U.S. Applies Pressure In China Currency Feud

Is calling China a currency manipulator and imposing tariffs the right approach?

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao rejected American pressure outright, Japan has taken advantage of the tension to seek its own advantage, intervening in currency markets for the first time in years. Even Brazil has threatened its own, self-interested currency interventions. These are dangerous trends, threatening adverse economic and market effects-significant risks that recommend a less heavy-handed, bullying approach.

Of course, the United States and China have feuded over trade for years, particularly about the foreign exchange value of China's yuan. As early as 1993 the Clinton White House contemplated how China's cheap currency gave its exports unfair pricing advantages on global markets. At that time, the administration began to pressure Beijing for an upward yuan revaluation. The notion was so thoroughly rejected that in January of the following year, Beijing devalued the yuan by almost 50% in one sudden, orchestrated move-an action, incidentally, that contributed in no small way to the Asian financial and economic crisis of 1997 and 1998. After Clinton, the Bush administration fared better in getting China to yield. Even so, in 2005, after the European Union (EU) made the same complaints and it looked as though Congress had run out of patience, Beijing did allow some yuan appreciation. The appreciation, however, was more cosmetic than substantive.

The intensity of American pressure has ramped up in this latest round. By labeling China a currency manipulator, Congress will have made it easier to impose special tariffs on Chinese goods that would offset the presumably artificial advantages of Beijing's currency management. It speaks to Washington's unity of purpose that Treasury Secretary Geithner also has called for some mechanism to force countries like China to revalue their currencies and "abandon export-oriented policies."

From the European Union, Jean-Claude Juncker, speaking for a group of finance ministers, has echoed American complaints.

Rather than appease those concerns, China's Premier Wen has warned (in his words) of the "chaos" that would ensue from a yuan revaluation. Even his seemingly conciliatory gesture of buying Greek government bonds effectively rejects the currency demands, since the global flow of yuan to make such purchases would only depress its value next to euros and dollars. Even if Premier Wen wanted to accommodate America and the EU, China's economic realities would tie his hands.

The country simply cannot abandon export support-at least in the near term. That's because growth in the area is the only way it can create jobs for the approximately 1 million people a month who leave farms in China's hinterland in search of a better life in China's cities. Beijing knows that a failure in exports would halt the jobs growth and risk violent social unrest. Chinese authorities got a sobering taste of the prospect during the recent global recession, when a decline in exports impelled layoffs that led quickly to rioting across the country. From Beijing's perspective, and with some justice, the risk of abandoning the cheap yuan policy is simply too great, whatever threats the Americans and Europeans level.

In the meantime, it is not apparent that such tariffs would do much to help the American economic situation. Certainly, tariffs would hurt the average American consumer by raising the price of Chinese imports, as well as living costs across the country. Moreover, China has such a huge cost advantage over its American competitors, that even in the face of high tariffs it might well sustain its export flow to America. Even if tariffs could block Chinese goods, they would hardly protect American industry and jobs from foreign competition. Vietnam, Indonesia, and other low-cost producers would just step in where China was excluded.

Rather than insist on the impossible and raise the cost-of-living in the bargain, the United States might do better to seek what common ground it has with China. Here, there is promise in a longer-term perspective. For all their immediate differences, Washington and Beijing both want a reorientation in China, from export-led growth to a more broad-based, domestic, consumer-oriented economy. The Americans see such an adjustment as a way to increase the sales in China and balance trade between the two economies.

China's leadership wants broad-based domestic development to moderate socially explosive income disparities between geographic regions and social classes. It also wants to avoid Japan's fate, and sees efforts to develop across the nation's continental size as a way to avoid the problems that arise when an export-dependent policy lasts too long. China's commitment to such ultimate objectives was strong enough to direct much in the country's massive, anti-recession stimulus of 2008.

LIES ACROSS AMERICA

“Every single empire, in its official discourse, has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.” – Edward Said

The increasingly fragile American Empire has been built on a foundation of lies. Lies we tell ourselves and Big lies spread by our government. The shit is so deep you can stir it with a stick. As we enter another holiday season the mainstream corporate mass media will relegate you to the status of consumer. This is a disgusting term that dehumanizes all Americans. You are nothing but a blot to corporations and advertisers selling you electronic doohickeys that they convince you that you must have. Propaganda about consumer spending being essential to an economic recovery is spewed from 52 inch HDTVs across the land, 24 hours per day, by CNBC, Fox, CBS and the other corporate owned media that generate billions in profits from selling advertising to corporations schilling material goods to thoughtless American consumers. Aldous Huxley had it figured out decades ago:

“Thanks to compulsory education and the rotary press, the propagandist has been able, for many years past, to convey his messages to virtually every adult in every civilized country.”

Americans were given the mental capacity to critically think. Sadly, a vast swath of Americans has chosen ignorance over knowledge. Make no mistake about it, ignorance is a choice. It doesn’t matter whether you are poor or rich. Books are available to everyone in this country. Sob stories about the disadvantaged poor having no access to education are nothing but liberal spin to keep the masses controlled. There are 122,500 libraries in this country. If you want to read a book, you can read a book. The internet puts knowledge at the fingertips of every citizen. Becoming educated requires hard work, sacrifice, curiosity, and a desire to learn. Aldous Huxley describes the American choice to be ignorant:

“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.”

