US States: High Debts and Labor Unionism

Some debt crisis stricken US states could be facing debt downgrades soon.

From Businessweek/Bloomberg,

The debt of 30 California cities, including Oakland, Fresno and Sacramento, has been placed under review for downgrades because of economic pressures in the state, Moody’s Investors Service said.

The examinations may affect $14.3 billion in lease-backed and general-obligation debt issued by the municipalities, the New York-based company said yesterday in a statement.

“California cities operate under more rigid revenue- raising constraints than cities in many other parts of the country,” Eric Hoffmann, who heads Moody’s California local government ratings team, said in a statement. “Combined with steeply rising costs, these constraints mean that these cities will likely recover more slowly than their peers nationally, even if the state’s economic recovery tracks the nation’s.”

Communities in California have struggled to stay afloat by cutting staff and services to make up for a drop in sales and property tax revenue in the wake of the recession. Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes have gone into bankruptcy court since June.

Moody’s said it identified the credits as part of a broader review started in August of 95 rated cities in California.

The general-obligation bond ratings of Los Angeles, now Aa3, fourth-highest,and San Francisco, Aa2, third-highest, are on review for upgrades, Moody’s said.

Such developments merely reminds us that the US remains highly fragile to lingering debt problems.

Also, the prospective downgrades reminds me of an article that I recently came across which associates high levels of debt with high levels of ‘forced’ unionization.

From DScoundrels.com (hat tip Charleston Voice)

After discovering that the Top 10 states with the highest tax rates were all Forced Union states, it comes as no surprise that the top states with the worst debt trouble are also Forced Union states. Back in January Forbes tallied up several factors to identify which states were in the worst debt trouble (50 being the worst). The ‘Debt Per Capita and Unfunded Pensions Per Capita’ number is how much is owed per person in the state. Forbes looked at the following:

The metrics we looked at for each state included unfunded pension liabilities, changes in tax revenue, credit agency ratings, debt as a percentage of Gross State Product, debt per capita, growth expectations for employment and the state economy, net migrations and a moocher ratio that compares government employees, pension burdens and Medicaid enrollees to private-sector employment.

Forced Union vs Right-to-Work States:

Of the top 15 states with the worst debt troubles every one listed is a Forced Union state other than Mississippi and Louisiana. These states are outliers because they have assumed larger debt due to rebuilding after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Of the top 15 states with the least debt troubles, all but 4 (New Hampshire, Montana, Colorado and Indiana) are Right-to-Work states. Note that in 2005 Governor Daniels of Indiana revokedthe collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.  It is also notable that the Forced Union states have a higher percentage of unionized government workers than the Right-to-Work states.

Read the rest here.

Due to the mass production and centralized organization structure which characterized the industrial age, labor unions used to represent highly influential vested groups. 

Chart from the conservative Heritage Foundation 

They still are politically influential but a lot less than what had been.

Proof of this is that some of President Obama’s policies have been conspicuously pro-union e.g. auto bailouts.

However due to globalization and the deepening of the information age, labor union trends have been on a decline worldwide.

Governments in the past has implemented inflationism to pacify US labor union groups.

As the great Ludwig von Mises narrated,

The very essence of the interventionist politicians' wisdom is to raise the price of labor either by government decree or by violent action on the part of labor unions. To raise wage rates above the height at which the unhampered market would determine them is considered a postulate of the eternal laws of morality as well as indispensable from the economic point of view. Whoever dares to challenge this ethical and economic dogma is scorned both as depraved and ignorant. Many of our contemporaries look upon people who are foolhardy enough "to cross a picket line" as primitive tribesmen looked upon those who violated the precepts of taboo conceptions. Millions are jubilant if such scabs receive their well-deserved punishment from the hands of the strikers while the police, the public attorneys, and the penal courts preserve a lofty neutrality…

Firmly committed to the principles of interventionism, governments try to check this undesired result of their interference by resorting to those measures which are nowadays called full-employment policy: unemployment doles, arbitration of labor disputes, public works by means of lavish public spending, inflation, and credit expansion. All these remedies are worse than the evil they are designed to remove.

I believe that a lot of the advocates for the mercantilist-inflationists dogma are those bearing a nostalgia for big labor union days.

Unfortunately for them, today’s political priorities have shifted. Governments, along with their central banks, have been supporting mostly the crony banking system (through asset prices) whom has served as key financier to welfare-warfare based political institutions.

Worse, the era of labor union, welfare-warfare and big government are being seriously challenged by growing forces of decentralization and by internal atrophy from unsustainable government spending-debt dynamics.

S&P Downgrades Ratings of 9 European Nations, Affirms Seven

The Bloomberg reports,

France and Austria lost their top credit ratings in a string of downgrades that left Germany with the euro area’s only stable AAA grade as Standard & Poor’s warned that crisis-fighting efforts are still falling short.

France and Austria were cut one level to AA+ from AAA and face the risk of further reductions, the rating company said in Frankfurt late yesterday. While Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg kept their AAA ratings, they were put on negative watch. Spain and Italy were also among the nine nations downgraded.

It’s important to stress that the S&P has only been reacting to what the market has already done.

Major credit ratings in the US are limited by regulation, particularly the Nationally recognized statistical rating organization, thus operates as a quasi-cartel, specifically, the big three: S&P, Fitch and Moody’s. Since these firms apply ratings not only to private companies but to sovereign securities, they are largely sensitive to political influences.

S&P’s recent downgrade of US debt was apparently timed during the congressional debate on the debt ceiling, perhaps or most likely aimed at influencing the political outcome, which of course earned the ire of the Obama administration.

