Jobs data highlight huge potential for capital loss in Treasuries

I have been making a big deal about strength in the household series of employment and the trend in IUCs. These are statistical series that do not get revised out of recognition. They often tell the tale at turning points. Given that past household survey employment and IUC trends have persisted, the current bond market rally will be even more insane and the stock market will probably continue to work higher, even though the favorable seasonable window has closed. I expect the recent trend of large outflows from stocks to bonds over the last year (and last five years) to be reversed in 2012. Not only are interest rates at generational lows but many high-quality companies are yielding (at 2.5% or even better) well above the yield on the 10-year U.S. note

The ECB is Engaging in Massive QE

Despite the ongoing hawkish rhetoric from the ECB, there are signs that they are getting it: The LTRO can’t work, as you’re essentially just swapping one liability for another one (albeit more long term in duration, therefore making it better for the banks). But note the way the ECB balance sheet is expanding: The consolidated assets of the European system of Central Banks is now 4.4 billion euros or $5.7 billion. In effect, the consolidated ESCB balance sheet is almost two times that of the Fed and its increase over the last 6 months is almost equal to the entire increase in the Fed’s balance sheet over the last several years. Bottom line: the system of European Central Banks (ESCB) has been engaged in massive QE and much more is in the pipeline. With such massive injections of “liquidity” into the European banks, a European Lehman type failure with Lehman’s systemic consequences becomes ever less likely

The Road to Serfdom

As for Italy itself, the country runs a primary fiscal surplus. As George Soros has noted: “Italy is indebted, but it isn’t insolvent.” Its fiscal deficit to GDP ratio is 60% of the OECD average. It is less than the euro area average. Its ratio of non-financial private debt to GDP is very low relative to other OECD economies.

It is not at all like Greece. It has a vibrant tradeable goods sector. It sells things the rest of the world wants. You introduce austerity at this juncture, and you will cause even slower economic growth, higher public debt, thereby creating the very type of Greek style national insolvency crisis that Europe is ostensibly seeking to avoid. And then it will move to France, and ultimately to Germany itself. No passenger is safe when the Titanic hits the iceberg

Europe’s Non-Solution

Let’s not get bogged down in numbers. The EFSF could have 440 billion euros behind, 1 trillion, 2 trillion, even 10 trillion euros, but it all comes back to the funding sources. The French are right: it makes no sense to implement this program without the backstop of the ECB, which is the only entity that could make any guarantees credible, by virtue of its ability to create unlimited quantities of euros.

Both the leading policy makers within the euro zone and market participants continue to conflate two distinct, but related issues: that of national solvency and insufficient aggregate demand. Policy makers want the ECB to do both, but in fact, the ECB is only required to deal with the solvency issue. When you do that in a credible way, then you get the capital markets re-opened and you give countries a better chance to fund themselves again via the capital markets. It means you do not actually need several trillion dollars, because you have a credible backstop in place

Core Europe Sitting Pretty in their PIIGS Drawn Chariot

The “solution” currently on offer – i.e. the talk surrounding the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) now includes suggestions of ECB backing. This makes eminent sense. Let’s be honest: the EFSF is a political fig-leaf. If 440 billion euros proves insufficient, as many now contend, the fund would have to be expanded and the money ultimately has to come from the ECB — the only entity that can create new net financial euro denominated assets — which means that Germany need no longer fret about being asked for ongoing lump sums to fund the EFSF in a way that would ultimately damage its triple AAA credit rating

The Euro Endgame

There appear to be no happy outcomes here (although as my friend, Tom Ferguson always reminds me, “If you want to have a happy ending, go see a Disney film”). We appear to be entering most dangerous time for Europe since World War

Massive Iceberg Ahead for the European Monetary Union

Guilio Tremonti, the Italian Finance Minister, last week compared Germany and its small-minded Chancellor Angela Merkel to a first-class passenger on the Titanic. To repeat: this is not a problem confined to the periphery. The sovereign risk problem applies to the central core countries, such as Germany and France, as it does to the Mediterranean “profligates”. Once a run on the currency starts and moves into the banking sector, then none of the governments will be able to do anything other than to oversee financial and economic collapse while the fiddlers in Brussels and Frankfurt try to spin some line about “special circumstances” or something without admitting the whole system they imposed on the area is the cause of this crisis

America’s Rival Oligarchs’ Fight Over the Debt Ceiling

Marshall Auerback argues that President Obama remains close to Wall Street via Geithner, Summers, Rubin, et al. Given the strong mutual cultural antipathy between Wall Street ‘Yankees’ and Southwestern ‘Cowboys’, it is not surprising that the ‘populist’ outrage against Obama has such a tone of viciousness. By contrast, the Wall Street crowd tends to be socially liberal. The bottom line however is that in economics – which is what counts – both groups are predators. The rest of us, we’re just caught between two rival groups of oligarchs, with nothing in it for us

Panicked

Today’s unemployment data suggests that we are experiencing something far worse than a mere “bump in the road”, as our President described it last month. Today’s data should create real palpitations in the White House. This isn’t just a “bump,” but a fully-fledged New York City style pot hole

On Dickishness

It may not have been the most felicitous choice of phrase, but Mark Halperin’s characterization of Barack Obama was not far off the mark, even if he did get suspended for it

The Continuing Eurozone Extend and Pretend

Short of a fiscal union, there are other measures which the Greeks could adopt to make their bonds more attractive to external investors, thereby preventing the markets shutting the country down and refusing to extend further credit to a insolvent country. Warren Mosler and I have suggested Greece could place new debt by inserting a provision stating that, in the event of default, the bearer on demand can use those defaulted securities to pay Greek government taxes. This makes it immediately obvious to investors that those new securities are ‘money good’ and will ultimately redeem for face value for as long as the Greek government levies and enforces taxes. This would not only allow Greece to fund itself at low interest rates, but it would also serve as an example for the rest of the euro zone, and thereby ease the funding pressures on the entire region

A ‘United States of Europe’ or Full Exit from the Euro? (Part 2)

This is the second in a two-part essay on the origins of the sovereign debt crisis. Here the emphasis is on the present situation within the euro zone and the imbalances between the core, dominated by Germany, and the euro zone periphery