We Are Going To Have Financial Armageddon Anyway

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 4 hours ago

We are going to have financial Armageddon anyway when the rest of the world is not going to give these people any more money. - *in The Australian* Related: SPDR S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY) * * *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.*

80% Of The World's Industrial Activity Is Now Contracting

Tomorrow's NFP may or may not beat expectations, following some modestly better than expected employment-related data points (then again last month NFP was again supposed to come in solidly above 100K only to cross below the critical threshold), but keep one thing in mind: with the average June seasonal adjustment being a deduction of over 1 million jobs, several tens of thousands in marginal absolute job numbers + or - will be nothing but statistical noise. Furthermore, with seasonality playing such a huge role tomorrow, it is quite likely that merely the ongoing seasonal giveback will result in June being yet another subpar month. And that does not even take into account the quality assessment of the job number, which if recent trends are any indication, will be another record in part-time jobs at the expense of full-time jobs. Yet no matter where the NFP data ends up, the following chart from David Rosenberg puts a few thousand job into perspective, showing that regardless of how many part-time jobs the US service industry has added, there is a far greater problem currently developing in the world: "We now have 80% of the world posting a contraction in industrial activity." This is the second worst since the great financial crisis and only matched by last fall, when in response Europe launched a $1.3 trillion LTRO and the Fed commenced Operation Twist. Now except the occasional rate drop out of the PBOC or modest QE expansion out of the BOE (not to mention the Bank of Kenya's rate cut earlier), there is no real, unsterilized flow of money coming from central bank CTRL-P macros to stabilize the global economy. Which leaves open the question: just where will the latest spark to rekindle global growth come from? And no, 10 hours a week waitressing jobs in Topeka just won't cut it.

Putting BoE Tucker's Call To Diamond In Context

By now the world and their cat knows that Barclays' Lie-bor submissions were 'too high' for the powers that be in Whitehall and we suspect that given any chance or an 'out' to massage the numbers in order to appear stronger) just as they headed into a financing, the Barclays execs figured 'why not?'. For some context on just how much this mattered - quite a significant amount as it turns out - and upon which the basis of many bullish theses were based at the time (despite the fact that CDS markets were gapping wider and screaming reality), Bloomberg's Chart of the Day shows the huge variations from the BBA's LIBOR relative to the UK bank submissions (most notably Barclays) around the time of Paul Tucker's intervention.

Taibbi, Spitzer, and Kelleher On LIBOR - But Even They Don't Understand the Bigger Picture

100 Sick Banks In A Union

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 4 hours ago

If you put one or 100 sick banks in a union, it does not change the fact that they're sick. - *in Business Insider* *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.* 

 

Incentive To Develop Natural Gas Powered Vehicles

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 4 hours ago

Well, If natural gas stays this low compared to oil prices, it does give an incentive to develop natural gas powered vehicles and I think we are going to see more and more developments here. Is it going to end the use of oil, combustion engines? Probably not any time soon. Someday it could, but someday is a long way away. - *in OilPrice* Related: United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG), United States Oil Fund (USO) *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune... more »

 

Synchronized Easy Money: Central Banks Cutting Key Rates - Denmark Goes Negative

 

The Next Imminent Bailout: Eminent Domain

It seems that governmental efforts to save the underwater and ineligible homeowner from his own fate are reaching fever pitch. Not only do we hear today of the up to $300mm in Agriculture Department Rural Housing Service loans that may have financed ineligible projects or borrowers with a high potential inability to repay the loans; but yesterday's WSJ reports on the growing call for 'eminent-domain' powers to be used by local government officials in California to stop the "housing bust's public blight on their city". In yet another get-out-of-jail-free card, the officials (helped by a friendly local hedge-fund / mortgage-provider) want to use the government's ability to forcibly acquire property to remove underwater homes, restructure the mortgage (cut principal), and hand back the home to the previously unable to pay dilemma-ridden homeowner. As PIMCO's Scott Simon puts it: "I don't see how you could find it anything other than appalling", as this would crush property prices further and drive up borrowing costs. As we noted earlier, until these mal-investments are marked to market, there will be no useful growth in our credit-bound economy but transferring wealth to the 'mal'-investor seems like a terrible idea.

Is Marxism Coming Back?

