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Systemic Risks Abound

May 28, 2021

Systemic Risks Abound

If you wanted to design a system guaranteed to collapse in a putrid heap, you’d make moral hazard ubiquitous and you’d make the system 100% dependent on a hubris-soaked faux savior.

For the past 22 years, every time the stock market whimpered, wheezed or whined, the Federal Reserve rushed to soothe the spoiled crybaby. There are two consequential results of the Fed as savior:

1. The Fed has perfected moral hazard: everyone from the money manager betting billions to the punters gambling their stimmy money is absolutely confident I can’t lose because the Fed will always push the market higher.

What happens when participants are confident they can’t possibly lose? They make ever-riskier and ever-larger bets. The entire nation is in the grip of a moral hazard mania, all based on the confidence that the Fed will always push every market higher–always, without fail.

2. Organic (i.e. non-manipulated) market forces have been extinguished. There is now only one consequential force, the Fed. All markets are now 100% dependent on the Fed responding to every bleat from every punter who’s recklessly risky bet is about to go bad.

The Fed is now the perfect union of quasi-religious savior and Helicopter Parent: oh dear, our little darling got high and crashed the Porsche? Quick, let’s save our precious market from any consequences!

Every day, Fed speakers take to the pulpit to spew another sermon about the Fed’s god-like power and wisdom. The true believers soak up every word: golly-gee, the Fed is better than any god–it’s guaranteeing I can get rich if I just leverage up any bet in any market!

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

The Taper Next Door: Bank of Canada Cuts Bond Purchases by 25%. Total Assets Drop by 13%. Rate Hikes Moved Forward, Possibly July 2022

April 25, 2021

The Taper Next Door: Bank of Canada Cuts Bond Purchases by 25%. Total Assets Drop by 13%. Rate Hikes Moved Forward, Possibly July 2022

Housing craziness is front and center.

The Bank of Canada, which already holds over 40% of all outstanding Government of Canada (GoC) bonds – compared to the Fed, which holds less than 18% of all outstanding US Treasury securities – announced today that it would reduce by one-quarter the amount of GoC bonds it adds to its pile, from C$4 billion per week currently, to C$3 billion per week beginning April 26.

In its statement, it pointed at the craziness in the Canadian housing market – “we are seeing some signs of extrapolative expectations and speculative behavior,” it said.

Back in October, the BoC made the first reduction, tapering purchases of GoC bonds from C$5 billion per week to C$4 billion, and it had stopped adding mortgage-backed securities, of which it had never bought many to begin with.

In March, the BoC announced that it would unwind its liquidity facilities, thereby reducing its total assets by about 17%, from C$575 billion at the time, to C$475 billion by the end of April. And this has progressed as planned.

The BoC cited “moral hazard” associated with this central bank craziness as one of the reasons for the unwinding of its liquidity facilities, what are now mostly repurchase agreements (repos) and short-term Government of Canada Treasury bills. Its total assets dropped by 13% over the past month, to C$501 billion on its most recent balance sheet through the week April 14:

The total amount of the assets has declined because the BoC is unwinding its liquidity facilities. The largest remaining categories are the term repos and the short-term Treasury bills. As they mature, the BoC gets its money back, but doesn’t replace those securities, and the balance declines…

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

Warren Buffett Explains Bubbles: But He Doesn’t Know We Are In One

September 13, 2018

Warren Buffett Explains Bubbles: But He Doesn’t Know We Are In One

Buffet explains bubbles: “People see neighbors ‘dumber than they are’ getting rich.”

Warren Buffett explains Why Bubbles Happen

Buffett was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if he is worried another crisis will happen again.

“Well there will be one sometime,” Buffett said in an interview for CNBC’s “Crisis on Wall Street: The Week That Shook the World” documentary. The documentary airs Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

“People start being interested in something because it’s going up, not because they understand it or anything else. But the guy next door, who they know is dumber than they are, is getting rich and they aren’t,” he said. “And their spouse is saying can’t you figure it out, too? It is so contagious. So that’s a permanent part of the system.”

That last paragraph perfectly explains Bitcoin. Most of those investing in cryptos have little idea how they work, or what they are even buying.

