Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at midday in association with NZ Mint.
I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
I'll pop the extras into the comment stream.See all previous Top 10s here.
There's a great capitalist revolt at number 8. I've also sprinkled through some of the clever #OccupyGeorge protests where one dollar bills are printed with protests and then handed on into the money supply.
1. A deleveraging spiral - The crunch has arrived in Europe.
When debt is unsustainable decisions have to be made.
The banks that have made those loans must at some stage acknowledge that it won't get all that money back and decide to book a loss.
When they do book those losses they then have to decide (or be forced) whether to either bring in new capital to strengthen their books, or to reduce the size of the loans on the other side of its books to improve its capital rations.
That moment of truth has arrived in Europe.
The battle is on between bank shareholders and governments. Shareholders don't want to dilute their shareholdings by having governments inject capital or have their share values slashed by having haircuts imposed on the debt they hold. So one option for them is to deleverage their balance sheets by calling in other loans.
Governments don't want those balance sheets deleveraged for good reasons. A mass and sudden deleveraging would crash an economy.
So the battle lines are drawn. Eventually, if the bank balance sheets are precarious enough, governments win, if their voters allow them to bail out the banks.
Bloomberg reports that Eurozone banks have now threatened to call in 1 trillion euro of loans as the crunch arrives this weekend on how much capital needs to be injected into the banks.
Banks in France, the U.K., Ireland, Germany and Spain have announced plans to shrink by about 775 billion euros ($1.06 trillion) in the next two years to reduce short-term funding needs and comply with tougher regulatory capital requirements, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley bank analysts predict that amount could reach 2 trillion euros across Europe by the end of next year as banks curb lending and sell loans and entire businesses. A lack of buyers and the losses lenders face on loan sales are making those targets unrealistic.
“Asset sales are impractical in the current environment,” said Simon Maughan, head of sales and distribution at MF Global UK Ltd. inLondon. “Every bank is selling, and no bank is buying. It just won’t work. Beyond that, the magnitude of the cuts the banks are talking about is nowhere near the likely required amount of deleveraging. They need to reduce hundreds of billions more to adjust to the new world order. There has to be a recapitalization.”
2, Bank of America's sneaky switch - Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has picked up on a clever move by Bank of America to dump some dodgy derivative assets into a government guaranteed division of the bank...sigh
I'm sitting in the Dunedin Art Gallery preparing for a presentation for an Otago and Southland Business Association conference. I'm looking out on a bunch of Occupy movement tents camped in the Octagon. They will know nothing about this latest US banking outrage, which is what is really driving the movement globally.
The same things are not happening here, and Occupy NZ seems more about environmental causes than financial ones, but their broad cause is right.
The world can't afford to privatise the profits of the financialisation of the economy and then socialise the losses.
It's economically destructive and just plain not fair.
Here's Yves:
The reason that commentators like Chris Whalen were relatively sanguine about Bank of America likely becoming insolvent as a result of eventual mortgage and other litigation losses is that it would be a holding company bankruptcy. The operating units, most importantly, the banks, would not be affected and could be spun out to a new entity or sold. Shareholders would be wiped out and holding company creditors (most important, bondholders) would take a hit by having their debt haircut and partly converted to equity.
This changes the picture completely. This move reflects either criminal incompetence or abject corruption by the Fed. Even though I’ve expressed my doubts as to whether Dodd Frank resolutions will work, dumping derivatives into depositaries pretty much guarantees a Dodd Frank resolution will fail. Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. So this move amounts to a direct transfer from derivatives counterparties of Merrill to the taxpayer, via the FDIC, which would have to make depositors whole after derivatives counterparties grabbed collateral. It’s well nigh impossible to have an orderly wind down in this scenario. You have a derivatives counterparty land grab and an abrupt insolvency. Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.
But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.
3. A warning from the Chief Economist of Citigroup - Willem Buiter is quoted as saying this by Bloomberg. It's more than enough to explain the gravity of the situation in Europe. His assessment of how close we are to a solution in Europe is also a worry. The markets are pricing in a solution this weekend. He says next year.
