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Back in May 2013, we wrote an article titled “Europe’s EUR 500 Billion Ticking NPL Time Bomb” in which we laid out very simply what the biggest danger facing European banks was: non-performing, or bad, loans.

We further said, that “Europe’s non-performing loan problem is such an issue that there is increasing bluster that the ECB may take this garbage on to its balance sheet since policymakers realize that bad debts and non-performing loans (NPLs) reduce the capacity of banks to lend, hindering the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Bad debts consume capital and make banks more risk averse, especially with respect to lending to higher risk borrowers such as SMEs. With Italy (NPLs 13.4%) now following the same dismal trajectory of Spain’s bad debts, the situation is rapidly escalating (at an average of around 2.5% increase per year).

The conclusion was likewise simple:

“The bottom line is that at its core, it is all simply a bad-debt problem, and the more the bad debt, the greater the ultimate liability impairments become, including deposits. As we answered at the time – the real question in Europe is: how much impairment capacity is there in the various European nations before deposits have to be haircut? With Periphery non-performing loans totaling EUR 720bn across the whole of the Euro area in 2012 and EUR 500bn of which were with Peripheral banks.”

Now, three years later, the bomb appears to be on the verge of going off (or may have already quietly exploded), and nowhere is it more clear than in an exhaustive article written by the WSJ in which it focuses on Italy’s insolvent banking system, and blames – what else – the hundreds of billions in NPLs on bank books as the culprit behind Europe’s latest upcoming crisis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Italy Granted “Extraordinary ” €150BN Bank Bailout Program To Prevent “Panic, Run On Deposits”

June 30, 2016

Italy Granted “Extraordinary ” €150BN Bank Bailout Program To Prevent “Panic, Run On Deposits”

As we noted today, the rumors of an Italian bank bailout, which started on Monday morning, and were promptly shot down by Merkel the next day, got louder after a Reuters report that the Italian government is considering more creative ways to inject liquidity into Italy’s banks. However that was just an appetizer to a main course, which came later today when as the WSJ reported citing a spokeswoman for the European Union’s executive arm that the “European Commission has authorized Italy to use government guarantees to create a precautionary liquidity support program for their banks.”

How did this happen so quietly under the table and without Merkel’s blessing? WSJ says that the program was approved under the bloc’s “extraordinary crisis rules for state aid.”

And here we thought that Italy’s banks are actually doing so very well. Oh wait, no we didn’t.

As the WSJ notes, the proposed “crisis” plan is the “other leg of an intervention plan considered by the government” namely, the direct capital injection into Italian banks that would add up to €40 billion in capital to the banking sector”, the one we profiled previously. It is also the plan that Merkel supposedly shut down before it got off the ground. However, Europe had a Plan B up its sleeve.

What are the details of this latest “crisis” program?

According to an EU official, the liquidity support program includes up to €150 billion ($166 billion) in government guarantees. The WSJ adds that the commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the amount of guarantees that were authorized, but said that the budget requested by the Italian government had been found to be proportionate. The Italian economy ministry declined to comment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

German Study Proves It – 95% of Greek “Bailout” Money Went to the Banks

May 6, 2016

German Study Proves It – 95% of Greek “Bailout” Money Went to the Banks

Screen Shot 2016-05-05 at 10.20.07 AM

I simply cannot stress enough how important Greece is to freedom, liberty and civilization across the globe. Greece is not a one-off, or merely a small nation in big trouble that holds little relevance for the rest of us. Greece is everything.

What is happening to Greece follows the exact same game plan of what will eventually happen to every other supposedly sovereign nation. First there is an explosion of debt. Then a crisis. Then a bailout. Then creditor imposed hardship is forced upon the average population, in conjunction with unlimited bailouts for the bankers and other oligarch criminals. Finally, when a public which mistakenly believes it is living in a democracy exercises its right to national sovereignty, the sad truth is exposed. They are not a people living under a free political system.