Nevertheless so far the markets has proven S&P’s US downgrade as largely ill-timed as 30 year US treasury bonds gained an astounding 35%!

This seem to validate predictions of deflationists but for the wrong reason. Global bond markets have been manipulated by regulation (Financial Repression-forcing financial institutions to hold or own sovereign papers, based on Basel Accords) and by monetary policies. The outperformance of the US bonds has been magnified by the Euro crisis, and importantly, the US Federal Reserve act to monetize debts. Deflation proponents should thank the US Federal Reserve for actualizing most of their predictions.

The red circle shows of Fed’s purchases of long term treasuries (chart from Cleveland Fed)

Going back to the issues of debt, a similar furor today over S&P’s European downgrades seems to hug the headlines as Europe’s politicians/bureaucrats contest S&P’s decision.

From the G7Finance.com

The EU’s top economic official criticised Standard & Poor’s downgrades as “inconsistent” on Friday and said the currency area was taking action to resolve its debt crisis.

“After verifying that this time it is not accidental, I regret the inconsistent decision,” EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a statement, taking a jab at the ratings agency in recalling its November accident in which it informed some clients of an erroneous French downgrade.

Anyway, these represents no more than histrionics to the crisis havocked Eurozone.

Bottom line: you can’t count on what credit rating agencies say. And you can’t rely on them to materially influence the markets. Rather, these firms act largely on market’s influences, except for some instances.

And there has been no better proof than the ‘stamp pad’ activities undertaken by these credit rating agencies on mortgage securities which help facilitated the US housing bubble.

Of course the operational “conflict-on-interest” relationship which has been enabled by above cartel inducing regulation, has produced a business paradigm where debt organizers and issuers compensated the credit rating agencies. So US credit rating agencies served the interests of their consumers. The rest is history.

Is the S&P trying to influence the EU Summit by Warning of Downgrades?

Is the S&P trying to influence the outcome of the EU Summit by warning of Downgrades?

From the Bloomberg,

Standard & Poor’s said Germany and France may be stripped of their AAA credit ratings as the debt crisis prompts 15 euro nations to be put on review for possible downgrade.

The euro area’s six AAA rated countries are among the nations to be placed on a negative outlook, and their credit ratings may be cut depending on the result of a summit of European Union leaders on Dec. 9, S&P said today in a statement. The euro reversed its gains and U.S. Treasuries rose earlier today after the Financial Times reported that the credit-ranking firm planned to reduce six AAA outlooks.

“Systemic stress in the eurozone has risen in recent weeks and reached such a level that a review of all eurozone sovereign ratings is warranted,” S&P said in a statement.

The downgrade warnings come as German Chancellor Angela Merkeland French President Nicolas Sarkozy push for a rewrite of the EU’s governing rules to tighten economic cooperation in a demonstration of unity on ending the debt crisis. With the fate of the currency shared by the 17 euro countries at risk, Merkel and Sarkozy presented a common platform for a Dec. 8-9 summit of EU leaders in Brussels that aims to halt the crisis now in its third year.

In my view, the answer could be yes, S&P may be using to credit rating standings as leverage. The timing of credit rating downgrade puts the S&P’s action in question. Although it seems unclear which agenda the S&P has been pushing.

Nonetheless, S&P’s warnings has lagged what’s been happening in the markets.

Chart from Danske Bank

In other words, the markets has already been downgrading the core Euro bonds, with current relief coming from the ECB’s bond purchases and the facilitation of swap lines from the US Federal Reserve.

Global Equity Meltdown: Political Actions to Save Global Banks

“However, hanging onto money is highly risky in a time of monetary inflation. The security-seeker does not understand this. Keynesian economists do not understand this. Politicians do not understand this. The result of inflationary central bank policies is the production of uncertainty in excess of what the public wants to accept. But the public does not understand Mises' theory of the business cycle. Voters do not demand a halt to the increase in money. It would not matter if they did. Central bankers do not answer to voters. They also do not answer to politicians. "Monetary policy is too important to be left to politicians," the paid propagandists called economists assure us. The politicians believe this. Until the crisis of 2008, so did voters.” Professor Gary North

Local headlines blare “Global stocks gyrate wildly; sell-off resumes in markets”[1]

To chronicle this week’s action through the lens of the US Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU), we see that on Monday August 8th, the major US bellwether fell 635 points or 5.5%. On Tuesday, the INDU rose 430 points or 4%. On Wednesday, it fell 520 points 4.6%. On Thursday, it rose 423 points or 3.9%. The week closed with the Dow Jones Industrials up by 126.71 points or 1.13% on Friday.

All these wild swings accrued to a weekly modest loss of 1.53% by the Dow Jones Industrials.

Some ideologically blinded commentators argue that these had been about aggregate demand. So logic tell us that aggregate demand collapsed on Monday, jumps higher on Tuesday, tanked again on Wednesday, then gets reinvigorated on Thursday and Friday? Makes sense no?

How about fear? Fear on Monday, greed on Tuesday, fear on Wednesday, and greed on Thursday and Friday? Do you find this train of logic convincing? I find this patently absurd.

Confidence doesn’t emerge out of random. Instead, people react to changes in the environment and the marketplace. Their actions are purposeful and seen in the context of incentives (beneficial for them).

And that’s why many who belong to the camp of econometrics based reality gets wildly confused about the current developments where they try in futility to fit only parts of reality into their rigid theories.

And part of the realities that go against their beliefs are jettisoned as unreal.

So by the close of the week, these people end up scratching their heads, to quip “weird markets”.

Weird for them, but definitely not for me.

