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More Central Banking Lunacy
More Central Banking Lunacy
US Rate Hike: The Back-Pedaling Brigade
Last week’s payrolls report was “stronger than expected”, which should actually be fairly meaningless, given how many times it will be revised and considering that it is a lagging economic indicator. However, in light of the Fed’s absurd employment mandate, it does slightly increase the chances of a token rate hike at some point this year.
IMF chief Lagarde – a political operator and bureaucrat since 2005, thinks monetary policy should remain as loose as possible. No-one seems to really know why.
Photo credit: Reuters
To this it should be noted that whether the Federal Funds rate is or isn’t 25 basis points higher shouldn’t make much difference either, but it would certainly have some symbolic significance if the Fed were to move away from its current zero interest rate policy. In the meantime, the broad US money supply TMS-2 has most recently recorded an approx. 7.8% year-on-year growth rate, which remains a historically very high level. Only in the context of the ever wilder oscillations since the Nasdaq bubble blow-out in 2000 can it be considered a “middling” rate of money supply growth:
The broad US money supply aggregate TMS-2 (true money supply) is growing at 7.8% y/y at last count – click to enlarge.
Given that the Fed has stopped “QE” and its balance sheet growth has turned slightly negative, current money supply growth is the result of credit creation by commercial banks – especially industrial and commercial loans are essentially back at typical boom growth rates. Most recently they clocked in at a rate of 12.45% annualized.
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IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors
IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors
The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to let Dominique Strauss-Kahn hijack the institution to save Europe’s banks and the euro when the crisis erupted, dooming Greece to disaster.
The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund’s own credibility and long-term survival are at stake.
The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do.
Five key players in the radical-Left Syriza movement – meeting in the Maximus Mansion in Athens yesterday – took an ice-cold, calculated, and carefully-considered decision not to pay.
They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagardewas caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned.
On one level, the “bundling” of €1.6bn of payments due to the IMF in June is just a technical shuffle, albeit invoking a procedure last used by Zambia for different reasons in the 1980s. In reality it is a warning shot, and a dangerous escalation for all parties.
Syriza’s leaders are letting it be known that they are so angry, and so driven by a sense of injustice, that they may indeed default to the IMF on June 30 and in so doing place the institution in the invidious position of explaining to its 188 member countries why it has lost their money so carelessly, and why it has made such a colossal hash of its affairs.
The Greeks accuse the IMF of colluding in an EMU-imposed austerity regime that breaches the Fund’s own rules and is in open contradiction with five years of analysis by its own excellent research department and chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.
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Greece Admits It Will Not Make IMF Payment On Friday, No Deal Expected Wednesday
Greece Admits It Will Not Make IMF Payment On Friday, No Deal Expected Wednesday
For days, Greek officials have been insistent that the country will make a €300 million payment to the IMF this Friday and thus avoid a default.
Last month, we heard the same rhetoric out of Athens and as it turns out, the government had prearranged an end-around whereby Greece tapped its IMF SDR reserves to stay current. In other words, the IMF paid itself. We suspected that some similar arrangement might be in the offing this month when economy minister George Stathakis said bundling June’s payments would not be necessary because Greece was looking at a “technical solution” to make the June 5 payment.
On Tuesday evening we noted that some Greek officials seemed to be suggesting that the “technical solution” was simply a veiled reference to securing a deal that would allow the country to use a portion of its aid disbursement to pay the Fund at the end of the week. That now appears to have been confirmed with a Syriza spokesman saying that if Tsipras does not ink a deal in the next 48 hours, Greece will miss Friday’s payment.
Via Reuters:
Greece will not make a June 5 repayment to the International Monetary Fund if there is no prospect of an aid-for-reforms deal with its international creditors soon, the spokesman for the ruling Syriza party’s lawmakers said on Wednesday.
The payment of 300 million euros ($335 million) is the first of four this month totaling 1.6 billion euros from a country that depends on foreign aid to stay afloat.
Greece owes a total of about 320 billion euros, of which about 65 percent to euro zone governments and the IMF, and about 8.7 percent to the European Central Bank.