– From last year’s post: This is Sparta – 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs are Coming to Greece

A recent German study just confirmed what tens of millions of Greeks already knew. That they are a people fully conquered by criminal mega banks and the corrupt politicians and technocrats in their employ.

Get ready for another epic screw job this summer.

From Ekathimerini:

Some 95 percent of the 220 billion euros disbursed to Greece since the start of the financial crisis as loans from the bailout mechanism has been directed toward saving the European banks. That means about 210 billion euros was eventually channeled to the eurozone credit sector while just 5 percent ended up in state coffers, according to a study by the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin.

“Europe and the International Monetary Fund have in previous years mainly saved the banks and other private creditors,” concluded the report, published yesterday in German newspaper Handelsblatt. ESMT director Jorg Rocholl told the financial newspaper that “the bailout packages mainly saved the European banks.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Jim Grant Asks When The World Will Realize “That Central Bankers Have Lost Their Marbles”

May 6, 2016

Jim Grant Asks When The World Will Realize “That Central Bankers Have Lost Their Marbles”

April 15 comes and goes but the federal debt stays and grows. The secrets of its life force are the topics at hand— that and some guesswork about how the upsurge in financial leverage, private and public alike, may bear on the value of the dollar and on the course of monetary affairs. Skipping down to the bottom line, we judge that the government’s money is a short sale.

Diminishing returns is the essential problem of the debt: Past a certain level of encumbrance, a marginal dollar of borrowing loses its punch. There’s a moral dimension to the problem as well. There would be less debt if people were more angelic. Non-angels, the taxpayers underpay, the bureaucrats over-remit and everyone averts his gaze from the looming titanic cost of future medical entitlements. Topping it all is 21st-century monetary policy, which fosters the credit formation that leads to the debt dead end. The debt dead end may, in fact, be upon us now. A monetary dead end could follow.

As to sin, Americans surrender, in full and on time, 83% of what they owe, according to the IRS—or they did between the years 2001 and 2006, the latest period for which America’s most popular federal agency has sifted data. In 2006, the IRS reckons, American filers, both individuals and corporations, paid $450 billion less than they owed. They underreported $376 billion, underpaid $46 billion and kept mum about (“nonfiled”) $28 billion. Recoveries, through late payments or enforcement actions, reduced that gross deficiency to a net “tax gap” of $385 billion.

This was in 2006, when federal tax receipts footed to $2.31 trillion. Ten years later, the U.S. tax take is expected to reach $3.12 trillion.Proportionally, the 2006 gross tax gap would translate to $607.7 billion, and the net tax gap to $520 billion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

With Impeccable Timing, ‘Economic Miracle’ in Spain Unravels

April 24, 2016

With Impeccable Timing, ‘Economic Miracle’ in Spain Unravels

The European Union on the verge.

Since the granddaddy of all housing bubbles popped in Spain between 2008 and 2009, unleashing one of the deepest recessions in living memory, the nation’s public debt has more than doubled, from just over 40% of GDP to almost exactly 100% today. Last year, despite the fact that Spain grew faster than almost any other European economy, the government managed to rack up a deficit of 5.2%, one full percentage point above the target that it had set itself a year earlier and over three percentage points above the Eurozone average.

It’s the third-highest deficit-to-GDP ratio in the Eurozone after Greece and Portugal. That’s some claim for Europe’s supposed economic success story.

This is the eighth consecutive year that Spain has overshot its fiscal target. Originally, the Spanish government was supposed to get its deficit back below the EU’s sacred limit of 3% of GDP by 2013. When it became clear during the darkest days of the crisis that it would be impossible, the deadline was extended by a year. A year later, Madrid had made so little progress that it got a further two-year extension, to 2016.

But still there’s no sign of progress. None of which should come as a surprise. As WOLF STREET warned in October, it was plain as day that the Spanish government would fail to rein in its spending during the run-up to a tightly fought general election. Brussels was completely aware of this fact and did nothing to address it, for obvious reasons: political expedience.