Willem Buiter said all banks in advanced economies could be at risk if European leaders lose control of the region’s sovereign- debt crisis.
“If things get out of hand in the euro area, no bank in the financial-integrated world will stand,” Buiter told lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing in London today.
Banks and other systemically-important financial institutions need to be recapitalized before any sovereign restructurings of euro-zone members with high debt levels such as Greece orPortugal, the economist said. “If they don’t, we are setting ourselves up for a financial crisis following the sovereign crisis,” he said.
4. Greece's public service - The New York Times reports on how bloated the Greek public service is with a few juicy details.
The government has about 700,000 employees and 80,000 more who work for government-owned entities like the power company. Thirty years ago, experts say, the public sector was about one-third that size. (Until a census was carried out last year, however, government officials admitted they did not really know how many employees they had.)
Some ministries still have employees whose sole job is to record the arrival of documents in a ledger. “It’s crazy,” said Nikos Hlepas, an expert on public administration at the University of Athens. “That’s their whole job even though today we have e-mail.”
But taking action against public sector workers can be costly, experts point out. For instance, many suspect that tax collectors, vital to the government’s efforts to raise more revenues, have been on a work slowdown. The collectors, who like all public servants were hit with salary cuts, completed fewer audits this year than last year.
Stories of excesses abound. Mr. Papandreou told Parliament that one of his ministers found a predecessor’s $38,000 bill for curtains when the Socialists returned to power in 2009. Mr. Mossialos said he found that his own ministry, for media and communication, was spending $750,000 a year for office space for just 11 people.
5. 'Let the damn banks fail' - Famed investor Jim Rogers says in this CNBC interview what many taxpayers and true free market investors really think.
6. Loose regulations - Brian Easton writes in the Listener that the Leaky Building crisis and the Global Economic crisis have a lot in common.
There were many causes of the disaster but it illustrates the failure of regulation, which should have overridden them. Light-handed regulation – the fad of the past two decades – assumed that private actors would govern themselves to a high standard and not take short cuts or exploit others; that where they were not naturally inclined to behave this way, the threat of litigation would give the right result.
Of course there would be the odd failure; and although a few might be understandable, 110,000-odd suggests sheer carelessness.
7. Here we go - Iron ore and coal prices are falling for Australia's miners, Macrobusiness points out in this piece saying a terms of trade shock is brewing for Australia, citing some Westpac research.
Spot iron ore prices price have fallen quite sharply over the last 2 weeks, down 8% to $158/t. In the last 4 weeks, Australian spot fines, as measured by the TSI, are down almost 12% landed in China.
While the Dec qtr iron ore contracts will be broadly in line with the Sep qtr contracts, if the spot prices maintain the current level for the remainder of the Dec qtr, the contracts would fall around 13%. But that is not the end of the story. Brazilian prices have fallen by a larger 16% and historically, where Brazilian prices go Australian prices tend to follow.
8. Even the capitalists are revolting - Mark Cuban is an outspoken tech entrepreneur who owns the Dallas Mavericks NBL basket ball team and often gets ejected from his own stadium for abusing the refs.
Here's an excellent blog he has written with advice for the #OccupyWallStreet movement.
He says protestors should become shareholders and demand their companies stop the job cutting in the name of 'shareholder value'. He says all financial institutions should be made to drop their corporate status and become partnerships and Wall St should be taxed to hell.
He also says student loans should be limited to US$2,000 a year.
And he's also in favour of a financial transactions tax. Great.
The simplest way to change this is to place a very simple per share tax on every transaction. 10 cents a trade. Every share. Every option. Every Bond. Every currency transaction. Every trade.
The obvious response is that trading volume will plummet. So what ? Let it. The next response is that traders will merely move their trades to foreign exchanges. Yes they will. Will transaction costs go up ? Duh.. that is the point. The market thrived when spreads and transaction costs were much higher just a few short years ago. It will survive now.