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Alexis Tsipras: The Bell Tolls for Europe
Alexis Tsipras: The Bell Tolls for Europe
This is a letter From Greek PM Alexis Tsipras in today’s Le Monde. I have little to add, his eloquence needs few comments at this moment. One thing is certain: the negotiations will never be the same. And neither will Europe.
Straight from the Prime Minister’s offical website: :
And the worst result: Despite badly damaging the social fabric, this Program failed to invigorate the competitiveness of the Greek economy. Public debt soared from 124% to 180% of GDP, and despite the heavy sacrifices of the people, the Greek economy remains trapped in continuous uncertainty caused by unattainable fiscal balance targets that further the vicious cycle of austerity and recession. The new Greek government’s main goal during these last four months has been to put an end to this vicious cycle, an end to this uncertainty. Doing so requires a mutually beneficial agreement that will set realistic goals regarding surpluses, while also reinstating an agenda of growth and investment. A final solution to the Greek problem is now more mature and more necessary than ever.
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Russian Pivot: Greece Will “Probably” Join BRICS Bank, Official Says
Russian Pivot: Greece Will “Probably” Join BRICS Bank, Official Says
Greece has very little in the way of bargaining power with European creditors. Outside of gimmicks like tapping its SDR reserves, Athens has no cash to make payments to the IMF in June and, perhaps more importantly, there’s very little in the way of wiggle room when one looks at revenues versus spending (see below), meaning Greece will also struggle to pay public sector employees which, in combination with Greeks’ consternation about the safety of their deposits, could contribute to social unrest and put unwelcome political pressure on PM Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party that swept to power just five months ago on a defiant (and apparently naive) anti-austerity platform.
The troika (and Germany) knows this of course and they are also acutely aware that Spain’s Podemos and Portugal’s Socialists are watching the Greek drama closely for the slightest indication of concessions from the IMF or from the EU. In other words, the standoff is now just as much about politics as it is about economics, and the ‘institutions’ do not want any Syriza sympathizers to be able to say that Greece made anyone blink by threatening an exit from the currency bloc. What all of the above means is that for better or worse, Greece has essentially no leverage because for many European officials, trading austerity concessions for the right to maintain the idea of euro indissolubility is no longer a desirable outcome as it could embolden anti-austerity governments in larger, more influential countries. All of that said, Greece still has one card to play: the so-called ‘Russian pivot’.
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Greece – Stumbling Toward Default
Greece – Stumbling Toward Default
Good Cop Under Fire
On June 5, Greece has to pay €240 million to the IMF. A week later another €270 million are coming due. All in all, Greece has to pay back €1.5 billion in IMF loans over the month of June. All indications are that the Greek government doesn’t even have the €240 m. that are coming due next week. In light of this, its intransigence in the negotiations with the euro-group may be slightly bewildering, but as we have pointed out already when it became clear that Syriza would likely win the Greek parliamentary elections, the situation always was akin to a Mexican standoff.
Image credit: António Jorge Gonçalves
Some in the group leading the negotiations are now accusing the EU Commission and its president Juncker of giving the Greeks “false hope” by making it appear as though they will be bailed out no matter what:
“Some euro zone countries are accusing the European Commission of giving Greece false hope of new loans for less reform effort, but they still want Brussels to find a way to keep a defiant Athens in the euro.
After four months of talks with scant progress, hawkish governments privately blame Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici for muddying their message by playing “good cop”.
Greece is now close to default and still resisting unpopular labor and pension reforms that are conditions for more aid. Some governments believe the creditors would get faster results if the institutions representing them — the Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — presented a more united tough front.
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The Pressure Just Shifted from Greece to the US and EU
The Pressure Just Shifted from Greece to the US and EU
With the 3rd US Q1 GDP print coming in at -0.7% (-3% if not for inventories), perhaps the media spotlights – and lively imagination – can move away from Greece for a few weeks. The US has enough problems of its own, it would seem. For one thing, its Q1 GDP is now worse than Greece’s. Of course its debt is also much higher, just not to the IMF and ECB. But let’s leave that one be for the moment. Though a bit of perspective works miracles at times.
Of course it’s not a technical recession yet for the US, which only recently presented a +4% quarter with a straight face, and there’s always the ‘multiple seasonal adjustment’ tool. But still. It’s ugly.