Brussels along with Spain’s big banks, corporate giants, and the Troika wanted the conservative Rajoy government to win December’s do-or-die general elections. They’d do “whatever it takes” to keep the narrative intact that the Spanish economy has never been better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Former IMF Chief Economist Admits Japan’s “Endgame” Scenario Is Now In Play

April 11, 2016

Former IMF Chief Economist Admits Japan’s “Endgame” Scenario Is Now In Play

Back in October 2014, just after the BOJ drastically expanded its QE operation, we warned that the biggest risk facing the BOJ (and the ECB, and the Fed, and all other central banks actively soaking up securities from the open market) was a lack of monetizable supply. We cited Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors in Tokyo, who said that at the scale of its current debt monetization, the BOJ could end up owning half of the JGB market by as early as in 2018. He added that “The BOJ is basically declaring that Japan will need to fix its long-term problems by 2018, or risk becoming a failed nation.”

Which is why 17 months ago we predicted that, contrary to expectations of even more QE from Kuroda, we said “the BOJ will not boost QE, and if anything will have no choice but to start tapering it down – just like the Fed did when its interventions created the current illiquidity in the US govt market – especially since liquidity in the Japanese government market is now non-existent and getting worse by the day.”

As part of our conclusion, we said we do not “expect the media to grasp the profound implications of this analysis not only for the BOJ but for all other central banks: we expect this to be summer of 2016’s business.”

Since then, the forecast has panned out largely as expected: both the ECB and BOJ, finding themselves collateral constrained, were forced to expand into other, even more unconventional methods of easing, whether it be NIRP in the case of the BOJ, or the outright purchases of corporate bonds as the ECB did a month ago.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Italy Seeks “Last Resort” Bailout Fund To “Ringfence” Troubled Banks, Meeting Monday

April 10, 2016

Italy Seeks “Last Resort” Bailout Fund To “Ringfence” Troubled Banks, Meeting Monday

Italy’s finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, wants to “ringfence” its troubled banks.

Padoan called a meeting of the executives of Italy’s troubled banks in Rome on Monday. The banks allegedly will come up with a “Last Resort” bailout fund.

Last resort or first resort, is there a difference at this point in time?

Please consider Italy Pushes for Bank Rescue Fund. I highlight the key buzzwords and phrases italics.

Finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan has called a meeting in Rome on Monday with executives from Italy’s largest financial institutions to agree final details of a “last resort” bailout plan.

Yet on the eve of that gathering, concerns remain as to whether the plan will be sufficient to ringfence the weakest of Italy’s large banks, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, from contagion, according to people involved in the talks.

Italian bank shares have lost almost half their value so far this year amid investor worries over a €360bn pile of non-performing loans — equivalent to about a fifth of GDP. Lenders’ profitability has been hit by a crippling three-year recession.

The plan being worked on, which could be officially announced as soon as Monday evening, recalls the Sareb bad bank created in 2012 by the Spanish government to deal with financial crisis in its smaller cajas banks, say people involved.

Although the details remain under discussion, it foresees the establishment of a private vehicle that will include upwards of €5bn in equity contributions — mostly from Italy’s banks, insurers and asset managers — and then a larger debt component. The fund will then mop up shares in distressed lenders.

A second vehicle will seek to buy non-performing loans at market prices.

“It is a backstop fund,” said one person involved in the talks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

German and Dutch objections to ECB QE are ignored

April 8, 2016

German and Dutch objections to ECB QE are ignored

From today’s Open Europe news summary:

ECB Minutes show deep divisions over stimulus measures
Minutes of the March meeting of the ECB governing council, released on yesterday reveal deep divisions amongst its members over the latest round of ECB stimulus. The Dutch and German members were fiercely against, The Financial Times reports, with the minutes noting that some feared the measures could result in “market distortions,” and that “the costs and risks of engaging further in public sector asset purchases, particularly in the medium to long term, would outweigh their potential benefits.”