It is a choice to play Call of Duty on your PS3 rather than reading Shakespeare. It is a choice to stand on a street corner looking for trouble rather than reading Hemingway. It is a choice to spend Black Friday in malls fighting other robotic consumers for iSomethings, the latest innovative, advanced TVs, flashy Rolexes, and ostentatious Coach bags rather than spending the day reading Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, a brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning history of the outset of World War I, which would provide insight into what could happen on the Korean Peninsula. It is a choice to watch 6 hours per day of Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, Brainless Housewives of Everywhere, or CSI of Anywhere rather than reading Orwell or Huxley and discovering that their dystopian warnings have come true.

Conspicuous Consumption Conquistadors

Americans have chosen to lie to themselves. They have persuaded themselves that buying stuff with plastic cards while paying 19% interest for eternity, driving BMWs while locked into never ending indecipherable lease schemes, and living in permanently underwater McMansions bought with 0% down on an interest only liar loan, is the new American Dream. They think watching the boob tube will make them smart. They soak in the mass media hype, misinformation and lies like lemmings walking off a cliff. Depending on their political predisposition, they watch Fox or MSNBC and unthinkingly believe the propaganda that pours from the mouths of the multi-millionaire talking heads who read Teleprompters with words written by corporate media hacks. They tell themselves that buying stuff on credit, giving them the appearance of success as measured by the media elite, is actually success. This is a bastardized, manipulated, delusional version of accomplishment. Americans have chosen to believe the lies because the truth is too hard to accept.

Becoming educated, thinking critically, working hard, saving money to buy what you need (as opposed to what you want), developing human relationships, and questioning the motivations of government, corporate and religious leaders is hard. It is easy to coast through school and never read a book for the rest of your life. It is easy to not think about the future, your retirement, or the future of unborn generations. It is easy to coast through life at a job (until you lose it) that is unchallenging, with no desire or motivation for advancement. It is easy to make your everyday troubles disappear by whipping out your piece of plastic and acquiring everything you desire today. If your brother-in-law buys a 7,000 sq ft, 7 bedroom, 4 bath, 3 car garage, monolith to decadence for his family of 3, thirty miles from civilization, with no money down and a no doc Option ARM providing the funds, why shouldn’t you get in on the fun. It’s easy. Why sit around the kitchen table and talk with your kids, when you can easily cruise the internet downloading free porn or recording every trivial detail of your shallow life on Facebook so others can waste their time reading about your life. It is easiest to believe your elected leaders, glorified mega-corporation CEOs, and millionaire pastors preaching the word of God for a “small” contribution to their mega-churches.

Americans love authority figures who act as if they have all the answers. It matters not that these egotistical monuments to folly and hubris (Bush, Obama, Paulson, Geithner, Greenspan, Bernanke) have committed the worst atrocities in the history of our Republic, leaving economic carnage and the slaughter of thousands in their wake. The most dangerous man on this earth is an Ivy League educated, arrogant ideologue who believes they are smarter than everyone else. When these men achieve power, they are capable of producing catastrophic consequences. Once they seize the reigns of authority these amoral psychopaths have no problem lying to the American public in order to achieve their objectives. They know that Americans love to be lied to, so the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.

The current lie proliferating across the land of the free financing and home of the debtor is that austerity has broken out across the land. The mainstream media and the government, aided by various “think tanks” and Federal Reserve propagandists insist that Americans have buckled down, reduced spending, increased savings, and have embraced austerity.

Austerity – Circa 1932

Austerity – Circa 2010

They now proclaim that it is time to spend again. It is the patriotic thing to do, just like defeating terrorists by buying an SUV with 0% down from GM was the patriotic thing to do after 9/11. Defeating terrorists by going further into debt was the brilliant idea of those Ivy League geniuses Bush & Greenspan. Let’s critically examine the facts to determine how austere Americans have become:

• Consumer credit outstanding is $2.41 trillion, the same level reached in early 2007, and up from $1.5 trillion in 2000. This is a 60% increase in ten years. Personal income has risen from $8.4 trillion to $12.6 trillion over this same time frame, a 50% increase. Americans have substituted debt for income in order to keep up with the Joneses. The mass delusion lives.
• The MSM declares that the reduction in overall consumer debt from its peak of $2.56 trillion in 2008 to $2.41 trillion today proves that consumers have been cutting back and paying off debt. This is another media lie. Non-revolving debt, which includes car loans, education loans, mobile home loans and boat loans sits at $1.6 trillion, an all-time high matched in 2008. Credit card debt has “plunged” from $957 billion to $814 billion, not because consumers paid down their balances. The mega Wall Street banks have written off $20 billion per quarter since early 2009, accounting for ALL of the reduction in credit card debt. Clueless consumers continue to charge at the same rate as the peak in 2008.
• Average credit card debt per household with credit card debt: $15,788
• There are 609.8 million bank credit cards held by U.S. consumers.
• The U.S. credit card default rate is 13.01%
• In 2006, the United States Census Bureau determined that there were nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S. A stack of all those credit cards would reach more than 70 miles into space – and be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests.
• Penalty fees from credit cards added up to about $20.5 billion in 2009.
• The national average default rate as January 2010 stood at 27.88% and the mean default rate is 28.99%.
• Total bankruptcy filings in 2009 reached 1.4 million, up from 1.09 million in 2008. Bankruptcies in 2010 are on pace to exceed 1.6 million.
• 26% of Americans, or more than 58 million adults, admit to not paying all of their bills on time. Among African-Americans, this number is at 51%.

