE story of the day. Trying to sell off debt, create special vehicles for that debt and/or be nationalized. Potentially very detrimental to Belgian and even French credit rating. Dexia assets are almost twice Belgian GDP. At one point in 2008/9, it had $58 billion in loans from the US Fed.
.
comments open
Re.: Look! MONEY!
http://phoenicia.org/phoeniciamoney.html
Analogous to the city-state political system of Phoenicia & its colonies, Phoenician money was minted by indivual cities. Coins of various metals were minted by individual cities and reflected the prominent god of the city and its king or the ruling emperor (current conquerors). Raw copper was a kind of pre-monetary currency. Originally, however, barter was the means of paying for trade and goods while states collect taxes from peasant's harvest. Money replaced barter with time, especially in Phoenician trade. Below are few samples.
more money!
http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/coins.html
Bloomberg does a nice electronic front page investigative hit piece on fascist Koch Industries. Wonder what that is about politically?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html
Gives Koch's consumer brands so we can boycott them.
Also
Decoupling of markets? DAXX down 3%. SPX down 0.6%.
Ash- not suggesting Yap "undermines", per se. I think we're mostly on the same page. I guess mostly I'm suggesting we have hard evidence primal "money" could be quite sophisticated- and most Western discussions about primal economics are deeply condescending, when not wholly delusional, top to bottom. :-)
Speaking of delusions; remember my note above from Japanese public TV news- on 38% of value vanishing; here, on the other hand, is the spin from Forbes:
"Japanese business confidence improves"
Associated Press, 10.02.11, 09:59 PM EDT
"TOKYO -- Business confidence at major Japanese manufacturers improved as they pushed to recover from disaster, the central bank said Monday.
"In the Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" survey of business sentiment, the main index for big manufacturers rose to 2 from minus 9 three months ago. The result was in line with market expectations.
"The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are good minus those saying conditions are unfavorable, with 100 representing the best mood and minus 100 the worst."
-------------------
zowie. A burning headliner statistic, there!
http://tinyurl.com/6apqfky
El G,
"Decoupling of markets? DAXX down 3%. SPX down 0.6%."
Looks like US markets are trying to ignore the Euro headlines and get some upwards momentum with economic data, which all seems to beat "estimates" these days. They are also holding out for some more political capitulation towards a leveraged EFSF. However, it also seems that the highly inter-connected and dire Euro situation weighs so heavily on them, that nothing short of Q3 GDP being "revised" to 5%, or Germany immediately agreeing to expand the EFSF yet again, will sustain that momentum for multiple hours/days/weeks.
Ash
¡¡Fortress America!!
DAXX still down 3%; SPX up 0.7%.
Also USD now 1.05 CanD.
Greenpa,
"I guess mostly I'm suggesting we have hard evidence primal "money" could be quite sophisticated- and most Western discussions about everything are deeply condescending, when not wholly delusional, top to bottom."
FYP ;-)
You make a really good point, though. The spot barter system leading to "double coincidence of wants" leading to money was just an overly simplistic formulation of reality conjured up by Western "free-market" economists trying to build an acceptable foundation for their theories and predictions. Turns out, it is flat out wrong.
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.
The "good news leak" this morning from Reuters:
Even then, however, while the 440 billion euro fund will be able to buy government bonds from the market, recapitalize banks and extend precautionary credit to sovereigns, it may not have enough cash to cope with all the financing needs.
Euro zone ministers will therefore also discuss on Monday way to increase the firepower of the fund through leveraging, without increasing guarantees that back the fund's borrowing, but no decision is expected yet.
"The ministers on Monday will come closer to a solution, but not to a conclusion," the euro zone official said.
The leveraging idea, suggested by the United States, has some opponents in the euro zone, who fear it could lead to higher liabilities for euro zone countries above the 780 billion euros in current EFSF guarantees, or downgrades of either the AAA-rated EFSF or its triple-A guarantors.
Officials said only options that would not lead to a downgrade would be examined.
Among the ideas under consideration is allowing the EFSF to refinance itself at the ECB's liquidity operations for banks. The EFSF could also guarantee to cover a percentage of potential losses investors could incur in case of a hypothetical sovereign default.
Any solution, however, should not require another round of ratification, officials said, because policy-makers realized how difficult and lengthy the process was given the growing opposition to bailouts in many euro zone countries.
The world is becoming a progressively weirder place...
I am back home for a short[1week] break from the road,my sinuses still in shock from aircraft..
Its amazing how strange the world can see when you try to totally ignore news for a few weeks,then immerse yourself in a sea of compute-generated input from "everywhere".
Wall-street Occupied.
Euro...disintegration?
Think of this...the harder one grabs a handful of dry sand...the faster it slips away.
There is a whole lot of folks in Germany who it looks like are re-thinking this euro-integration thing ...like "Forget It"
Two-Lips Timmy is trying to talk everyone in Europe to buy into a euro-tarp...with no luck at all. too many players to buy-off to ram thru the ultra-wealth's agenda...and there is all that debt...still on the books from Greece...and Italy,and god-alone knows-who-eles.But It all Leads Back...to American Banksters.And a Whole lot of debts.They want Me ,and My grandkids to pay for.
Now china wants to buy Yahoo...[you know,the ones who have more data on you than the IRS]
And the congress is bickering about "paying for" disaster relief.
IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO THE FACT WE ARE GOING OFF A VERY HIGH CLIFF? AT A VERY HIGH RATE OF SPEED?
"Everything seems fine,so far"as the man who jumped passed the 20th floor.