Source: The Financial Times Politico

As usual, Germany’s (now joined by the Dutch) objections to the ECB’s quantitative easing program is ignored. It is a mystery why Germany continues to use the euro, since it is no one’s interest, not even the rest of the Eurozone countries, that it do so. The euro is a mechanism for the rest of Europe to steal German capital in order to prop up unsustainable welfare programs. This process will not cease until Germany’s economy is shattered. How can this be in the best interest of anyone, even the irresponsible countries of Europe? I believe the answer is that the rest of the Eurozone countries are led by opportunistic politicians who will line their pockets so that they themselves will not be affected by the coming collapse.

The End of Europe (As We Know It)?

March 30, 2016

THE END OF EUROPE (AS WE KNOW IT)?

As the Eurozone is amid secular stagnation, its old fiscal, monetary and banking challenges are escalating, along with new threats, including the Brexit, demise of Schengen, anti-EU opposition and geopolitical friction. According to Dan Steinbock, Brussels can no longer avoid hard political decisions for or against an integrated Europe, with or without the euro.

Since 2010, European leaders have been deferring the hard decisions. Occasionally, there have been political reasons for delays. Yet, times of crises cry for leadership.

Economically, procrastination has sustained the semblance of continuity in the short- term. Politically, it has maintained the status quo of “integration without common institutions”, which is unsustainable. Strategically, it has resulted in misguided military policies that threaten to undermine what is left of the unity of the region.

Time is out and delays are no longer an option.

From cyclical contraction to secular stagnation

The numbers are not encouraging. While the Eurozone (EZ) is amid a fragile cyclical rebound, it is barely breathing as quarterly real GDP growth is at barely 0.3% and inflation close to zero. After half a decade of economic pain, the region will struggle for 1.5% growth. In the coming decade, that will slow close to 1%.

When the global financial crisis hit Europe its core economies – Germany, France, the UK and Italy – relied on relatively generous social models for cushion, but structural challenges were deferred. In spring 2010, the European sovereign debt crisis was still seen as a liquidity issue and a banking crisis. As Brussels launched its €770 billion “shock and awe” rescue package, it was expected to stabilise the EZ.

However, Brussels and the core economies failed to provide adequate fiscal adjustment, which made mass unemployment a lot worse and continues to penalise confidence, demand and investment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Guessing the future without Say’s law

March 26, 2016

Guessing the future without Say’s law

Or some reflections to read over the Easter holidays

With Japanese and Eurozone interest rates becoming increasingly negative, and the Fed backing off from at least some of the planned increases in the Fed funds rate this year, economists are reassessing the interest rate outlook.

Economists lack consensus, with some expecting yet more easing, based on the apparent collapse in cross-border trade last year. The fact that the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank see fit to pursue increasingly aggressive monetary reflation is taken as evidence of underlying difficulties faced in these key economies. And lingering doubts about the sustainability of China’s credit bubble point to a high risk of a credit-induced slump in the world’s growth engine.

Other economists, citing official US data and relying on the Fed’s statements, point out that unemployment levels have more than satisfied the Fed’s target, and that core inflation has picked up to the point where the Fed would be fully justified to increase interest rates over the course of this year, or risk overheating in 2017.

These two opposite camps conflict in their forecasts, but where they fundamentally differ is in expectations of future economic growth. Far from displaying the highest levels of macroeconomic discipline, their diversity of opinion should alert us that their forecasts may lack sound theoretical foundation. The purpose of reasoned theory is to reduce uncertainty, not promote it. And the explanation for most of the failures behind modern macroeconomic thinking is the substitution of market-based economics by economic planning.