Does This Look Like Austerity? Really?

This data clearly proves that austerity has not broken out across the land of delusion. The billions in consumer loan write-offs by the Wall Street banks that run this country have masked the fact that Americans have not cut back on their spending habits at all. GMAC (taxpayer owned) and Ford Credit continue to dish out car loans to anyone with a pulse and a 600 credit score. The Federal Reserve and the FASB have encouraged, if not insisted, that banks fraudulently value the commercial real estate loans on their books. The Federal Reserve has bought $1.5 trillion of toxic mortgage loans from the criminal Wall Street banks at 100 cents on the dollar. The government’s corporate fascist public relations firms then spread the big lie that the economy is recovering and consumers should join the party and spend, spend, spend.

If Americans were capable or willing to do some critical thinking, they would realize that those in power have created the illusion of a recovery by handing $700 billion of your money to the banks that created the financial meltdown, spending $800 billion on worthless pork barrel projects borrowed from future generations, dropping interest rates to 0% so that the mega-Wall Street banks can earn billions risk free while your grandmother who depended on interest income from her CDs edges closer to eating cat food to get by, and lastly Ben Bernanke’s blatant attempt to enrich Wall Street by buying US Treasury bonds in an effort to make the stock market go up, while the middle and lower classes are crushed under the weight of soaring fuel and food price increases that exceed 30% on an annual basis. The illusion of recovery is not a recovery. With a true unemployment rate of 22%, a true inflation rate of 8% and a real GDP of -1.5% (Shadowstats), we are in the midst of the Greater Depression. You are being lied to, but most of you prefer it.

The Little Lies We Tell Ourselves

“Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.” – M King Hubbert

When Jimmy Carter gave his malaise speech in 1979, Americans were in no mood to listen. Carter’s solutions were too painful, required sacrifice, and sought to benefit future generations. The leading edge of the Baby Boom generation had reached their 30s by 1979, and the most spoiled, pampered, egocentric generation in history could care less about future generations, long term thinking, or sacrifice for the greater good. They were the ME GENERATION. The 1970s had proven to be tumultuous episode in US history. M King Hubbert’s calculation in 1956 that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s proved to be 100% correct.

The Arab oil embargo resulted in gas shortages and economic chaos in the U.S. Hubbert used the same method to determine that worldwide oil production would peak in the early 2000s. If long term planning had been initiated in the early 1980s, combining exploration of untapped reserves, greater utilization of natural gas, development of nuclear plants, more stringent fuel efficiency standards, increased taxes on gasoline, and more thoughtful development of housing communities, we would not now face a looming oil crisis within the next few years. Instead of dealing with reality, adapting our behavior and preparing for a more localized society, we put our blinders on, chose ignorance over reason and pushed the pedal to the medal by moving farther away from our jobs, building bigger energy intensive mansions, and insisting on driving tank-like SUVs, Hummers, and good ole boy pickups. Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy explained that hyper-consumerism, fear, and inability to use logic have left our suburban oasis lives in danger of implosion when the reality of peak cheap oil strikes:

Besides the innate thirst of SUVs, some of the last quarter century’s surge in U.S. oil consumption has come from Americans driving more – some twelve thousand miles per motorist per year, up almost one – third from 1980 – because they as a whole live farther from work. In consumption terms, exurbia is the physical result of the latest population redistribution enabled by car culture and the electorate that upholds it.

Family values are central – if by this we mean having families and accepting lengthy commutes to install them in reasonably safe and well churched places. In the 1970’s such households might have been fleeing school busing or central city crime; in the post – September 11 era, many sought distance from “godless” school systems or the random violence and terrorist attacks expected to occur in metropolitan areas.

We willingly believe the lies espoused by the badly informed pundits on CNBC and Fox that if we just drill in Alaska and off our coasts, we’ll be fine. The ignorant peak cheap oil deniers insist there are billions of barrels of oil to be harvested from the Bakken Shale, even though there is absolutely no method of accessing this supply without expending more energy than we can access. Environmentalists lie about the dangers of nuclear power, while shamelessly promoting the ridiculous notion that solar, wind and ethanol can make a visible impact on our future energy needs. Ideologues on the right and left conveniently ignore the facts and the truth is lost in a blizzard of their lies. Here is an explanation so clear, even a CNBC “drill baby drill” dimwit could understand:

When oil production first began in the mid-nineteenth century, the largest oil fields recovered fifty barrels of oil for every barrel used in the extraction, transportation and refining. This ratio is often referred to as the Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI). Currently, between one and five barrels of oil are recovered for each barrel-equivalent of energy used in the recovery process. As the EROEI drops to one, or equivalently the Net Energy Gain falls to zero, the oil production is no longer a net energy source. This happens long before the resource is physically exhausted.

After the briefest of lulls when oil reached $145 per barrel, Americans have resumed buying SUVs, pickup trucks, and gas guzzling muscle cars. They have chosen to ignore the imminence of peak cheap oil because driving a leased BMW makes your neighbors think you are a success, while driving a hybrid would make your neighbors think you are a liberal tree hugger. It boggles my mind that so many Americans are so shallow and shortsighted. According to Automotive News, at the start of 2008 leasing comprised 31.2% of luxury vehicle sales and 18.7% of non-luxury sales. This proves that hundreds of thousands of wannabes are driving leased BMWs and Mercedes to fill some void in their superficial lives.