Political Actions to Save the Global Banking System

Yet if there has been any one dynamic that has been proven to be the MAJOR driving force in the financial markets over the week, this has been about POLITICS, as I have been pointing out repeatedly since 2008[2].

I am sorry to say that this has not been about aggregate demand, fear premium, corporate profits, conventional economics or mechanical chart reading, but about human action in the context of global policymakers intending to save the cartelized system of the ‘too big to fail’ banks, central banks and the welfare state.

As I pointed out last week[3],

Important: The US has been downgraded by the major credit rating agency S&P after the market closed last Friday, so there could be an extended volatility on the global marketplace at the start of the week. This largely depends if such actions has already been discounted. The first thing on Monday is to watch Japan’s response.

The S&P’s downgrade tsunami reached the shores of global markets on Monday, where the US markets crashed by 5.5%.

It is very important to point out that the market backlash from the downgrade did NOT reflect on real downgrade fears, where US interest rates across the yield curve should have spiked, but to the contrary, interest rates fell to record lows[4]!

And as also correctly pointed out last week, the US Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting, which was held last Tuesday, introduced new measures aimed at containing prevailing market distresses.

The FOMC pledged to:

-extend zero bound rates until mid-2013, amidst growing dissension among the governors,

-maintain balance sheets by reinvesting principal payments of maturing securities,

and importantly, keep an open option to reengage in asset purchases[5].

Some have argued that the Fed’s policies has essentially been a stealth QE, as the steep yield curve from these will incentivize mortgage holders to refinance. And this would spur the Fed to reinvest the proceeds.

According to David Schawel[6],

A surge of refinancing will reduce the size of the Fed’s MBS holdings and allow them to re-invest the proceeds further out the curve

The Fed’s announcement on Tuesday, basically coincided or may have been coordinated with the European Central Bank’s purchases of Italian and Spanish bonds or ECB’s version of Quantitative Easing. The combined actions resulted to an equally sharp 4% bounce by the Dow Jones Industrials.

Mr. Bernanke has essentially implemented the first, “explicit guidance” on Fed’s policy rates, among the 3 measures he indicated last July 12th[7].

The resumption of QE and a possible reduction of the quarter percentage of interest rates paid to bank reserves by the US Federal Reserve signify as the two options on the table.

My guess is that the gradualist pace of implementation has been highly dependent on the actions of the financial markets.

I would further suspect that given the huge ECB’s equivalent of Quantitative Easing or buying of distressed bonds of Italy and Spain, aside Ireland and Portugal, estimated at US $ 1.2 trillion[8], team Bernanke perhaps desires that financial markets digest on these before sinking in another set of QEs.

And to consider that US M2 money supply[9] has been exploding, which already represents a deluge of money circulating in the US economy, thus, the seeming tentativeness to proceed with more aggressive actions.

Wednesday saw market jitters rear its ugly head, as rumors circulated that France would follow the US as the next nation to be downgraded[10]. The US markets cratered by 4.6% anew.

On Thursday, following an earlier probe launched by the US Senate on the S&P for its downgrade on the US[11], the US SEC likewise opened an investigation to a possible insider trading charge against the S&P[12].

Obviously both actions had been meant to harass the politically embattled credit rating agency. The possible result of which was that the S&P joined Fitch and Moody’s to affirm France’s credit ratings[13].

To add, 4 Euro nations[14], namely Italy, Belgium, France and Spain has joined South Korea, Turkey and Greece[15] to ban short sales. A ban forces short sellers to cover their positions whose buying temporarily drives the markets higher.

These accrued interventions once again boosted global markets anew which saw the INDU or the Dow Industrials soar by 3.9%.

Friday’s gains in global markets may have been a continuation or the carryover effects of these measures.

Unless one has been totally blind to all these evidences, these amalgamated measures can be seen as putting a floor on global stock markets, which essentially upholds the Bernanke doctrine[16], which likewise underpins part of the assets held by the cartelized banking system and sector’s publicly listed equities exposed to the market’s jurisdiction.

Thus, like 2008, we are witnessing a second round of massive redistribution of resources from taxpayers to the politically endowed banking class.

Gold as the Main Refuge

AS financial markets experienced these temblors, gold prices skyrocketed to fresh record levels at over $1,800, but eventually fell back to close at $1,747 on Friday, for a gain of $83 over the week or nearly 5%.

From the astronomical highs, gold fell dramatically as implied interventions had been also extended to the gold futures markets. Similar to the recent wave of commodity interventions, the CME steeply raised the credit margins of gold futures[17].

We have to understand that gold (coins or bullions) have NOT been used for payments and settlements in everyday transactions. So gold cannot be seen as fungible to legal tender imposed fiat cash (for now), even if some banks now accept gold as collateral.[18]

In an environment of recession or deleveraging—where loans are called in and where there will be a surge of defaults and an onrush of asset liquidations to pay off liabilities or margin calls, fiduciary media (circulating credit) will contract, prices will adjust downwards to reflect on the new capital structure and people will seek to increase cash balances in the face of uncertainty—CASH and not gold is king. Such dynamic was highly evident in 2008 (before the preliminary QEs).

Thus, it would signify a ridiculous self-contradictory argument to suggest that record gold prices has been manifesting risks of ‘deflation’.

Instead, what has been happening, as shown by the recent spate of interventions, is that for every banking problem that surfaces, global central bankers apply bailouts by massive inflationism accompanied by sporadic price controls on specific markets.

Alternatively, this means that record gold prices do not suggest of a fear premium of a deflationary environment, but instead, a possible fear premium from the prospects of a highly inflationary, one given the current actions of central banks.