The system of corporatism we have today has far more akin with Marxism and “social management” than Marxists might like to admit. Both corporatism and Marxism are forms of central economic control; the only difference is that under Marxism, the allocation of capital is controlled by the state bureaucracy-technocracy, while under corporatism the allocation of capital is undertaken by the state apparatus in concert with large financial and corporate interests. The corporations accumulate power from the legal protections afforded to them by the state (limited liability, corporate subsidies, bailouts), and politicians can win re-election showered by corporate money. The fundamental choice that we face today is between economic freedom and central economic planning. The first offers individuals, nations and the world a complex, multi-dimensional allocation of resources, labour and capital undertaken as the sum of human preferences expressed voluntarily through the market mechanism. The second offers allocation of resources, labour and capital by the elite — bureaucrats, technocrats and special interests. The first is not without corruption and fallout, but its various imperfect incarnations have created boundless prosperity, productivity and growth. Incarnations of the second have led to the deaths by starvation of millions first in Soviet Russia, then in Maoist China... As the financial system and the financial oligarchy continue to blunder from crisis to crisis, more and more people will surely become entangled in the seductive narratives of Marxism. More and more people may come to blame markets and freedom for the problems of corporatism and statism. This is deeply ironic — the Marxist tendency toward central planning and control exerts a far greater influence on the policymakers of today than the Hayekian or Smithian tendency toward decentralisation and economic freedom.

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The Cacophony Of Markets

Seven out of the seventeen economies that belong to the European Union that need to be bailed out. This is 41% of the Euro-17 that is in trouble. The second indication of decline is the recessions in Europe. In fact virtually all of Europe is in a recession and while Germany has held its head above the water I think by the third or fourth quarter that she is also mired in an economic decline. Europe is 25% of the global economy and this is beginning to affect the United States as exemplified by the declining revenues and profits of many American corporations that have so far reported out this quarter. The axes of the financial markets are America, Europe and China and with Europe in serious decline and China also contracting the strings are vibrating so that all of the markets are likely to go down. Even without some cataclysmic shock, realization is coming. The debts of Europe are being paid off with ever more debt and the can kicking will find its walls and as the European recession deepens it will be felt in America and then adjustments will have to be made - as fact overbears fantasy.

Guess Who’s Bailing Out Bankrupt Western Governments Now...

Fourteen years ago during the Asian financial crisis, Indonesia endured a currency collapse, a severe 2-year recession, and an embarrassing IMF bailout. Western bureaucrats wagged their fingers incessantly at Indonesia, lecturing the country about the dangers of excess and fiscal irresponsibility. How sweet the irony is. In a stunning rags-to-riches story, Indonesia contributed US$1 billion to the IMF last week in order to help bail out bankrupt Western nations. Unlike Japan, the US, and Europe — which all seem to think the answer to an economic bust brought on by a debt-binge is to borrow and spend even more money– Indonesia took its medicine when its economy collapsed back in 1998. Ironically, US President Barack Obama spent some of his childhood in this same suburb of Jakarta. Unfortunately, as he pulls out all stops to cling to power for a second term, the kind of tough decisions that could help the US emerge from its economic malaise have no chance of being made. It’s the ENTIRE system that’s the problem. And that goes for nearly every Western, “free market,” democracy out there.

Scorching Summer Heat Pushes Nat Gas Back Up To $3.00, Chesapeake Over $20

Several months ago, as John Arnold was terminally unwinding long gas positions into an illiquid market, sending natgas as low as  $1.80, various pundits called for a bidless market in natgas. Today they are silent, because 3 months later, nat gas is 60% higher, and is on the verge of crossing the $3.00 psychological barrier, and going unchanged on the year, in the process pushing Chesapeake energy above $20 for the first time since the vendetta-like Reuters battery of negative articles allowed such activists as Carl Icahn and Dan Loeb, not to mention Zero Hedge readers, to accumulate a position in the name in the mid-teens.

On Malinvestment And A Weak Economy Getting Weaker

The only reason the real wage and salary growth has improved at all this year (a real growth rate of 1.1%) is because inflation has been declining since January as TrimTabs' Madeline Schnapp notes specifically "the price of gasoline has dropped sixty cents a gallon since April giving consumers about $60 billion in extra cash to save or spend". While good news, it is hardly sustainable and acts as a much weaker boost to the economy where balance sheets are still crammed with trillions of dollars of mal-investments left from the real estate bubble that have not been marked-to-market. These non-performing assets are like a ball-and-chain around the neck of the economy and the quicker they are liquidated the quicker the economy can get back on its feet. Schnapp sees lower job growth than consensus for June and while her pre-July-4th ebullience is clear, her less-than-sanguine view on the economy and the "purging of mal-investments - destroying wealth and contracting credit" means wage-and-salary growth will be anemic at best.