I bought a Honda Insight Hybrid six months ago. It gets 44 mpg and will save me $1,500 per year in gasoline costs. I put 20% down and financed the remainder at 0.9% for three years. My payment is $450 per month. I will own it outright in 2 ½ years. I could have leased a 2010 BMW 328i with moonroof, bluetooth, power seats with driver seat memory, lumbar support, leather interior, iPod adapter, 17″ alloy wheels, heated seats, wood trim, 3.0 Liter 6 Cylinder engine with 230 horsepower for 3 years at $389 per month. At the end of 3 years I’d own nothing. In 2 ½ years I’ll be able to put $450 per month away for my kids’ college education and I’ll be saving more on fuel as gasoline approaches $5 per gallon. The self important egotistical BMW leaser pretending to be successful will need to hand over their sweet ride and move on to the next lease, never saving a dime for the future. I’m sure they’ll make a killing in the market or their McMansion will surely double in price, providing a fantastic retirement.

Delusional Practical

The delusion that cheap oil is a God given right of all Americans can be seen in the YTD data on vehicle sales. Pickups and SUVs account for 48.5% of all sales, while small fuel efficient cars account for only 16.5% of all sales. Americans will continue to lie to themselves until it is too late, again.

	Oct 2010	% Chg from Oct’09	YTD 2010	% Chg from YTD 2009
Cars	448,127	3.9	4,840,525		5.3
Midsize	220,998	-0.2	2,407,457		9.9
Small	142,983	9.7	1,616,840	-1.5
Luxury	78,487	9.7	742,278		7.2
Large	5,659	-31.9	73,950	-0.8
Light-duty trucks	502,038	23.5	4,730,196		16.7
Pickup	147,207	16.9	1,334,133		13.9
Cross-over	195,274	20.0	1,928,191		16.8
Minivan	55,596	21.0	561,736		15.1
Midsize SUV	51,494	86.6	443,922		37.9
Large SUV	23,946	1.5	202,806		12.1
Small SUV	14,861	53.6	146,000	-3.8
Luxury SUV	13,660	22.1	113,408		26.2
Total SUV/Cross-over	299,235	27.4	2,834,327		18.3
Total SUV	103,961	44.3	906,136		21.7
Total Cross-over	195,274	20.0	1,928,191		16.8

Americans are so committed to their automobiles, hyper-consumerism, oversized McMansions, and suburban sprawl existence that they will never willingly prepare in advance for a future by scaling back, downsizing, or thinking. Our culture is built upon consumption, debt, cheap oil and illusion. Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy concludes that there are so many Americans tied to our unsustainable economic model that they will choose to lie to themselves and be lied to by their leaders rather than think and adapt:

A large number of voters work in or depend on the energy and automobile industries, and still more are invested in them, not just financially but emotionally and culturally. These secondary cadres included racing fans, hobbyists, collectors, and dedicated readers of automotive magazines, as well as the tens of millions of automobile commuters from suburbs and distant exurbs, plus the high number of drivers whose strong self-identification with vehicle types and models serve as thinly disguised political statements. In the United States more than elsewhere, a preference for conspicuous consumption over energy efficiency and conservation is a signal of a much deeper, central divide.

M King Hubbert was a geophysicist and a practical man. He observed data, made realistic assumptions, and came to logical conclusions. He didn’t deal in unrealistic hope and unwarranted optimism. He knew that our culture had become so dependent upon lies and an unsustainable growth model based on depleting oil and debt based “prosperity”. He knew decades ago that we were incapable of dealing with the truth:

“Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth.” – M King Hubbert

Our country is at a crucial juncture. It is time for thinkers. It is time for realists. It is time to deal with facts. It is time to drive the ideologues off the stage. Are you tired of lying to yourselves? Are you tired of being lied to by the corporate fascists that run this country? It is time to wake up. Right wing and left wing ideologues will continue to spew lies and misinformation as they are power hungry and care not for the long-term survival of our nation or the unborn generations that depend upon the decisions we make today. It is time to see how we really are.

“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself from thinking. People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.” – Aldous Huxley

Less Than a Tenth of Bank Of America's Assets Comes From Traditional Banking Deposits

I have long pointed out that the too big to fails make very little of their money off of traditional depository functions.

For example, last October, I argued:

Some very smart people say that the big banks aren't really focusing as much on the lending business as smaller banks.

Specifically since Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, the giant banks have made much of their money in trading assets, securities, derivatives and other speculative bets, the banks' own paper and securities, and in other money-making activities which have nothing to do with traditional depository functions.

Now that the economy has crashed, the big banks are making very few loans to consumers or small businesses because they still have trillions in bad derivatives gambling debts to pay off, and so they are only loaning to the biggest players and those who don't really need credit in the first place. See this and this.

So we don't really need these giant gamblers. We don't really need JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. What we need are dedicated lenders.

I just ran across an example for one of the TBTFs.

Specifically, Bank of America - the U.S. largest bank - has only $83 billion in deposit accounts (what they call "transaction accounts").

But B of A has between $1.3 and $1.5 trillion in total bulk assets and liabilities.

In other words, far less than a tenth of B of A's overall assets come from traditional banking functions.

Why do we need to save the too big to fails again?