This panic-manic feedback loop or in the analogy of Dr. Jeckll and Mr. Hyde’s “split personality” which characterizes the global markets of last week has been materially different from the 2007-2008 US mortgage crises.

Not only has there been a divergence in market response across different financial markets geographically (e.g. like ASEAN-Phisix), the flight to safety mode has been starkly different.

The US dollar (USD) has failed to live up to its “safehaven” status, which apparently has shifted to not only gold but the Japanese Yen (XJY) and the gold backed Swiss Franc (XSF).

It’s important to point out that the franc’s most recent decline has been due to second wave of massive $55 billion of interventions by the SNB during the week. The SNB has exposed a total of SFr120 billion ($165 billion!) over the past two weeks[19]. The pivotal question is where will $165 billion dollars go to?

Bottom line:

This time is certainly different when compared to 2008 (but not to history where authorities had been predisposed to resort to inflation as a political solution). While there has been a significant revival of global market distress, market actions have varied in many aspects, as well as in the flight to safety assets.

This implies that in learning from the 2008 episode, global policymakers have assimilated a more activist stance which ultimately leads to different market outcomes. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

The current market environment can’t be explained by conventional thinking for the simple reason that markets are being weighed and propped up by the actions of political players for a political purpose, i.e. saving the Global Banks and the preservation of the status quo of the incumbent political system.

---

[1] Inquirer.net Global stocks gyrate wildly; sell-off resumes in markets, August 12, 2011

[2] See Stock Market Investing: Will Reading Political Tea Leaves Be A Better Gauge?, November 30, 2008

[3] See Global Market Crash Points to QE 3.0, August 7, 2011

[4] See Has the S&P’s Downgrade been the cause of the US Stock Market’s Crash?, August 9, 2011

[5] See US Federal Reserve Goes For Subtle QE August 10,2011

[6] Schawel, David Stealth QE3 Is Upon Us, How Ben Did It, And What It Means Business Insider, August 9, 2011

[7] See Ben Bernanke Hints at QE 3.0, July 13, 2011

[8] Bloomberg, ECB Bond Buying May Reach $1.2 Trillion in Creeping Union Germany Opposes, August 8, 2011

[9] FRED, St. Louis Federal Reserve, M2 Money Stock (M2) M2 includes a broader set of financial assets held principally by households. M2 consists of M1 plus: (1) savings deposits (which include money market deposit accounts, or MMDAs); (2) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000); and (3) balances in retail money market mutual funds (MMMFs). Seasonally adjusted M2 is computed by summing savings deposits, small-denomination time deposits, and retail MMMFs, each seasonally adjusted separately, and adding this result to seasonally adjusted M1.

[10] The Hindu, Fears of France downgrade trigger massive sell-off in Europe, August 11, 2011

[11] Bloomberg.com U.S. Senate Panel Collecting Information for Possible S&P Probe, August 9, 2011

[12] Wall Street Journal Blog SEC Asking About Insider Trading at S&P: Report, August 12, 2011

[13] Bloomberg.com French AAA Rating Affirmed by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Amid Market Rout, August 11, 2011

[14] USA Today 4 European nations ban short-selling of stocks, August 11, 2011, see War against Short Selling: France, Spain, Italy, Belgium Ban Short Sales, August 12, 2011

[15] Business insider 2008 REPLAY: Europe Moves To Ban Short Selling As Crisis Spreads, August 11, 2011, also see War Against Market Prices: South Korea Imposes Ban on Short Sales, August 12, 2011

[16] See US Stock Markets and Animal Spirits Targeted Policies, July 10, 2010

[17] See War on Gold: CME Raises Credit Margins on Gold Futures, August 11, 2011

[18] See Two Ways to Interpret Gold’s Acceptance as Collateral to the Global Financial Community, May 27, 2011

[19] Swissinfo.ch Last ditch defence of franc intensifies, August 10, 2011

Has the S&P’s Downgrade been the cause of the US Stock Market’s Crash?

Hardly so, it would seem.

Since the announced downgrade last Friday, coupon yields of US sovereign issues have been collapsing across the yield curve.

This has HARDLY been signs of an intuitive market response to a credit rating downgrade, where interest rates should be surging higher!

Instead, this looks likely a typical market reaction when the confronted with the prospects of recession.

What has been happening has been a rotation away from equities to bonds, since the debt downgrade crisis episode surfaced.

The currency market hardly exhibits the same downgrade reaction too. Instead of a selloff, we see the US dollar consolidating for the past two sessions. Over the span of two weeks, the US dollar has been inching higher.

Overall, the US dollar has not outperformed (as the previous bear market) or functioned as safehaven currency but has not collapsed either.

Yet gold prices continues to spike to record levels, which is now at 1,740s! (goldprice.org)

Of course gold prices has been suggestive of aggressive activism by central bankers to counteract this ongoing meltdown.

And with the appearance that ECB’s Bazooka (QE), estimated at $1.2 trillion, has fizzled out or has sputtered, more QEs could be in the pipeline.

Such market dissonance is telling.

Misleading Discussion on US Debt Downgrade Crisis

Here is my open letter to broadcasters Paolo Bediones and Cherry Mercado

Dear Paolo Bediones and Cherry Mercado,

Last night, I overheard your supposed cerebral discussion about the US debt downgrade crisis on your radio program while on the way home, on a cab with my family.

I would like to make significant corrections on the litany of false information that had been disseminated on air.

First you claim that after with America’s downgrade, only New Zealand is left with AAA ratings.

This in patently incorrect as shown by the chart from the New York Times

There are 13 countries still with AAA ratings.