We are soooo screwed..
Bede good,or
Bee careful
snuffy
Bloomberg video Harry Dent, The Great Crash Ahead
short video, appx 4.5 minutes
He's selling his new book
For those banksters, et al, struggling with "moral quicksand", might I suggest that any rope tossed to them be composed of very strong hemp, with 13 twines around it and snuggled not-too-gently about their necks???
@Snuffy - I mis-read your line as ...Timmy is trying to talk everyone in Europe to buy into a euro-trap!
Which indeed is mostly likely a trap, lol!
Ash,
Regarding decoupling of the DAX and the SPX, I think we might have to chalk it off to animal spirits. Unless you assume that the European investors are closer to the EFSF situation and its political realities. US investors are showing a certain desperation stupidity. No place to hide. Reminds me of the Grateful Dead song, "Dire Wolf," speaking of animal spirits.
When I awoke, the dire wolf, six hundred pounds of sin,
Was grinning at my window, all I said was come on in.
Dont murder me, I beg of you, dont murder me. please, dont murder me.
The wolf came in, I got my cards, we sat down for a game.
I cut my deck to the queen of spades, but the cards were all the same.
Dont murder me, I beg of you, dont murder me. please, dont murder me.
El G,
Yeah, I don't see any "decoupling" as much as a marked divergence, since the two still seem to be trading in unison. Such divergences tend to close the gap within short order one way or the other.
Polka Dot Gallows, fer shure! From WaPo, at the heart of the Bread and Circuses Industry.
http://tinyurl.com/3kk2taj
"The United States has long imported its food and fuel, its cars and clothes. Now the faltering economy has sparked a push for another type of import: shoppers.
"For the first time, lawmakers, businesses and even White House officials are courting consumers from cash-rich countries such as China, India and Brazil to fill the nation’s shopping malls and pick up the slack for penny-pinching Americans. They are wooing travelers with enticements such as coupons, beauty pageants and promises of visa reform. The payoff, they say, could be significant: 1.3 million new jobs and an $859 billion shot in the arm for the economy over the next decade."
I am; seriously, laughing out loud. In terms of delusional economics, this one strikes me as easily on a par with my previous all-time best example-
That one is from Mark Twain. In his journals covering the time he was living in Hawaii, he notes that due to several bits of insanity, everyone he knew owned two complete sets of clothes. Because- it was cheaper to own two sets, and ship your clothes to California, via clipper ship, to have them laundered, than it was to have them laundered locally.
Things have to be insanely out of whack for situations like that to arise. And here we are.
Ash
Though I am not big on technical analysis, I wrote in private emails early last week that I saw the major support in the SPX at 1115. This morning's low was 1122. The next support level is at least a 100 points lower. If the SPX had followed the DAX percentage wise today, it would have been "bombs away." Like a tiring drowning man struggling to keep his head above water with no help in sight.
El G,
I'm not big on TA either, but if I were trying to make short to medium-term predictions of specific market action, I think some combination of standard TA and elliot wave analysis would be useful. CHS uses TA in his post today to point out the simple prediction that once the market breaks its 200 week MA (SPX 1266 right now) and fails to get back above it, we can expect it to re-test the 2009 lows.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct11/bear-market10-11.html
Ash & El G,
I think that "gap close" thing is happening to the SPX now.
Ash
Thankee for the gift of the link to Marcell Mauss!
Well El G; the SPX blew through the support at 1115 and it looks like in a couple days I can take off my "DOW 10K" hat.
I & S speaking of time lines: when do you think you will introduce the new web site for more sustainability? I frequent a couple like JMGs Green Wizard's ,Country Forum and out local transition site but all knowledge in that direction IMHO is more important than financials. Financials are interesting but I can do little about it since I know TPTB that could make changes are only interested in re-election.
Golem XIV writes a bit about China - watch out whoever expects the Chinese to save the day. In short: 80% of loans are going bad - and the loans were well over 1000 billion €uros in the end of 2010. Now? Yugh (ó_ò)
For "alternative" thinking check kind-of-funny thoughts by "Anonymous". Although many say that this is a pseudo-anonymous as the Real anonymous guys and gals usually call for peaceful revolution. Nevertheless...
I read Candide, wherein Gravity remains the best of all possible recursive algorithms throughout, and in what befell afterwards.
@Greenpa
"eeeh. You may be underestimating the sophistication of primal peoples. Are you familiar with the stone money of Yap?"
It was slightly condescending, but only concerned the practice of bookkeeping of credit itself. Its reasonable to assume that illiteracy would prevent traders from attaching names to transactions in writing, and that temple bureacracies or legal payment systems would yield more complex books of account. The assumption that writing is necessary for complex credit arrangements may be fully wrong.
I have gained a new perspective on barter arrangements. Coincidental barter cannot yield a trade system, so intermediate credit of whatever form is needed to satisfy the demand for a reciprocity metric as unit of account in delayed transactions, only this would constitute a trade system of adequate velocity.
Subgenius/Bluebird - further to that Brooklyn Bridge incident, I see the media are playing their part to manipulate public perception: It only takes 20 minutes to shift the blame
New post up.
Commodities and Deflation: A Response to Chris Martenson
The Ninth Circle of Hell
.
@Lautturi...I watched the Anonymous video. My conclusion is it is a faux Anonymous. That said the video is making the rounds and is expressing the feelings of many people.
The paradox in all this is protesters must be non violent to play the game whilst the perpetrators of violence and fraud maintain control of the game. No hold is barred in their camp.
Martin Armstrong interview on King World News.
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