Next Spain? Analysts consider country next in line for a bail-out

With Europe agreeing a €85bn bail-out for Ireland's banks, analysts consider who, if anyone, could be next.

Demonstrators burn a picture of Ireland's Prime Minister Brian Cowen in front of Leinster House in Dublin.

In a note outlining the 2011 outlook for European banks, analysts at Deutsche Bank said sovereign concerns were "top of the agenda".

"We expect this process to continue in early 2011, as Deutsche Bank’s economics team believes Portugal is highly likely to tap IMF / EU(ESFS) rescue mechanisms next year. But we believe that the dominoes should stop falling at Spain."

Their fixed income colleagues at Deutsche said in a note on Monday that they were not at all surprised to see concerns over Spain rising again.

"The market seems to think it's inevitable Portugal requests assistance next - perhaps in January? - and then after that Spain will be scrutinised with a fine tooth comb over the coming months. In doing the work for the Outlook we've increasing come to the conclusion that whether you think the Sovereign problems stop at Greece, Ireland and perhaps Portugal depends on whether you think this is a problem with the overall Western financial system or whether you think its only a problem with individual over-leveraged entities."

Simon Samuels, an analyst at Barclays Capital said in a note last week:

"The Irish crisis and subsequent bail-out have returned sovereign concerns to the forefront of investors’ minds. But is it simply the case that some harsh comments from Angela Merkel have made bond investors run for cover? We don't think so."

He added:

"Simply put, the Irish sovereign has been dismembered by its banking system...In September, Irish banks faced redemptions of €25bn of government guaranteed debt. Whilst the government could (and did) extend this guarantee, just like Iceland in 2008, it no longer looked credible to the market, bond holders became nervous, and the system began to implode."

Writing about who could be next, he said:

"Our view is that the challenges facing Spain remain substantial – with the likelihood of a positive outcome poor until at least the sovereign and the banks have successfully navigated their way over the funding hump facing them both in Spring 2011. The question marks over asset quality will likely last far longer. By contrast, we are far more sanguine on Italian prospects. The absence of an asset bubble, and limited wholesale funding reliance suggests the banks pose little incremental risk to the Italian sovereign."

He added:

"Many commentators have suggested that Spain is too big to be allowed to fail. Whilst concrete plans on how to resolve a full-blown Spanish crisis remain opaque, should the tail risk of a Spanish bail out materialise, it is likely that the (stronger) French and German economies will bear the brunt of rescuing Spain, and by extension, the Eurozone."

Germany faces its awful choice as Spain wobbles

Desperate moments call for desperate measures. In June 1940, the British War Cabinet led by Winston Churchill offered a total national merger to a shattered France.

“France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British union,” read the declaration.

“The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.”

The text was drafted by Jean Monnet, the father of the European Project. If alive today, he would be pounding on the door of the Kanzleramt, exhorting Angela Merkel to offer a total fiscal union to all members of the eurozone before everything falls apart, and to be enshrined in EU treaty law forever.

“All debts of Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland will be fused immediately with German debt; a single treasury will control spending, and issue euro-bonds for all Euroland,” or some such formula.

This is the sort of game-changer that may now be required to save EMU and the Monnet dream. Germany must contemplate doing for Euroland what it has done for its own Volk in the East over the last 20 years – pay big transfers – or watch its strategic investment in the post-War order of Europe collapse with a bang, and in hideous acrimony. Tough call.

It is clear to those working in the bond markets that the debt crisis in the EMU periphery is nearing danger point, and risks spiralling out of control as quickly as the Lehman-AIG-Fannie-Freddie crisis in 2008.

Prof Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, said last week that Portugal is likely to need a rescue before the end of the year and that Spain will follow “soon after”.

Klaus Baader from Societe Generale issued a report the same day entitled “Eurozone sovereign debt crisis: next stop Spain”. He suggests that the EU bail-out fund raises money to buy Spanish bonds pre-emptively. Nice idea, but what would the German constitutional court have to say about that?

At Deutsche Bank, Thomas Mayer said Spain might soon need a flexible credit from the IMF. Informed opinion has turned.

Markets are already pricing a 23pc chance of default in Spain (34pc for Portugal, and 39pc for Ireland). If the country needs a rescue, it instantly exhausts the credible financial and political firepower of the EMU system.

The EU’s €440bn (£372bn) rescue fund “looks small, very small, too small”, says Dr Buiter. Alleged plans for a double-up are circulating “en coulisses” in the Berlaymont, but Berlin squashed the idea as “completely over the top”.

In any case, we are beyond the point where escalating bluffs can achieve anything. Markets doubt that it makes sense to heap further debt on states that cannot service existing debt.

The EU strategy of hair-shirt austerity and 1930s debt-deflation for crippled economies has been tested in Ireland, and has led to the same doleful outcome as the 1930s. Tax revenues have collapsed. The deficit has hardly shrunk at all. The policy is based on mechanical theories of the “fiscal multiplier”, and is patently self-defeating. Sinn Fein’s landslide victory in Donegal is a condign response to this academic hocus pocus.

Should the EU really impose a 6.7pc interest charge on Ireland’s bail-out loans, it should not be surprised if the new Irish government in January walks away from the whole stinking arrangement, and pulls the plug on Europe’s banking system. Many might cheer.