The fact that today’s macroeconomics dismisses the laws of the markets, commonly referred to by economists as Say’s law, explains all. Subsequent errors confirm. The many errors are a vast subject, but they boil down to that one fateful step, and that is denying the universal truth of Say’s law.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The ECB and John Law

March 18, 2016

THE ECB AND JOHN LAW

Last week, the ECB extended its monetary madness, pushing deposit rates yet more negative. It is extending quantitative easing from sovereign debt into non-financial investment grade bonds, while increasing the pace of acquisition to €80bn per month. The ECB also promised to pay the banks to take credit from it in “targeted longer-term refinancing operations”.

Any Frenchman with a knowledge of his country’s history should hear alarm bells ringing. The ECB is running the Eurozone’s money and assets in a similar fashion to that of John Law’s Banque Generale Privée (renamed Banque Royale in 1719), which ran those of France in 1716-20. The scheme at its heart was simple: use the money-issuing monopoly granted to the bank by the state to drive up the value of the Mississippi Company’s shares using paper money created for the purpose. The Duc d’Orleans, regent of France for the young Louis XV, agreed to the scheme because it would provide the Bourbons with much-needed funds.

This is pretty much what the ECB is doing today, except on a far larger Eurozone-wide basis. The need for government funds is of primary importance today, as it was then.

In Law’s day, France did not have a central bank, such as the Bank of England, managing the issue of government debt, let alone a functioning government bond market. The profligate spending of Louis XIV had left the state three billion livres in debt, which was the equivalent of 1,840 tonnes of gold. This was about 85% of the world’s estimated gold stock at that time, at the livre’s conversion rate into Louis d’Or. John Law would almost double that by June 1720, with unbacked livre notes issued by his bank.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2008 Revisited?

March 6, 2016

2008 Revisited?

NEW YORK – The question I am asked most often nowadays is this: Are we back to 2008 and another global financial crisis and recession?

My answer is a straightforward no, but that the recent episode of global financial market turmoil is likely to be more serious than any period of volatility and risk-off behavior since 2009. This is because there are now at least seven sources of global tail risk, as opposed to the single factors – the eurozone crisis, the Federal Reserve “taper tantrum,” a possible Greek exit from the eurozone, and a hard economic landing in China – that have fueled volatility in recent years.

First, worries about a hard landing in China and its likely impact on the stock market and the value of the renminbi have returned with a vengeance. While China is more likely to have a bumpy landing than a hard one, investors’ concerns have yet to be laid to rest, owing to the ongoing growth slowdown and continued capital flight.

Second, emerging markets are in serious trouble. They face global headwinds (China’s slowdown, the end of the commodity super cycle, the Fed’s exit from zero policy rates). Many are running macro imbalances, such as twin current account and fiscal deficits, and confront rising inflation and slowing growth. Most have not implemented structural reforms to boost sagging potential growth. And currency weakness increases the real value of trillions of dollars of debt built up in the last decade.

Third, the Fed probably erred in exiting its zero-interest-rate policy in December. Weaker growth, lower inflation (owing to a further decline in oil prices), and tighter financial conditions (via a stronger dollar, a corrected stock market, and wider credit spreads) now threaten US growth and inflation expectations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Former Bank of England Governor Says Eurozone Must Break Up

March 2, 2016

Former Bank of England Governor Says Eurozone Must Break Up

From today’s Open Europe news summary:

FORMER BANK OF ENGLAND GOVERNOR WARNS EUROZONE MUST BREAK UP IF SOME MEMBERS ARE EVER TO PROSPER AGAIN

In his new book, former Governor of the Bank of England Lord Mervyn King warns, “Put bluntly, monetary union has created a conflict between a centralised elite on the one hand, and the forces of democracy at the national level on the other…This is extraordinarily dangerous.” He adds that the measures aimed to keep the Eurozone together, such as bail-outs, “Will lead to not only an economic but a political crisis.” Lord King argues that the Eurozone must “face up” to its problems and the fact that some countries can only prosper again outside. Lord King accepts that “the counter-argument – that exit from the euro area would lead to chaos, falls in living standards and continuing uncertainty about the survival of the currency union – has real weight”, but sees little alternative for the struggling states.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