Next, you alleged that the Philippine economy mostly depends on the remittances. This is again far from truth. (The downgrade of which you deduce would hurt the OFWs.)

While the Philippines ranks 4^th among the largest remittance recipients in the world (US $21 billion in 2010)…

…the share of remittances to our economy is only 12% (see below). This means there are 88% more of non-OFW sectors to consider. Mathematically speaking, 88 should be greater than 12, or am I missing something?

Charts from World Bank’s Migration and Remittance Factbook 2011

True, the multiplier for remittance contribution could mean a lot more share of the economic pie, but this is certainly far from the exaggerated claim that the Philippines entirely or mostly depend on remittances.

The above chart from ADB shows that while the growth of net factor income from abroad (NFIA) has indeed been substantial, remittances has only been part of this. NFIA also includes contributions from exports and investment inflows. Importantly, gross domestic savings still accounts for the largest share.

So you seem to be pandering to the OFW voting class/audience by overestimating their contributions and underestimating the role of the local economy.

You further moralize on the problem of the 'debt crisis' to Americans as one of having spent too much on things which they didn’t “need”, in as much as they ate in “excess”.

Again both of you seem to be missing out the root of the problem.

Today’s US debt crisis has been mostly about skyrocketing US government spending emanating from promises to her citizenry from which the US government won't be able to finance (chart from Wall Street Journal)

(chart from Heritage Foundation)

If you think that McMansions and SUV’s are “not” needed by Americans, then that would represent fait accompli thinking.

And yet how do you determine what is needed and what is not? And similarly by what measure would you know what or which levels signify as “enough” for each person? If I value beer most and you value coffee most, should my preferences be forced to conform to you or should I sacrifice my beer for your coffee? On what grounds-because most of the people will agree with you?

You see, the fundamental problem has mainly been about the addiction to acquire debt (not only by the American public but MOSTLY by the government).

Moreover while I applaud you for saying that Filipinos should stay clear from incurring debt, I reject your prescription that 'safety nets' should be provided for by the Philippine government to the OFWs in the face of this crisis.

Such safety nets has exactly been the (borrow and spend) formula which has caused the downgrade of the US

Proof?

This is the press release from the Credit rating agency S & P, whom downgraded the US, (bold highlights mine)

The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.

More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon.

None in the above says that this has about excess consumption of food and the needless expenditures on material personal needs. Instead, the above shows that this crisis has been representative of the overdependence on government.

Finally, both of you only see the negative side of the downgrade. The bright side is that these events could mean more investment funds for countries willing to embrace investors.

As a saying goes, money flows to where it is treated best. If the US government can’t treat their resident investors adequately, then the Philippines can offer them an alternative venue.

This will happen only if we make the right policy reforms of embracing greater economic freedom.

Ideas have consequences, especially the bad ones. Spreading half-truths could mislead people into doing something that they shouldn’t have politically.

I hope to see public personalities engage in responsible expositions of our society’s problems than just utter rubbish and unfounded statements, especially directed to gullible audiences who mostly don’t understand the situation and who would easily fall prey to demagoguery which they may assimilate as “truth”.

In short, I hope that that both of you practice responsible journalism.

Hope this helps,

Benson

Imploding Welfare States: France Faces Downgrade After U.S. Cut

One by one the Bismarckian welfare states appear to be collapsing from their own weight.

From Bloomberg,

The decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating leaves France as the AAA country most likely to lose its top grade, some investors and economists say.

France is more expensive to insure against default than lower-rated governments including Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, Czech Republic, the state of Texas and the U.S.

“France is not, in my view, a AAA country,” said Paul Donovan, London-based deputy head of global economics at UBS AG. “France can’t print its own money, a critical distinction from the U.S. It is not treated as AAA by the markets.”

While all three major credit-rating companies have confirmed France’s top level in recent months, market measures indicate increasing investor skittishness over the country’s vulnerability to the European debt crisis. Euro-region central bank governors signalled after emergency talks yesterday that they would buy bonds from Spain and Italy to counter investor concerns and limit fallout from the U.S. cut…

While France’s debt of 84.7 percent of gross domestic product is less than Italy’s 120.3 percent, as a percentage of economic output it has risen twice as fast as Italy’s since 2007. French government debt totaled 1.59 trillion euros ($2.3 trillion) at the end of 2010, according to the European Union; Italy’s was about 1.8 trillion euros. France has had a larger budget deficit than Italy every year since 2006. S&P rates Italy A+, four levels below France.

Chart from the Economist

It has been turning out to be a great vindication and equally a monumental triumph for the Classical Liberals whom have warned all these years about the artificiality of this system.

As the great Ludwig von Mises once wrote,

An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund which can be squeezed forever. The whole system of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off: The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.

This process of liquidating the Santa Claus principle has been happening as Risk Free are being exposed as Risk Loaded.

Although governments should be expected to keep up the struggle and resort to even more desperate measures in order to preserve this unsustainable system (via inflationism).

At the end of the day, economic reality will overwhelm them.

Global Market Crash Points to QE 3.0

I can already smell QE3. Now we'll see if Mr. Bernanke is a true money printer or an amateur money printer. If he is a true money printer, he's going to start printing soon, markets will rally but not to new highs-Dr. Marc Faber

Important: The US has been downgraded by the major credit rating agency S&P after the market closed last Friday[1], so there could be an extended volatility on the global marketplace at the start of the week. This largely depends if such actions has already been discounted. The first thing on Monday is to watch Japan’s response.

Nevertheless given the actions of the US markets last Friday, where rumors of the downgrade had already circulated[2], there hardly has been any noteworthy action which presages more trouble ahead.