The IMF confirmed on Thursday that Athens has the right to ask for “bundled” repayments in June. “Countries do have the option of bundling when they have a series of payments in a given month … making a single payment at the end of that month,” as per an IMF spokesman. Who added that the last country to do so was Zambia three decades ago.
That leaves Athens, in theory, with a 30-day window, not a 7-day one. This of course takes the pressure cooker away from Athens, and the media attention as well. There is no immediate risk of a default, or a Grexit, or anything like that. The negotiations with the creditors will continue, but the conversation will change with time less of an issue.
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China Nears Global Reserve Status: “There Will Be a Reset of the Financial Industry”
China Nears Global Reserve Status: “There Will Be a Reset of the Financial Industry”
The world is anticipating a new global reality with huge implications: China’s yuan is poised to get recognized as a global reserve currency.
In a sign of the times, the IMF has essentially rebuffed U.S. claims of currency manipulation, to instead affirm that China’s currency is “no longer undervalued” – essentially giving its approval for the inner circle what many have described as an incubating world currency.
China’s yuan currency, which Washington has long alleged was manipulated, is “no longer undervalued”, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.
The value of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, has been a source of tension for years, with China’s major trade partners — led by the United States — accusing Beijing of keeping it artificially low to give Chinese exporters an unfair competitive advantage, which Beijing denied.
“Our assessment now is that the substantial real effective appreciation over the past year has brought the exchange rate to a level that is no longer undervalued,” the IMF said in a statement after a consultation mission to China. (source)
#China‘s #yuan may become world currency after #IMF ‘approval’ http://t.co/OyAfKUI1XMpic.twitter.com/bArePaPpJe
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 27, 2015
With longstanding U.S. opposition to China’s currency status, the IMF decision has been seen as the biggest hurdle to world reserve status. This news brings China one giant step closer to entry onto the global stage of currencies and new financial norms for Americans, as SHTF has long reported.
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Greece Owes $1.2 Billion To Drugmakers As Government Can No Longer Afford Basic Medical Supplies
Greece Owes $1.2 Billion To Drugmakers As Government Can No Longer Afford Basic Medical Supplies
Talks between Greece and its creditors went full-retard on Wednesday when the following soundbite from Canada’s FinMin Joe Oliver hit the wires:
“No Greek payment to IMF would be default to IMF”
That seemed self-evident to us, but in a world governed by debt, we suppose everyone occasionally needs to remind themselves that failure to make good on one’s obligations constitutes default.
In any event, Greece apparently owes quite a bit of money to the world’s drug suppliers because, as we reported earlier this week, Athens is now running short on bed sheets and painkillers in its hospitals as the consequences of being completely beholden to the ”institutions” which control the printing of a fiat currency become increasingly clear.
Here’s what we said on Sunday:
The idea that a developed country cannot provide basic emergency medical care because it is in poor standing with the institutions that print a fiat currency is patently absurd and simply isn’t tenable meaning that one way or another, this ‘situation’ will resolve itself in the coming weeks, an event which will put Europe’s broken bond markets to a rather difficult test.
And now, we get this from Reuters:
Cash-strapped Greece has racked up mounting debts with international drugmakers and now owes the industry more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), a leading industry official said on Wednesday.The rising unpaid bill reflects the growing struggle by the nearly bankrupt country to muster cash, andcreates a dilemma for companies under moral pressure not to cut off supplies of life-saving medicines.
Richard Bergstrom, director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, told Reuters his members had not been paid by Greece since December 2014. They are owed money by both hospitals and state-run health insurer EOPYY.
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Is The 505 Trillion Dollar Interest Rate Derivatives Bubble In Imminent Jeopardy?
Is The 505 Trillion Dollar Interest Rate Derivatives Bubble In Imminent Jeopardy?