Buffet made no mention of the corporate bond bubble, the equities bubble, or even the crypto bubble. He does not see any bubbles now, at least that he mentioned.

Symptom or Cause?

Buffett confuses a symptom (rampant speculation) with the true cause

  • The Fed (central banks in general), keep interest rates too low, too long
  • Fractional reserve lending
  • Moral hazards like bank bailouts
  • Poor fiscal policies and massive government debt

In short, there is no free market in anything and thus no valid price discovery. There would always be speculation, but Fed policies and fractional reserve lending are the root cause of bubbles.

Ron Paul Warns “The Conflict Between Government & Liberty Is At A Boiling Point”

April 8, 2016

Ron Paul Warns “The Conflict Between Government & Liberty Is At A Boiling Point”

This is excerpted from the introduction of Ron Paul’s Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect Our Freedom.

Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others. This means, above all else, keeping government out of our lives. Only this path leads to the unleashing of human energies that build civilization, provide security, generate wealth, and protect the people from systematic rights violations. In this sense, only liberty can truly ward off tyranny, the great and eternal foe of mankind.

The definition of liberty I use is the same one that was accepted by Thomas Jefferson and his generation. It is the understanding derived from the great freedom tradition, for Jefferson himself took his understanding from John Locke (1632–1704). I use the term “liberal” without irony or contempt, for the liberal tradition in the true sense, dating from the late Middle Ages until the early part of the twentieth century, was devoted to freeing society from the shackles of the state. This is an agenda I embrace, and one that I believe all should embrace.

To believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions.

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

First Ocean Freight Rates Collapse to “Zero,” China Freight Index Plunges to Record Low, Bailouts Loom

March 30, 2016

First Ocean Freight Rates Collapse to “Zero,” China Freight Index Plunges to Record Low, Bailouts Loom

The next stage of “Moral Hazard?”

The amount it costs to ship containers from China to ports around the world has plunged to historic lows. As container carriers are sinking deeper into trouble, whipped by lackluster global demand and rampant oversupply of container ships, they’re escalating a brutal price war with absurd consequences.

Maritime research and advisory firm Drewry (emphasis mine):

Recent news stories, backed up by anecdotal stories told to Drewry, report that carriers have quoted zero dollar freight rates to some forwarders on certain lanes out of Asia. Whether these are merely isolated cases or something more widespread is difficult to judge at the present time, but whatever the exact quantum, there is no denying the container rates are now close to the historic lows as seen in 2009.

The World Container Index, an average of spot freight rates on 11 global East-West routes connecting Asia, Europe, and the US, plunged last week to a record low of $666 per 40-foot equivalent unit container (FEU), down 73% from mid-2012!

The China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI) tells a similar story. It tracks contractual and spot-market rates for shipping containers from major ports in China to 14 regions around the world. On Friday, the index dropped 1.6% to 659.19, its lowest level ever!

It has plunged 39% from February last year and 34% since its inception in 1998 when it was set at 1,000:

China-Containerized-Freight-Index-2016-03-25

Shippers and their customers are rejoicing for the moment. But the collapse in shipping rates – to “zero” in some cases, as Drewry reported – is taking its toll on the industry.

The risk of carrier bankruptcies – with the awkward side effect of stranded cargo – increases, according to Drewry, “the longer rates remain non-remunerative, while carriers will likely intensify practices such as void sailings in order to minimize the chance of that eventuality.”

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

It Begins: Desperate Finland Set To Unleash Helicopter Money Drop To All Citizens

December 7, 2015

It Begins: Desperate Finland Set To Unleash Helicopter Money Drop To All Citizens

With Citi’s chief economist proclaiming “only helicopter money can save the world now,”and the Bank of England pre-empting paradropping money concerns, it appears that Australia’s largest investment bank’s forecast that money-drops were 12-18 months away was too conservative.

Over the last few months, in a prime example of currency failure and euro-defenders’ narratives, Finland has been sliding deeper into depression. Almost 7 years into the the current global expansion, Finland’s GDP is 6pc below its previous peak. As The Telegraph reports, this is a deeper and more protracted slump than the post-Soviet crash of the early 1990s, or the Great Depression of the 1930s. And so, having tried it all, Finnish authorities are preparing to unleash “helicopter money” to save their nation by giving every citizen a tax-free payout of around $900 each month!