I would happily send transactions overseas and let them absorb all the risk that comes from a continuous effort of financial engineers and hacks trying to game the system. By letting them move overseas, we would still have risk because of the interconnection of economies, but our direct risk would be much less. And given that the UK already has a semblance of a tax on transactions, it wouldnt’ take long before they would need to expand that tax in order to hedge the systemic risk associated with financial engineers and hacks.
More importantly, it might just put the market back to the basics of what the stock and bond markets are supposed to be, a means of raising capital to support corporate growth. There used to be a time when Investment Bank Partnerships made their money scouting out small companies in need of capital and matching them with investors. They weren’t as big as they are now, but they managed to create quite a few growth industries. Something we could use some of today. Making the stock market a launching pad for companies will have far greater value and impact employment far greater than making sure High Frequency Traders can get their trades in.
9. Peak oil - Saudi Arabia's population is growing so fast that by 2028 it may be consuming all the oil it produces. That means no exports and higher oil prices, if it can't find other ways to generate electricity.
Here's Ed Harrison at Credit Writedowns:
Clearly, the Saudis want to have oil capacity available for export. The more they consume domestically, the less revenue available to the government for domestic programs - hence the drive for alternative energy. Given where Saudi Arabia is located and the sunlight it gets, solar is a good fit. This week the earth is supposed topass the 7 billion person figure. This presents enormous challenge in a world of limited resources.
Clearly, demand for energy must increase with the rise in population or we will have to lower the use of energy person in proportion with the rise in population. Peak oil is a big part of how this will be achieved.
10. Totally The Daily Show on the 99% - I haven't watched this because I'm on a limited broadband connection, but The Daily Show is usually good for a laugh.
51 Comments
Here's what a 22nd century textbook might look like:
Chapter 13: The Great Collapse of the 21st Century
The Great Collapse, was different than the other depressions and recessions that preceded it. It was not simply market speculation, shenanigans, and bad fiscal policy (though those undoubtedly played a part), nor was it just a particularly nasty downward slope in the business cycle.
Rather, it was the build-up of decades of pressure from unsustainable societal choices with respect to spending, taxation, domestic policy, and labor, combined with stunning political cowardice, that resulted in a tectonic explosion that was the Great Collapse.
Read more: http://theretirementreport.com/2011/10/13/greatcollapse/#more-282#ixzz1bH0tQNt6
Bernard, that second paragraph is dead-on.
Rather, it was the build-up of decades of pressure from unsustainable societal choices with respect to spending, taxation, domestic policy, and labor, combined with stunning political cowardice, that resulted in a tectonic explosion that was the Great Collapse
We have to ask exactly who was making these unsustainable societal choices. We only need to look in the mirror. The "stunning political cowardice" was just in the face of a population that increasingly demanded things it was unwilling to pay for. That's us, again, friends!
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), it appears that most of the OWS folks don't have a clue. Obama is embracing them and he will pay dearly for that in 2012.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_quiz.html
All they appear to want is more "unsustainable societal choices".
Morons or dupes? I can't decide which is the more accurate description.
Sure, I'll go along with that. But the dishonesty was only in service of telling us what we only wanted to hear. Even a dishonest politician couldn't hide the coming collapse of the social welfare nanny state that was visible decades ago. It's not that hard to figure out. All you need is a calculator (with lots of digits!)
And if we chose to believe the tripe they were selling, then shame on us for electing them.
Chapter 13: The Great Collapse of the 21st Century
The Great Collapse, was different than the other depressions and recessions that preceded it. It was not simply market speculation, shenanigans, and bad fiscal policy (though those undoubtedly played a part), nor was it just a particularly nasty downward slope in the business cycle.
Rather, it was the inevitable end to a mathematically impossible ponzi scheme that allows for the loaning into existence of debt backed currency, which requires the impossible repayment of an exponentially increasing interest portion, with currency that is also loaned into existence with an exponentially accruing interest attached.
The system required the exponential growth of an economy, in a world of finite and reducing resources which continued until all confidence was lost in it continuing any further.