However, it is Spain that determines EMU’s fate. Spanish premier Jose Luis Zapatero said there is “absolutely” no chance that his country would need a rescue. “Those investors shorting Spain are making a big mistake.”

As Keynes once said, blaming economic crises on speculators is “not far removed, intellectually, from ascription of cattle disease to the “evil eye”.

Has Mr Zapatero read the IMF’s devastating Article IV report on his own country? It states that the government’s “gross financing needs” for 2011 will be €226bn, or 21pc of GDP. “Spain’s financing requirements are large and, retaining market confidence will be critical. Spain has exhausted its fiscal space. Targets should be made more credible.”

Madrid must attract €226bn of good money from Spanish savers, German pension funds, French banks, Japanese life insurers, and China’s central bank, so that an incompetent government (this one happens to be socialist, but the Greek conservatives were worse) can continue to run budget deficits of 7pc to 8pc of GDP in 2011. Why should they lend a single pfennig, having already been told by EU leaders that they will face scalping if Spain ever needs a rescue?

“The economy is highly indebted and has one of the most negative international investment positions (IIP) among advanced countries,” said the IMF. Its external accounts are under water by 80pc of GDP.

Furthermore, Spanish banks will need to roll over €220bn in 2011 and 2012, according to Enrique Goñi, head of Banca Cívica. “We’re in the antechamber of a new liquidity crisis. We’re living through a financial pre-collapse,” he said.

Now, before yet more Iberian brickbats fly my way, let me say that Spain’s public debt will be a modest 63pc of GDP this year (though total debt is over 270pc, which is what matters). The savings rate is high.

The Banco de Espana has been heroic, but then it needed to be given that Spain no longer has control over its policy levers. The country had to contend with real interest rates of minus 2pc during the long boom, and cannot offset the horrendous bust with monetary stimulus or a properly valued peseta.

Spanish readers like to point out that British failings are comparable or worse. Whether or not that is true, it is irrelevant. Britain is not a prisoner of EMU. You might as well compare chalk and cheese.

We can argue whether the overhang of unsold properties in Spain will reach 1.5m, or six years’ supply, as claimed by Madrid consultants RR de Acuna, but there is little doubt that the "Cajas" and smaller banks have played a game of “extend and pretend” to disguise the true scale of losses on their property loans.

This then is the headache facing Angela Merkel. By the time she inherited the EMU debacle, imbalances were already chronic, and she certainly does not have popular mandate for Churchillian gestures right now.

Even so, it is remarkable that Berlin is not even allowing the European Central Bank to pursue the first and obvious line of defence, which is to calm eurozone bond markets by using its financial stability powers to buy Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish debt on a nuclear scale.

As the storm rages, the ECB is tightening monetary policy by draining liquidity (the Eonia rate is up from 0.4pc to 0.8pc since mid-year) and by signalling that they may soon shut the lending window that keeps Greek, Irish and Iberian banks alive.

Frankfurt is doing this even though the eurozone’s M3 money supply contracted on a month-to-month basis in both September and October, as did private credit. Is this just incompetence, or is somebody pushing PIGS into the slaughterhouse?

As for Britain’s offer in 1940, it is hard to see how such a union could ever have worked over time. It was rejected by the French cabinet, though premier Paul Reynaud pleaded in favour. One Gallic patriot said that utter destruction was better than becoming a “dominion of the British Empire”.

By the same token, today’s eurozone patriots might ask whether it is really worth giving up ancient sovereignty to keep a currency.

If Ireland Doesn’t Take The Bailout . . .

Update I, below. Update II, below.

So a week ago as I write this, the Irish formally asked for a bailout from the European Union, acting in concert with the International Monetary Fund and the British government.

And now, a week after that request, the EU finance ministers just approved the bailout of the Republic of Ireland—

—however . . . However, in those seven days in between, a serious shitstorm broke out in Ireland—it has been one hell of a week, over there in the Emerald Isle.

And though the bailout has been approved by the EU finance drones, we still do not have an approval from the most important player of them all:

The Irish people.

Let’s recap:

On Monday, immediately after the announcement that the Irish government had formally asked for the bailout, the Greens—partners of Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s Fiana Fáil party—left the governing coalition, forcing Cowen to call for an election in January.

The Green’s leader, John Gormley, isn’t stupid: He knows that, in politics, association is the very definition of guilt—and the Greens are guilty of having been in bed with Cowen. So Gormley and the Greens want to put as much daylight between themselves and Fiana Fáil before the election.

Even members of Cowen’s own party are trying to put distance between him and them—they’re openly calling for his resignation. That’s gotta hurt.

But Cowen’s holding on like Nixon—barely, but tenaciously. And even though they’ve left the governing coalition, the Greens are saying that they’ll support Brian Cowen’s budget—including the austerity measures being imposed as part of the EU/IMF bailout.

They say that—now. But what about later? ‘Cause later’s gonna be bad for everyone associated with the Cowen government. The Donegal by-election on Thursday proved that.

Donegal—traditionally a safe seat for Fiana Fáil—saw them lose in humiliating fashion to Sinn Féin. How humiliatingly? By a margin of more than two-to-one. Irony of ironies, the seat became vacant when the Fiana Fáil MP for Donegal, Pat Gallagher, left to become a European Parliament minister. Now Gallagher is stranded in Brussels, and Sinn Féin has his old seat locked tight.