Just over two years ago, when the world was deciding who would be Bernanke Fed Chair replacement, Larry Summers or Janet Yellen (how ironic that Larry Summers did not get the nod just because a bunch of progressive economists thought he would not be dovish enough) we wrote about a different problem: with the end of QE3 upcoming and with the inevitable failure of the economy to reignite (again), we warned that there remains one option after (when not if) QE fails to stimulate growth: helicopter money.

While QE may be ending, it certainly does not mean that the Fed is halting its effort to “boost” the economy. In fact… the end of QE may well be simply a redirection, whereby the broken monetary pathway, one which uses banks as intermediaries to stimulate inflation (supposedly a failure according to the economist mainstream), i.e., “second-round effects”, is bypassed entirely and replaced with Plan Z, aka “Helicopter Money” mentioned previously as an all too real monetary policy option by none other than Milton Friedman and one Ben Bernanke. This is also known as the nuclear option.

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

Losing Control

July 10, 2015

Losing Control

Markets are beginning to signal that policy makers are losing control.  Many second-order-effects of the unprecedented and experimental global actions taken since the 2008 crisis are beginning to manifest.  There are always causes and effects that develop; but they do so at different speeds. Many actions in recent years have prioritized ‘benefits today’ over ‘consequences tomorrow’.  ‘Tomorrow’ is approaching ever more quickly. There is no ‘free lunch’.

Market damage and volatility due to policy interference, or due to the deliberate influence of security prices, are a shame.  Markets should ideally operate with unencumbered fluidity. Markets should operate in a manner where adjustments to new information allow buyers and sellers to rapidly, and seamlessly, find a natural clearing price.  Authorities and regulations should be like good referees in a soccer match; they provide the conditions for a fair match, and you rarely notice their presence.

  • The beginning-of-the-end of official control happened earlier this year when the Swiss National Bank (SNB) retracted its currency-peg-promise, triggering a 40% move in the G-7 currency in 10 minutes.
  • In early May, shortly after the SNB event and the launch of ECB QE and EU negative interest rate experiments, the EU bond market became dysfunctional.  The absurdity of sustaining $4 trillion of negative rates came into focus. The German 10-year Bund moved from 0.05% to 0.75% in under a month.
  • A series of Greek policy and troika bailout mistakes – actions that never resulted in a realistic and sustainable solution – are now culminating toward a tipping point (more tomorrow).
  • Chinese authorities that have allowed and encouraged an equity bubble to manifest (and other central banks for that matter) are starting to see how ‘bubble blowing’ typically ends.  Other central banks are hopefully watching.  Chinese equities have lost $3.2 trillion in value in 30 days.  To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to the entire stock market capitalization of Germany and France combined.

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

“Critical” Debt “Domino Chain” Threatens To Destabilize China’s Financial System, SocGen Says

June 26, 2015

“Critical” Debt “Domino Chain” Threatens To Destabilize China’s Financial System, SocGen Says

Since the beginning of March when we first explained why QE (or at least some manner of “unconventional” monetary policy) may be inevitable in China, we’ve tracked developments around the country’s local government debt refi effort closely. For those in need of a refresher, we’ve documented the program from inception to implementation and beyond in exhaustive detail in the following posts:

While we won’t endeavor to recap the entire series of events here, note that the entire effort comes down to one simple thing: China’s local governments have managed to accumulated a debt pile worth 35% of GDP via off-balance sheet, high-cost loans which are now being swapped for low interest muni bonds in an effort to reduce debt servicing costs and extend WAM. This is part of a wider effort on China’s part to deleverage an economy laboring under $28 trillion in debt. This deleveraging effort goes far beyond local government debt, as Beijing is now moving to allow for more corporate defaults as the country moves to liberalize its financial markets.

There’s a critical link between local governments’ off-balance sheet financing (the loans that China is now working to restructure) and China’s financial system as a whole.

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

 

 

 

 

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