Might look like this. Of every Fiat currency ever created, every single one has returned to it's intrinsic value of zero. The creation of interest bearing debt, and the inflationary effects of Fractional Reserve Banking, was unsustainable given the finite resources of the planet, and because it required the growth of money and debt. Thus an exponential monetary system on a finite planet was doomed to failure, and even though money was so important very few people understood what it was and how they created it from thin air. Scientist are still trying to create value from thin air, as yet they have had no success.
“If things get out of hand in the euro area, no bank in the financial-integrated world will stand,” Buiter told lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing in London today.
Banks are collapsing under the weight of the monetary system that they created. I did not create this BS system, it's time for a new system otherwise those who forget the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them
Here's Jeremy Warner at The Telegraph:
Rarely in post-war history have the storms blowing in from Europe seemed quite so threatening, or Britain’s position so powerless before the flood. To prosper anew, we need a strong and growing Europe, yet we are faced with a continent careering, apparently helplessly, towards the economics of the Great Depression.
You cant see the strategic implications?
Saudi is the World's biggest oil exporter, in effect 10% of the world's oil comes out of them.....where do you think you lifestyle will be even 1/2 way to 2028 when 4mbpd has gone off the market? Or the fact that just about every other OPEC and non-open producer faces a simialr future? Mexico is going to be a net importer very shortly, that means the USA has to buy elsewhere.....fancy competing against them?
We are talking 8 years, are you planning to be dead and buried before the end of the decade?
regards
steven, Wally could be better off. He has all the wood he needs on the beach, as long as he has a wet back he would have hot water, he has wild deer in his orchard, he only needs a few led lights and a deep cycle battery and a couple of solar panels for light. With no fuelfor fishing boats, the fish population would rebound in a few years, he could grow all his own veges and as long as he gets on the with the locals whats he missing?
However if you live in town, it migt be like Bill Bonners senario
It’s Only Just Begun...
We stick to our guns. Yes, dear readers, guns are what you are probably going to want. Right now, the revolutionaries are mostly peaceful. That’s how revolutions begin. The elites think they can manage the situation. They express their sympathies to the protestors. They promise reforms.“We are on their side,” says President Obama.
New Yorkers are overwhelmingly behind them. And the press — which ignored them for weeks — suddenly finds nice things to say about their cause, when they can figure out what their cause is.
Later on...when the protestors become more violent and more determined...and after the elites push back...then you’ll wish you had guns.
The police will shoot the protestors. Then, the protestors will shoot the police. They’ll probably both be shooting at you. It will be a real revolution!
And what’s behind it?
Forty-six million people on food stamps.
One hundred million who have not had a real raise in 40 years.
Twenty-five million without real jobs. Twenty million who will never have real jobs.
One out of five mortgaged homeowners who are underwater.
But that’s just the beginning. Wait until the hoi polloi begin to realize how things work.
Ambrose in bloodcurdling in The Telegraph
"If there isn't a solution by Sunday, everything is going to collapse," he told his inner circle before an emergency trip on Wednesday night to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Frankfurt.
The talks are deadlocked, reflecting a deep rift between Euroland's two great powers. The French fear the EU's €440bn EFSF rescue fund will not be enough to shore up monetary union without mobilising the might of the European Central Bank as lender of last resort. It is a view shared by UBS, Citigroup, RBS and the US Treasury.
Mr Sarkozy wants the fund to operate as a bank, able to leverage its rescue power by tapping the ECB's credit window. This is less likely to endanger France's AAA credit rating. Yet the idea is anathema to Germany and Bundesbank purists.
French banks are so safe and secure...all the French pollies will by now have removed their savings as will the bank bosses, the corporates, the union bosses and any others able to sniff the stench coming from the balance sheets. I wonder where most of them will have stashed their euro...or will it now be gold....probably in a Swiss account or bank vault.
I would like to hear the solution. Solve a debt problem with more debt? Is there a credible solution, or just incredible solutions? Can kicking aka bailouts, ESFS, recapitalisation do not address the obvious problem, too much debt not enough income. Adding more debt increases the amount of income you need. Recapitalisation by reducing the balance sheet doesn't remove the debt, it's just selling it to someone that wants to forclose on a lot of debts, ie debt for equity swaps. If they sell then mark to make-believe wont fly and it will take more then they think. Shifting the debt to the taxpayer will make everyone angry, and social collapse could proceed the inevitable financial collapse.