All over the planet, large banks are massively overexposed to derivatives contracts. Interest rate derivatives account for the biggest chunk of these derivatives contracts. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the notional value of all interest rate derivatives contracts outstanding around the globe is a staggering 505 trillion dollars. Considering the fact that the U.S. national debt is only 18 trillion dollars, that is an amount of money that is almost incomprehensible. When this derivatives bubblefinally bursts, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out. The key to making sure that all of these interest rate bets do not start going bad is for interest rates to remain stable. That is why what is going on in Greece right now is so important. The Greek government has announced that it will default on a loan payment that it owes to the IMF on June 5th. If that default does indeed happen, Greek bond yields will soar into the stratosphere as panicked investors flee for the exits. But it won’t just be Greece. If Greece defaults despite years of intervention by the EU and the IMF, that will be a clear signal to the financial world that no nation in Europe is truly safe. Bond yields will start spiking in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and all over the rest of the continent. By the end of it, we could be faced with the greatest interest rate derivatives crisis that any of us have ever seen.
The number one thing that bond investors want is to get their money back. If a nation like Greece is actually allowed to default after so much time and so much effort has been expended to prop them up, that is really going to spook those that invest in bonds.
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Grexit “Disaster” Looms As Greek Hospitals Run Out Of Sheets, Painkillers
Grexit “Disaster” Looms As Greek Hospitals Run Out Of Sheets, Painkillers
The default countdown is about to go under 10 days and it is becoming increasingly apparent that both Greece and its creditors have had enough.
Months of tense negotiations have gone nowhere and yielded exactly nothing and it now looks like PM Alexis Tsipras and FinMin Yanis Varoufakis may be willing to miss a June 5 payment to the IMF if it means proving they are serious about keeping their campaign promises and forcing the troika to the bargaining table. The implications of a missed payment aren’t entirely clear but Athens is keen to predict the worst as it tries to squeeze concessions from creditors.Bloomberg has more:
A day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greek society can’t absorb any more austerity measures, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said his government has met the euro area and IMF three-quarters of the way, and that it’s up to creditors to cover the remainder.“Greece has made enormous strides reaching a deal, it is now up to the institutions to do their bit,” Varoufakis said Sunday on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “It is not in their interests as our creditors that the cow that produces the milk should be beaten into submission to the extent that the milk will not be enough for them to get their money back”…
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, meanwhile, signaled there isn’t much wiggle room after Tsipras’s government committed to policy changes in return for aid in a euro-area accord on Feb. 20.
“That is the condition for completing the current program,” Schaeuble said in a Deutschlandfunk radio interview aired Sunday. “The problems are rooted in Greece. And now Greece does have to fulfill its commitments.”
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George Soros Warns “No Exaggeration” That China-US On “Threshold Of World War 3”
George Soros Warns “No Exaggeration” That China-US On “Threshold Of World War 3”
While admitting that reaching agreement between the two countries will be difficult to achieve, George Soros –speaking at The World Bank’s Bretton Woods conference this week – warned that unless the U.S. makes ‘major concessions’ and allows China’s currency to join the IMF’s basket of currencies, “there is a real danger China will align itself with Russia politically and militarily, and then the threat of world war becomes real.”
Much in global geopolitics depends on the health and trajectory of the Chinese economy, was the undertone of George Soros’ comments as he spoke this week, but as MarketWatch reports,
Billionaire investor George Soros said flatly that he’s concerned about the possibility of another world war.…
If China’s efforts to transition to a domestic-demand led economy from an export engine falter,there is a “likelihood” that China’s rulers would foster an external conflict to keep the country together and hold on to power.
…
To avoid this scenario, Soros called on the U.S. to make a “major concession” and allow China’s currency to join the International Monetary Fund’s basket of currencies. This would make the yuan a potential rival to the dollar as a global reserve currency.
In return, China would have to make similar major concessions to reform its economy, such as accepting the rule of law, Soros said.
Allowing China’s yuan to be a market currency would create “a binding connection” between the two systems.
An agreement along these lines will be difficult to achieve, Soros said, but the alternative is so unpleasant.
“Without it, there is a real danger that China will align itself with Russia politically and militarily, and then the threat of third world war becomes real, so it is worth trying.”
And while on the topic, Soros also spoke recently, as ValueWalk notes, on the situation in Europe…
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The IMF Tells a Half-Truth
The IMF Tells a Half-Truth
On May 18 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report titled “How Large are Global Energy Subsidies?” The question is a bit misleading: most readers, when they see the word subsidy, probably tend to think of tax breaks or cash gifts to specific industries. The report, however, uses the term mostly to refer to environmental externalities—and not ones tied to all energy use, but ones related to fossil fuel combustion in particular.