The Real-World Middle Class Tax Rate: 75%

For those Americans earning between $34,500 and $106,000, the real-world middle class tax burden in high-tax locales is 15% + 25% + 5% + 15% + 15% = 75%. Yes, 75%. Before you start listing the innumerable caveats and quibbles raised by any discussion of taxes, please hear me out first. Let's start by defining "taxes" as any fee that is mandated by law or legal necessity. In other words, taxes are what is not optional.  If we include all taxes, the real-world tax rate is much higher than the "official" income tax rate.

Obama Discusses Escalation Of Chinese Trade War: Live Webcast

Earlier, we noted that Obama is about to take the trade war with China on car duties to a whole new level, be decrying "unfair" Chinese trade duties (which in turn were implemented only in response to US tire tariffs imposed in 2009 but you won 't hear about that). Now watch the president live from Ohio, telling his unionized voters precisely what they want to hear.

ECB Margin Calls Surge And Basis-Swaps Plunge

Despite the easing of collateral standards, ECB Margin Calls surged last week by their most in over 9 months (ex-Greece). As yields rose (and prices fell) pre-summit, so the collateral that European banks have lodged with the ECB fell in value and thus, the banks had to find cash to cover those margin calls. The rally from Friday may have eased that strain a little but today's give-back of all those gains (and in fact to a worse level) suggests that these margin calls will continue to rise and put further liquidity stress on cash-strapped European banks. Most critically, the ECB (while extending some of its collateral) reduced banks' ability to self-reference and post ponzi-bonds as collateral (i.e. a Spanish bank cannot get a government guaranteed issue off and then turn round and pledge it with the ECB). Between negative Swiss interest rates (and Denmark), stressed basis-swaps, and now rising ECB margin calls, things are going from bad to worse behind the scenes in Europe - no matter what reflexive perspective an equity market rally is telling you. Yet another unintended consequence of the LTRO/MROs as the most-stressed banks come under more liquidity stress - as evidenced by today's biggest deterioration in EUR-USD basis swaps in 7 months.

Obama Opens Car Front In Chinese Trade War

In Ohio today, President Obama will announce the latest World Trade Organization suit against China, this time addressing "unfairly" imposed duties on U.S. auto exports.  The Administration will argue that these duties violate international trade rules. Whether or not China will reply that buying US 10 year paper at 1.6% is also unfair remains to be seen. But at least someone is happy. As reported earlier, ADP reported just 4,000 manufacturing jobs were added in the US in the last month: these are the same people who are supposed to be doubling US exports in Obama's latest 5 year plan. Good luck. Anyway, here is the take of the Alliance for American Manufacturing to this simplistic attempt to trade union for long-term stability with America's largest trading partner.

Mortgage Refinancing And The Fed's Perverse Incentives

The last two weeks have seen the largest drop in mortgage refinancings in over 7 months. While refis are trending generally higher as mortgage rates drop to all-time-record-lows, there is an odd reaction evident in the data. Each time interest rates tick up even modestly, the rate of refinancings plunges violently. In a sane world of rational actors, we would expect a rush of refinancings at the first sign of a rise in interest rates as they scramble to lock-in the last best deal. However, in our surreal world of extreme balance sheet inflation and seemingly infinite zero-interest rates from the Fed, the crowd (instead of seeing a blip up in rates as a signal to act) decides to hold off from refinancing as they await rates to continue trending down/lower (as per The Fed). So, does the Fed need to signal that rates will be rising soon, and lift its easing pedal to remove the perverse incentive that ZIRP has enabled, in order to improve the housing market (or household balance sheets)?

Spot The Odd One Out

The post-EU-Summit exuberance has entirely worn off in everything that mattered to the EU-Summit 'bulls' as EURUSD and both Italian and Spanish bond spreads are now back wider than pre-Summit. However, there is one market that remains ignorant of anything aside from algo-driven VWAP reversion and the incessant hope for another round of central bank largesse. Can you guess which one?

Goldman Raises Tomorrow's NFP Forecast By 50K To 125,000

Following today's two better than expected employment data points, it was only natural that the world's fastest revising bank would go ahead and promptly revise their forecast for tomorrow's NFP higher. Sure enough... "We are upgrading our forecast for tomorrow’s nonfarm payroll report to +125k, from +75k previously."

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