At the start of the week, the mainstream attributed the weakness in the US markets as a function of the risk of a debt default. This, according to them, should arise if a debt ceiling deal would not be reached.

I argued that this hasn’t been so[3], for the simple reason that market signals has been saying otherwise.

A credit rating downgrade means higher costs of financing or securing loans and a possible rebalancing of the balance sheets of the banking system to comply with capital adequacy regulations.

The chart above shows that short term yields initially spiked (1 year note light blue and 3 month bill-light green) during the 11^th hour of the negotiations. But once the debt ceiling deal was reached and the bill was passed, interest rates across the yield curve converged as they fell along with prices of Credit Default Swap.

Instead I pointed to the deteriorating events in Europe as a possible aggravating factor on US markets.

Impact of Downgrades

There are two basic ways to measure credit risks. One is the interest rate, the other is through credit default swaps (CDS) which fundamentally acts as a form of insurance against a default.

It is misleading to think that downgrades drive the marketplace as some popular personalities as my former icon Warren Buffett recently asserted[4]

Financial markets create their own dynamics, but I don’t think we’re facing a double dip recession…Clearly what stock markets do have is an effect on confidence, and this selloff can create a lack of confidence.

Mr. Buffett has gotten the causality in reverse. Downgrades happen when market forces—popularly known as the bond vigilantes[5] or bond market investors protest current fiscal or monetary policies respond by selling bonds—has already been articulating them.

US CDS prices have steadily been creeping upwards[6], this has been indicative of marketplace’s perception of the festering credit conditions by the US. The problem isn’t that “selloff can create a lack of confidence”, but rather too much debt, which is the reason for the downgrade, has been fostering an atmosphere of heightened uncertainty.

Downgrades signify as a time lagged acknowledgement by social institutions of an extant underlying ailment being vented on the markets.

The fact is that 3 credit rating agencies have already downgraded the US[7].

Also downgrades as said above affect financial institutions more, not only because of higher costs of funds but also because of the compliance to capital adequacy regulations.

A fundamental picture of an ongoing market based downside rerating is the unraveling crisis in the Eurozone.

The escalating PIIGS crisis has been causing a panic on Spain and Italian bonds, whose interest yields have been spiking[8] and where European investors can be seen stampeding into Germany’s debt or the Swiss franc.

So how has Europe responded? In mechanical fashion, by inflationism.

Supposedly wrangling politicians/bureaucrats found a common cause or conciliatory ground to work on. The European Central Bank (ECB) commenced with its version of Quantitative Easing (asset purchases) initially buying Irish and Portuguese bonds[9], which the equity markets apparently ignored and continued to tumble.

The ECB now has promised to extend buying Italian and Spanish bonds, this coming week, in order to calm the markets[10].

The Swiss National Bank[11] has gotten into the act ahead of the ECB, by surprising the currency markets with an intervention allegedly meant to control a surging franc. I think that they were flooding liquidity for the benefit banks, with the currency as an excuse for such action.

The Swiss intervention, which has been estimated at CHF 30 billion ($39 billion) to CHF 80 billion[12], by expanding the monetary base, appears as having fallen short of achieving its declared currency goal (see right window). The franc trades at the levels where the SNB initiated the intervention. The result seems as $39 billion down the sink hole.

Japan has likewise followed the Central Bank money printing shindig by engaging in her own currency intervention, allegedly aimed at curbing the rise of the Yen. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) reportedly intervened with a record high amount in the range of $56.6 to $59.26 billion[13]

Total cumulative size of Japan’s QE has now reached 46 trillion yen[14] (US $627 billion)

Hence, the European debt crisis partly explains the recent global market crash.

And importantly the above dynamic demonstrates how central banks respond to a market distress or a mark down in credit standings.

As an aside, one would further note that since central banks of Japan, Eurozone and the Switzerland has now been funneling enormous liquidity into the system, all these funds will have to flow somewhere.

The same dynamics should be expected with the US, where a credit rerating would not only impair US government debt risk profile and the attendant higher costs of financing, but also debt of government sponsored agencies, municipal liabilities and corporate bonds who thrive on subsidies, guarantees, bailouts or other form of parasitical relationship to the US government.

Since many of these securities comprise asset holdings major financial institutions, a US downgrade also means downgrades for US banks, insurance companies and credit unions.

Martin Weiss of Weiss Ratings estimates that a staggering $6.3 trillion of securities constituting of government agency securities $2.2 trillion, $725 billion in municipal bonds and $2.9 trillion in corporate and foreign bonds are subject to immediate or future downgrades in the wake of a U.S. government debt downgrade[15]. This represents one-third of all the financial assets of all US financial institutions

So given the operating manual or basic procedure of central banks in treating downgrades, the S&P action essentially paves way for the next US Federal Reserve’s asset purchasing moves.

Thus, a downgrade on the US is essentially a downgrade on the US dollar.

[Funny how local investors continue to believe in the US dollar as safehaven, when the fundamental problem has been the US dollar!]

Current Environment Seems Ripe for QE 3.0

It’s been a long time theme for me in saying that part of the process to set up interventions has been through what central bankers call as the signaling channel[16].

The fundamental aim is to manipulate the public’s expectations in order to justify prospective policies, usually meant for inflation expectations management.

Over the May-June window, there had been extensive interventions in the commodity markets (raised credit restrictions sharply on various commodity markets, IEA’s release of strategic oil reserves[17] and the ban on OTC trades[18]) and in the debt and equity markets (via restrictions of short selling[19] and proscriptions on US asset sales by US residents through overseas markets[20]) which appears to have been designed as price controls.