Interest bearing debt is unsustainable, face the facts, the real economy can carry on if you wipe out the debts, make usury illegal, have a non inflationary medium of exchange. The system is stuffed admit it, learn from it and move on! Like any mistake.
Mr Sarkozy wants the fund to operate as a bank, able to leverage its rescue power by tapping the ECB's credit window. This is less likely to endanger France's AAA credit rating. Yet the idea is anathema to Germany and Bundesbank purists.
From FTD : "France blackmails Germany with rescue plan."
Sarkozy at "secret meeting" in Frankfurt: France again wanting to give EFSF a bank licence so that it can start buying distressed nation bonds; threatens to blockade rescue plan if it doesn't prevail. Germany says this has already been discussed + discarded and considers this a threatening gesture...
BUT threat to French credit rating downgrade now solved: ;-)
From FTD: "EU wants to ban sovereign ratings"
EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier wants to prohibit rating agencies, if necessary, to publish judgments about ailing EU countries...
Sorry both links in German but Chrome translate works fine:
The government has borrowed another NZ$900 million in today's NZDMO bond tender - http://www.nzdmo.govt.nz/securities/govtbonds/latestresults
Story up on it here now - http://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/56296/governments-debt-manager-raises-n…
Pascoe in the SMH today: "It wasn't the sub-prime crisis and the subsequent GFC that flat-lined the US – it was already going nowhere but no-one noticed because the stagnation was papered over by its debt explosion."
bloomberg has more on Bofa
BNP Paribas and a handful of other European banks, including Société Générale and Crédit Agricole, provide most of the credit lines that underpin the business of the publicity shy Swiss-based traders that dominate commodities markets.
Julien Garran, commodities analyst at UBS in London, said it was “increasingly likely that the French banks will wind down their commodities trade financing business”. In a report, he quoted an industry executive warning that if BNP were to quit the business, “it would most likely cause a panic”.
BNP’s Geneva branch alone accounts for up to a quarter of the sector’s credit, according to industry estimates. The bank said commodity trade finance activities “will be part” of its “global deleveraging effort”, but it “had no intention to exit the business”.
re #6, I dont think you can blame not enough regulation, it was the last National government that helped the industry out by allowing sub-standard wood and other products, let the people take class action all the way to the top,if the Mp's didnt know what they were doing then they shouldn't have been making decisions . With no regulation you wouldn't trust anyone, you would go with the tried and true not the new timber, govt sertified, has to be good it's caramelised, crap, we had no choice but to use.
I urge everyone Please Not to blame Greece. Consider predatory lending. Consider how you would respond if someone was broke, loaded with debt, came and asked you for a loan. Would you lend them money then expect it back? Would you lend them money knowing they could not pay you back?. Would you give them more debt and then take everything they have because they can't pay you back?
This is what the IMF has done to Greece, they will have to sell all of their assets because of these predatory loans.
Skudiv: read this article by Oliver Mark Hartwich at Business Spectator - an excellent history lesson for you - just researchable historical facts - no opinions - http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Greece-default-eurozone-monetary-union-soverieng-d-pd20111017-MQ2GW?OpenDocument&src=rot
Then come back and give us your view.
Thanks for that link, iconoclast, very interesting reading. Given the troubles that we face in the world today, not only has there been a failure to learn from history as the article above outlines, equally damaging in my view are those who espouse the view that someone else is always to blame when things go wrong.
When ‘we’ are no longer responsible for our own choices and actions, when we have reached the point that we no longer need to take responsibility for the things that we have done, then quite frankly, us and our societies are in deep trouble. To get out of the trouble we are in, not only do we need to change our financial institutions, we need to change ourselves.
Hah, yeah a basket case I agree, with a credit history like that I would never be able to get a loan from the bank. The purpose of bad credit is to warn people you are likely to default.