An economic externality is an impact of a commercial activity that is not reflected in the prices of goods or services traded. There can be positive externalities: if I buy organic, responsibly farmed food, I usually expect to pay more—thus the beneficial impact of my food choice upon the environment isn’t reflected in a price that would reinforce my behavior; just the opposite is true. But far and away most externalities are negative: companies are always looking for ways to make society as a whole clean up after them so that they don’t have to pay the full costs incurred by their activities. Indeed, John Michael Greer has convincingly argued that industrial capitalism is, in effect, a negative externality-generating machine: the faster it goes and the bigger it grows, the more externalities it spews out for society as a whole to try to mitigate.
It’s certainly helpful to have an accounting of the externalities of our collective fossil fuel consumption. But the choice of the word “subsidies” over the more precise “externalities” makes a difference: governments can cancel subsidies in the forms of tax breaks and gifts, but they can’t so easily cancel fossil fuel externalities without curtailing fossil fuel consumption—and that’s a big job, if they’re to do it in a way that doesn’t entail the rapid, uncontrolled collapse of society.
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4 Factors Signaling Volatility Will Return With A Vengeance
4 Factors Signaling Volatility Will Return With A Vengeance
Buckle up. It’s going to get bumpy.
No one could have predicted the sheer scope of global monetary policy bolstering the private banking and trading system. Yet, here we were – ensconced in the seventh year of capital markets being buoyed by coordinated government and central bank strategies. It’s Keynesianism for Wall Street. The unprecedented nature of this international effort has provided an illusion of stability, albeit reliant on artificial stimulus to the private sector in the form of cheap money, tempered currency rates (except the dollar – so far) and multi-trillion dollar bond buying programs. It is the most expensive, blatant aid for major financial players ever conceived and executed. But the facade is fading. Even those sustaining this madness, like the IMF, are issuing warnings about increasing volatility.
We are repeatedly told these tactics benefit broader populations and economies. Yet by design, they encourage hoarding, or more crafty speculative behavior, on the part of big financial firms (in the guise of obeying slightly adjusted capital rules) and their corporate clients (that largely use cheap funds to buy their own stock.) While politicians, central banks and multinational government-funded entities opine on “remaining” structural weaknesses of certain individual countries, they congratulate themselves on having staved off more acute crises. All without exhibiting the slightest bit of irony.
When cheap funds stop flowing, and “hot” money shifts its attentions, as it invariably and inevitably does, volatility escalates as it is doing now. This usually signals a downturn, but not before nail-biting ups and downs in the process.
These four risk factors individually, or collectively, drive rapid price fluctuations. Individually, they fuel market volatility. Concurrently, they can wreak far greater havoc:
- Central Bank Policies
- Credit Default Risk
- Geo-Political Maneuvering
- Financial Industry Manipulation And Crime
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Greece Says That It Will Default On June 5th, And Moody’s Warns Of A ‘Deposit Freeze’
Greece Says That It Will Default On June 5th, And Moody’s Warns Of A ‘Deposit Freeze’
The Greek government says that a “moment of truth” is coming on June 5th. Either their lenders agree to give them more money by that date, or Greece will default on a 300 million euro loan payment to the IMF. Of course it won’t technically be a “default” according to IMF rules for another 30 days after that, but without a doubt news that Greece cannot pay will send shockwaves throughout the financial world. At that point, those holding Greek bonds will start to panic as they realize that they might not get paid as well. All over Europe, there are major banks that are holding large amounts of Greek debt and derivatives that are related to the performance of Greek debt. If something is not done to avert disaster at the last moment, a default by Greece could be the spark that sets off a major European financial crisis this summer.
As I discussed the other day, neither the EU nor the IMF have given any money to Greece since August 2014. So now the Greek government is just about out of money, and without any new loans they will not be able to pay back the old loans that are coming due. In fact, things are so bad at this point that the Greek government is openly warningthat it will default on June 5th…
Greece cannot make an upcoming payment to the International Monetary Fund on June 5 unless foreign lenders disburse more aid, a senior ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday, the latest warning from Athens it is on the verge of default.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist government says it hopes to reach a cash-for-reforms deal in days, although European Union and IMF lenders are more pessimistic and say talks are moving too slowly for that.
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