This came amidst a spike in academic and research papers which tried to dissociate the Fed’s previous QEs with surges in commodity prices.

The process of interventions as I previously wrote[21],

First is to apply the necessary interventions on the market to create a scenario that would justify further interventions.

Second is to produce papers to help convince the public of the necessity of interventions.

Then lastly, when the 'dire' scenario happens, apply the next intervention tools.

As one can see, signaling channel has also been used to in the political context.

Similar to last week’s haggling for the US debt ceiling deal by two supposedly ‘opposing’ political parties, negotiations appears to have been leveraged or anchored on an Armageddon scenario from a debt default, if a deal had not been reached at the nick of time.

Channeling Mencken’s hobgoblins, fear had essentially been used as lever to reach an 11^th hour deal which means ramming down the throats of the Americans. The debt ceiling bill was predicated on what I called as legal skulduggery or prestidigitation[22] as government spending cuts were all based on promises (baseline projections rather than actual cuts)

Now that the debt ceiling bill has been passed, such jawboning appears to have morphed into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Markets went into a spasm.

This brings us to the core of what I think has been the epicenter of last week’s crisis.

The US equity market, represented by the S&P has been mostly buttressed by the money printing by the US Federal Reserve as shown from the chart from Casey Research[23].

One would note that in the above chart, an almost comparable decline occurred during the five month window since the Fed completed its QE 1.0 on March 2010.

The timeline for QE 1.0 is officially from March 2009 to March 2010, and QE 2.0 from November 2010 to June 2011.[24]

The difference between the actions of the US equities in post-QE 1.0 and post-QE 2.0 has been one of scale and speed.

Global equities functioned in the same manner too.

The closure of QE 1.0 (blue horizontal lines) saw an across the board decline and consolidation phase by global equity markets represented by world (FTSE All World FAW), Europe (STOX50), Asia (P1DOW) and Emerging Markets (EEM)—all marked by red ellipses. These had been reversed once the QE 2.0 was announced and implemented.

Importantly, during that post-QE 1.0 lull window (QE 1.0 blue horizontal lines; QE 2.0 green horizontal line) marked again by the red ellipses, the US dollar surged (USD), gold consolidated, US treasury yields (TNX) had been on a decline while commodities (CCI) likewise had been rangebound.

Today, post-QE 2.0, we see some important difference and similarities. Similar to the post-QE 1.0 environment, global-US equity markets have been under selling pressure as US treasury yields have been on a decline along with the commodity markets.

The difference is that the US dollar remains WEAK and has NOT generally functioned as the previous shock absorber during market stresses or during the post-QE 1.0.

Importantly gold continues to surge!

My point is: this episode of market turbulence seems like a contraption to the next asset purchasing measures by the US Federal Reserve or QE 3.0 (or in whatever name the Fed wishes to call it).

In other words, like the debt ceiling deal of last week, a crisis scenario has been put in place meant to justify the next round of interventions. And this reminds me of the shocking and revolting comment by Emmanuel Rahm, US President Obama’s former chief of staff which seem to resonate strongly today[25],

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

With the US debt ceiling bill in place, the unraveling debt crisis in the Eurozone, an “alleged” risk of a sharp world economic growth slowdown or recession (I say alleged because I am not a believer), global equity market in turmoil, plus coordinated interventions by the central banks of Swiss, Japan and the ECB, pieces of the puzzles have been falling into place, as I have previously argued[26], which seem to pave way for Ben Bernanke and the US Federal Reserve to reengage in the next asset purchasing program.

And coincidentally the US Federal Reserve’s FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) has been slated to meet on August 9^th Tuesday (Wednesday Philippine Time)[27]. And given the current turn of events, we should expect announcements that should reinforce a stronger policy response.

Public Choice and Possible Incentives Guiding Team Ben Bernanke

It’s fundamentally nonsensical to say that team Bernanke won’t engage in QE simply because of the futility or of the inefficacies of the previous QEs programs.

People who say this either fictionalize the role of individuals working for the governments or naively think that political operators operate on the basis of collective interests.

Public choice theory tells us that bureaucrats, like Ben Berrnanke, are equally self interested individuals. This means that since they are not driven by the incentives of profit and losses, the guiding principles of their actions are usually based on the need to preserve or expand their political careers (tenureship) by serving their political masters or by making populists decisions.

Besides, who would like to see a market crash with them on the helm, and not be seen as “doing something”? Today’s politics, embodied by the Emmanuel Rahm doctrine has mostly been about the need to be seen “doing something” even if such actions entail having adverse long term consequences. Actions by the ECB, SNB and BoJ have all revealed and exemplified such tendencies. Even the debt ceiling bill was forged from the need to do something to avert an Armageddon charade.

Moreover, political operators are also most likely to desire acquiring prestige and social clout by virtue of having expanded political control over the economy under the guise of social weal. That’s why more and more regulations are being imposed on the belief that a command and control economy would be more effective than one of free markets. Never mind the experience of Mao’s China and the USSR. Socialist champion billionaire and philanthropist George Soros got a taste of his own medicine when the Dodd Frank law compelled him to close his 40-year hedge fund[28].

Public choice also tells us that the political operators have beholden to vested interest groups such as the banking sector. The US Federal Reserve has thrown tens of trillions of dollars to save both US[29] and foreign[30] based banks. This accounts for as demonstrated preference or deciphering priorities from action over words.

Moreover, since their careers have been erected on the incumbent institutions, why should they enforce radical reforms that would only jeopardize their career or the institution’s existence, whom their allegiance have been impliedly sworn to?