Speaking of Sinn Féin: On Friday, their leadership sent a couple of MP’s to talk to IMF representatives. The Sinn Féin told the IMF—literally—that “they are neither wanted nor needed in Ireland.”

Ominous words, those.

Finally, on Saturday, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Irishmen and women protested, marching on Dublin’s streets against the bailout. Even if it was only 50,000 people, that’s still about 1% of the population—imagine if 3 million people marched on the U.S. Capitol, protesting an upcoming budget deal: Get the picture? Big.

There wasn’t any violence in the protest—but there was anger, especially over the interest rate that the bailout is going to cost.

During the week, reports were that the bailout would come to around €90 billion, but with an interest rate of possibly 6.7%. You know that a country’s financial situation is dire when the tabloids start quoting bond market interest rates on the front page: The whole of Ireland was having a cow over that possible 6.7%. To top it off, the EU and the IMF negotiating position was that the Irish had to cut their fiscal budget deficit to no more than 3% of GDP by 2013—

—the Irish were pissed. No wonder they all marched on Dublin’s streets on Saturday afternoon in the freezing cold.

Tonight, Sunday night, the negotiations were supposed to be concluded and the bailout approved before Asian markets opened—and the Euro-drones did not disappoint: Brian Cowen went on TV and gave the hard-sell on the bailout package less than an hour before Asia opened.

The key details were: €85 billion total package (for comparison, Ireland’s 2009 GDP was €167 billion), with €10 billion available immediately to shore up the tottering Irish banks—which were the cause of this entire mess. Additional funds to prop up those banks would be made available on an as-needed basis, to a ceiling of €25 billion—that ought to prevent any near-term run on those banks. However, Irish pension funds would have to be raided to the tune of €17 billion. The Irish would have until 2015 to reduce their fiscal deficit to less than 3% of GDP, as per EU rules. And finally, the interest rate would be 5.8%.

This is what was negotiated. This is what the EU finance ministers approved. This is what’s on deck now.

However, we have a long week ahead of us—a very lo-o-o-o-ong week, to be sure. Because although this is the deal that’s been approved by the EU finance ministers, the deal negotiated by the Cowen government, there is one final hurdle to this bailout:

The Irish. Specifically, the Irish parliament.

The key date that’s coming up insofar as Ireland is concerned is December 7: “A date which will live in infamy!” really is living up to its moniker, because that’s the day the Irish are supposed to pass their budget—their budget with the EU/IMF bailout conditions: The Austerity Budget.

Now, here’s a question—the obvious question:

What if the Irish can’t—or won’t—pass the austerity budget?

What if the Irish don’t take the bailout?

Cowen’s government is teetering—the Greens could just as easily go back on their word and reject the austerity budget—or any of the other coalition parties could walk out—Sinn Féin wants no part of any IMF austerity deal—hell, just a couple of Fiana Fáil’s own MP’s could bolt and wreck Cowen’s parliamentary majority—

—and Fine Gael? Well, there’s the rub: Fine Gael, the center-left party which has traditionally been pro-European, stands to win huge in January. They currently have 51 seat in the Irish parliament, to Fiana Fáil’s 70; considering the Donegal results, it is not unreasonable to think that Fine Gael might win an outright majority in the 166-seat Dáil Éireann (lower house)—if they play their cards right.

Now, over the weekend, the Fine Gael finance spokesman, Michael Noonan, limited himself to urging Cowen’s governmet to take a “hard line” in negotiations with the EU and the IMF.

Clearly, Fine Gael realizes the mine field they’re traversing. They are pro-Europe, but they are Irish politicans too—with seats they have to win, and constituents they have to appease.

If push comes to shove, will they jump to the Irish side, or jump to the European side?

The question is no question at all—it’s obvious: They’ll jump to the Irish side. Fiana Fáil took the beating it did in Donegal because of the widespread perception that they’re the IMF’s lackeys—Fine Gael isn’t going to make that same mistake. Not with the noises Noonan is making on their behalf.

Therefore, the next week will be crucial, in Ireland. The next week could likely decide the fate of the Eurozone.

If the popular perception grows over the coming week that the Cowen government sold out the country to the IMF and the EU, then it is possible—very possible—that the austerity budget will not pass on December 7.

This would be a disaster to the European Union.

Is such an outcome likely? Will the Irish reject the austerity budget on December 7? Will they instead force the Irish banks to default on their debt?

There are already such calls. The Sunday Independent, the largest Sunday broadsheet in Ireland by a comfortable margin, has an editorial calling for an outright default. This call isn’t a lonely voice: The 50,000 march on Saturday proves that.

See, the problem in Ireland really isn’t so much the state’s deficits—rather, it’s the state’s guarantees of the Irish banks. That is what led to this mess. Yes, the Irish public sector is bloated, but it’s the banks that are busting the fiscal budget.

The Irish government allowed the banks to grow too big for too long, and to get mixed up in too many dicey deals—and so when the crisis hit in 2008, instead of letting them fail, Brian Cowen and his Fiana Fáil government backstopped those banks.

Much like in the United States in 2008, the Irish confused an insolvency issue with a liquidity issue. They thought their banks were having a cash crunch, when really, they were broke.

Cowen is reaping what he sowed: Even if the 2008 crisis had been a cash crunch and not an insolvency issue, Cowen never should have backstopped those banks—not when their combined liabilities were twice the GDP of Ireland. But that’s for another conversation.