The fall in living standards would be temporay. A breakup of the euro will stop the consumption of capital that is made possible by the Eurozone’s bailout policies. The profligate countries of Europe would no longer have “legal” access to other people’s capital, namely Germany’s. They would have to reform their economies and live within their own, and not someone else’s, means. A breakup of the Eurozone would save Europe from its current socialist, capital-consuming structure.

Striking Admission By Former Bank Of England Head: The European Depression Was A “Deliberate” Act

March 2, 2016

Striking Admission By Former Bank Of England Head: The European Depression Was A “Deliberate” Act

Once again we find that it is only after they leave their official posts that central bankers finally tell the truth.

Last night, it was Alan Greenspan who blasted the state of the economy, saying that “we’re in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water” and when asked if he is optimistic going forward, Greenspan replied “no, I haven’t been for quite a while.”

Then on Sunday, the former head of the BOE, Mervyn King, warned that another aspect of the global economy, namely the financial system whose structural problems remain untouched since the financial crisis have been untouched, is “certain to have another crisis.

“To be sure, warnings by former central bankers who are more responsible about the current global mess sound as nothing but revisionist bullshit. And yet, it was what King said today at the launch of his new book that left us surprised.

As the Telegraph reports today, according to the former head of the Bank of England Europe’s economic depression “is the result of “deliberate” policy choices made by EU elites. Mervyn King continued his scathing assault on Europe’s economic and monetary union, having predicted the beleaguered currency zone will need to be dismantled to free its weakest members from unremitting austerity and record levels of unemployment.

King also said he could never have envisaged an economic collapse of the depths of the 1930s returning to Europe’s shores in the modern age. But, he added, the fate of Greece since 2009 – which has suffered a contraction eclipsing the US depression in the inter-war years – was an “appalling” example of economic policy failure, he told an audience at the London School of Economics.

“I never imagined that we would ever again in an industrialised country have a depression deeper than the United States experienced in the 1930s and that’s what’s happened in Greece.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

HSBC Looks At “Life Below Zero,” Says “Helicopter Money” May Be The Only Savior

February 27, 2016

HSBC Looks At “Life Below Zero,” Says “Helicopter Money” May Be The Only Savior

In many ways, 2016 has been the year that the world woke up to how far down Krugman’s rabbit hole (trademark) DM central bankers have plunged in a largely futile effort to resuscitate global growth.

For whatever reason, Haruhiko Kuroda’s move into NIRP seemed to spark a heretofore unseen level of public debate about the drawbacks of negative rates. Indeed, NIRP became so prevalent in the public consciousness that celebrities began to discuss central bank policy on Twitter.

When we say “for whatever reason” we don’t mean that the public shouldn’t be concerned about NIRP. In fact, we mean the exact opposite. The ECB, the Nationalbank, the SNB, and the Riksbank have all been mired in ineffectual NIRP for quite sometime and the public seemed almost completely oblivious. Indeed, even the financial media treated this lunacy as though it were some kind of cute Keynesian experiment that could be safely confined to Europe which would serve as a testing ground for whether policies that fly in the face of the financial market equivalent of Newtonian physics could be implemented without the world suddenly imploding.

We imagine the fact that equity markets got off to such a volatile start to the year, combined with the fact that crude continued to plunge and at one point looked as though it might sink into the teens, led quite a few people to look towards the monetary Mount Olympus (where “gods” like Draghi, Yellen, and Kuroda intervene in human affairs when necessary to secure “desirable” economic outcomes) only to discover that not only has all the counter-cyclical maneuverability been exhausted, we’ve actually moved beyond the point where the ammo is gone into a realm where the negative rate mortgage is a reality.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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