Greece was only downgraded to Junk in 2010.
Analysts blamed politicians in Germany for dragging their feet over a Greek rescue package worth €45bn. German chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded that Greece come up with a tougher and longer austerity package before the EU ploughs in €30bn and the International Monetary Fund comes up with €15bn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/27/greece-credit-rating-downgraded
Lulz at how small the numbers were back then.
And in the thick of it the rulers of the world Goldman Sachs these are from 2010 as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.html?pagewanted=all
The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.
Except the can kicking has allowed private investors to bail leaving the banks to buy.....ie us voters (well EU voters).
So the ones sucking it up will be ppl like you and I......quite why when it gets really bad (a few years yet maybe) they think a few banksters or even Pollies wont get lynched mystifies me.
regards
There is a lot of vendor financing and bribes in Swiss bank accounts to corrupt officials too. The whole thing is more sordid than we honest kiwis assume.
The tip of the iceberg?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,792189,00.html
Someone please exp[lain why these ideas are so flawed for NZ?
Make it LAW that we limit mortgages on a sliding scale over the next 10 years to a cap of only 2.5x Main Salery Earner.
- Mothers can be mothers again as they DON'T have to work to pay the mortgage and our children will benefit immensely.
- People have to save deposits OR have to actually live within their means (radical).
- House bubbles dont happen (again)
And; more radically; for money, not invested in a compnay or asset, owned by an individual over a certain figure (3 million?)... then it gets taxed at 90%.
- Money needs to be invested or be moving round society... period!
Thoughts?
How about a simpler reform, which will keep house prices under control. http://positivemoney.org.nz/
The key is to disconnect the process of buying a house from the process of creating money (which drives house price inflation), because otherwise the guys who create money will create as much as possible so that they can benefit from lending it.
uh no....what if mothers want to have a career?
What if say one salary earner is a high earner and the other fairly low, so OK, but what happens if both are moderate earners? so the totals come to the same amount? I can see what you are driving at so I think there is at least one way taht of controlling the LVR (loans to valuation ratio?) taht seems to have worked quite well....Plus allowing the RB to vary taht say 80% nominal ratio gives them a tool to dampen spending....drop it to slow an overheated market raise it to stimulate it a bit......
I think Texas has an 80% LVR rule and other sane lending limits that seem to have done quite well in controlling the worst of the sillyness.
A CGT would also help.
Im not sure what you mean by invested or moving around, this sounds like the same thing...given inflation anyone not investing is losing value....
Have a tobin tax also to reduce volitility of our exchange rate.
again another good tax (effective, cheap to collect) is a land tax....but this should be balanced by PAYE and business tax reductions to compensate.....The important thing is to tax everyone on profit so others dont pay more than theor fair share....which hopefully points in the direction I think you are aiming for....
regards
How about considering a land tax with a sliding scale where x% is the rate
(a) 0.5x% where the property is owner-occupied and title in an individuals name
(b) 2x% where the title is in a company name
(c) 3x% where the title is held in a trust name
(d) 4x% where the property is owned by non-resident or absentee owners
(e) 5x% where the title is held in the name of nominee owners.
Additional compounding rates to address the issues of
Land aggregation by one owner, an increase in the rate for each additional property.
Land aggregation within one family all living at the same address by spreading the holdings around minors.
Multiple trusts with identical settlors and/or trustees and/or beneficiaries.
First Home Owners under the age of 30, married with children, given a rate free holiday for the first 5 years if owner occupied, and held for 5 years.
While the idea is not a bad one it scuppers one of Land tax's that it is easy hence cheap to collect....plus it will already be progressive as it is value based....its also I suspect open to fancy accounting / tax dodging abuses....I also suspect the not-resident idea while good, flies against our free trade philosophy.....plus if you form a NZ company and have a nz resident "in charge" it might be easy to dodge....and again it then means the low cost of tax collection gets complicated.
I also think we should probably be taxed on a home, but have that neutralised by (say) PAYE drops...to compensate....Im all for making taxes simple and hard to dodge.
regards
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