Right now, the Irish people know that they are footing the bill so that British, German and American banks don’t suffer for having been foolish enough to be caught with Irish bank bonds. Here is a terrific breakdown of what the Irish owe, and to whom.

Rightfully, the Irish people are pissed. Now the question is, Will the various political factions in Ireland manage to maneuver Irish public opinion, and get them to accept the austerity budget?

This is what we spectators have to be looking at: Whether Irish public sentiment will go along with the deal—or turn against it.

This is very, very possible—after all, the Irish have already flipped off the EU once before, on a very big-ticket item: They gave The Big Middle Finger to the EU Constitution back in 2008, by a margin of 53% to 47%—and that’s when times were good and everybody wanted to be European. Now? Not so much.

What happens in the streets of Ireland will likely not be the deciding factor in the continuation of the EU and the Eurozone; not in my estimation. I still think, as I have argued, that Spain is the key to the Eurozone’s survival.

But if the Irish reject the austerity budget on December 7, it is obvious that the Spanish problems will come to a head a lot faster.

An Irish rejection of the bailout would send the bond markets into a frenzy—Spanish debt would immediately come under pressure, likely crashing before Christmas. Italy would come immediately next. The whole Eurozone could be ablaze by the New Year’s.

Therefore, the EU needs to make the December 7 budget vote go smooth—they need to pull out all the stops and make the Irish understand the situation. They need to make them see the wisdom of making sacrifices for the well being of British and German banks.

After all, as everyone knows, the Irish have always loved the British. And the Germans.

• For other pieces I’ve posted regarding the Eurozone crisis, see the “Europe Zoorope” section in my Directory of Posts.

Update I: Monday, 7:00am EST:

So the point of contention turned out to be the raid on the pension funds: The opposition parties have all severely criticized the Fiana Fáil negotiations, focussing on the pension fund raid, but also hitting them on lack of haircuts for foreign bondholders, the high interest rate of the package, and the color of the ties the Fiana Fáil people wore to the negotiations. According to the Irish Times, which gives a nice recap of overnight political reaction in Ireland, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin are all likely at this point to vote against the budget on December 7.

Update II: Monday, 9:15am EST:

Reader Shay sent a link to a series of amazing photographs of the Saturday protest in Dublin, which I highly recommend. This is the slideshow of those photographs on flickr.

Irish Pension Reserve funds to be spent on banks

UP to €15 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, set aside when the Celtic Tiger was still roaring, is likely to be used to recapitalise three of the country’s banks.

Amid speculation last night that the rate of interest to be charged on the EU/IMF bailout could be as much as 6.7%, Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan said that kind of rate was "far too high" and unaffordable on any reasonable projection of growth.

The Department of Finance said the interest rate had still not been finalised, but given that much of the loan would be repayable over nine years the rate could be higher than the 5.2% charged to Greece but would not be as high as the 6.7% being quoted by some brokers.

Meanwhile, Anglo Irish Bank, which was downgraded to junk status yesterday evening, is expected to be closed swiftly, together with the Irish Nationwide Building Society, under the EU/IMF loan plan.

Officials hope to finalise the details of the €85bn package later today and have EU finance ministers approve it tomorrow.

The emphasis in the plan is to avoid drawing down money from the bailout and rely in the first place on money from the Pension Reserve Fund for the banks, and on the €20bn the state borrowed earlier this year to part-fund next year’s national budget.

Economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute, John FitzGerald, said he believed it would be a good idea to use the money in the pensions fund to recapitalise the banks, and keep the EU/IMF funds in reserve in case they needed further money later.

"Using the €20bn in cash we have first would be good for the country in the short run. It would leave the opening debt for 2012 €20bn lower and interest payments would be €1bn less. It would also leave the national debt lower than forecast at the end of next year," he said.

About €35bn of the total EU/IMF loan was being earmarked last night for the banks.

The Government would prefer not to tap this sum but keep it in reserve for contingencies during the three-year programme.

Instead, they will use the €15bn available to them in the pension fund to recapitalise Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland and the Educational Building Society. They have already used the remaining €10bn from the pension fund to buy shares in AIB and BoI.

The Government had planned to split Anglo Irish Bank, which has already received €22.9bn of state money, into a bad bank destined to be shut down relatively quickly and a good bank that would hold the deposits Anglo still had.

The European Commission, however, said while the good bank could hold the deposits, it could not operate as a bank and must be shut down over the next decade. Now, however, under the terms being worked out with the EU/IMF/ECB team, the entire operation is likely to be shut down but it could still cost several more billions of euro to do so.

The Irish Nationwide Building Society, into which the state pumped €2.7bn, will also shut.

Since Allied Irish Bank has been unable to raise the €10.4bn it needs to recapitalise, the pension fund money will be used instead, while strengthening the also nationalised Bank of Ireland will cost about €1.5bn.

About €50bn is expected to be available from the EU- IMF package to cover the country’s funding needs over the next three years. But it is likely that the Government will first use the €20bn it raised on the markets over the summer.

If the markets have calmed and reduced Ireland’s borrowing costs closer to the 4.8% it averaged this year and last, the exchequer may decide to return to the markets rather than tap what could be more expensive money from the EU/IMF bailout.

Picture: Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan



This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, November 27, 2010


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/home/pension-reserve-funds-to-be-spent-on-banks-137796.html#ixzz16gDS1wKg