To add, some policymakers operate on the ideological principles such as the theory of wealth effect, where increases in spending that accompanies an increase in perceived wealth[31]. From such pedagogical belief emanates the trend of ‘demand management’ based policy actions.

Take for instance, Ben Bernanke’s chief dogma “Crash course for central bankers” which he wrote as a Princeton Professor[32].

There’s no denying that a collapse in stock prices today would pose serious macroeconomic challenges for the United States. Consumer spending would slow, and the U.S. economy would become less of a magnet for foreign investors. Economic growth, which in any case has recently been at unsustainable levels, would decline somewhat. History proves, however, that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.

Today, most of the central bankers seem to adhere to such principles.

So even if previous QEs didn’t work as planned, what will stop Mr. Bernanke from pursuing the same policies and expecting different results? All he has to do is to assume the academic stance of saying the past policies didn’t work because they have not been enough.

So while I don’t know what’s going on in Team Bernanke’s mind, personal incentives, path dependency and dogmatism all point to QE 3.0 pretty soon.

Political Actions over Economic Data and Technical Picture

Lastly the US economic picture can be seen positively or negatively depending on one’s bias, but in my view, I hardly see the imminence of recession.

In the US, ISM Manufacturing index[33] has fallen steeply but this has not yet gone beyond the 50 threshold which could be an indicator of a recession. Offsetting this view is that recession probability from the yield curve has been very low[34].

Of course looking at economic figures are based on the past (ex post) activities. Since today’s markets have been driven by political actions such as QEs, then past data wouldn’t weigh so much compared to the anticipatory (ex ante) policy directives by central bankers.

Yet the problem with today’s conventional mindset has been that of the chronic addiction to rising prices of anything, be it economic data or asset prices. Anything that falls translates to the necessity or call to action for government intervention.

So false signals can be used as basis to demand political actions.

Nevertheless I also think that technical factors did play a secondary role in last week’s US market crash.

The S&P has been on a bearish head and shoulder pattern.

Given the current market milieu, technically based market participants jumped into the bearish momentum from which this pattern became another self-fulfilled reality.

The pattern basically aggravated the current environment rather than having caused it.

Bottom line:

If the US Federal announces a major policy stimulus anytime soon, then this should be seen as a strong signal to buy both commodities or on ASEAN equity markets and the Phisix.

Otherwise, we should expect more downside market volatility and probably take some money off the table.

Again, profit from political folly.

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[1] See NO Such Thing as Risk Free: S&P Downgrades US August 6, 2011

[2] Telegraph.co.uk Debt crisis: as it happened, August 5, 2011

[3] See Today’s Market Slump Has NOT Been About US Downgrades, August 3, 2011

[4] Bloomberg.com S&P Erred in Cutting U.S. Rating: Buffett, August 7, 2011

[5] Wikipedia.org Bond Vigilante

[6] See Graphic: US Default Risk—Short and Long Term, August 2, 2011

[7] See How the US Debt Ceiling Crisis Affects Global Financial Markets, July 31, 2011

[8] Danske Bank Mr. Trichet will ECB buy Italy? ECB Preview August 4, 2011

[9] See ECB Intervenes in Bond Markets, More to Follow, August 5, 2011

[10] See ECB Expands QE: Will Buy Italian and Spanish Bonds, August 6, 2011

[11] See Hot: Swiss National Bank Intervenes to Halt a Surging Franc August 3, 2011

[12] Marketwatch.com Swiss central bank battles to halt franc’s rise August 3, 2011

[13] CNBC.com Japan Sells Record $58 Billion in FX Intervention, August 5, 2011

[14] Danske Bank Japan: BoJ tries to draw a line in the sand, August 4, 2011

[15] Weiss Martin, Day of Reckoning! TOMORROW!, August 1, 2011, Moneyandmarkets.com

[16] See War on Precious Metals: The Rationalization Process For QE 3.0, May 7, 2011

[17] See War on Commodities: IEA Intervenes by Releasing Oil Reserves, June 24, 2011

[18] See War on Gold and Commodities: Ban of OTC Trades and ‘Conflict Gold’, June 18, 2011

[19] See War on Speculators: Restricting Short Sales on Sovereign Debt and Equities, May 18, 2011

[20] See US Government’s War on US Expats and American Investments Overseas, June 21, 2011

[21] See War on Precious Metals Continues: Silver Margins Raised 5 times in 2 weeks!, May 5, 2011

[22] See Debt Ceiling Bill: Where are the Spending Cuts?, August 2, 2011

[23] Casey Research Too Much of a Good Thing

[24] Ricketts Lowell R. Quantitative Easing Explained Liber 8 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April 2011

[25] Wall Street Journal In Crisis, Opportunity for Obama, November 21, 2008

[26] See Poker Bluff: No Quantitative Easing 3.0?, June 5, 2011

[27] Mam.Econoday.com FOMC Meeting Announcement 2011 Economic Calendar

[28] See George Soros on Closing Hedge Fund: Do As I Say, Not What I Do, July 27, 2011

[29] See US Taxpayers Could Be On The Hook For $23.7 Trillion!, July 21, 2009

[30] See Fed Audit Reveals US Federal Reserves’ $16 Trillion Bailouts of Foreign Banks, July 26, 2011

[31] Wikipedia.org Wealth effect

[32] See The US Stock Markets As Target of US Federal Reserve Policies, May 11, 2011

[33] Harding Jeff, Destruction of Capital Resulting in Global Manufacturing Slowdown, Minyanville.com August 2, 2011

[34] Moneyshow.com A Red Flag for Emerging Markets... and the US, Minyanville.com August 4, 2011