China Rescues Troubled Trust Product

Like her Western contemporaries, the Chinese government has decided to delay the day of reckoning by bailing out a troubled trust product.

Reports the Bloomberg:

China’s eleventh-hour rescue of wealthy investors in a high-yield trust threatens to drive more money into the nation’s $6 trillion shadow-banking industry, undermining regulators’ efforts to deter excessive risk-taking.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s largest lender, yesterday told customers who had invested in the 3 billion-yuan ($496 million) trust product that they can sell their rights to unidentified buyers to recoup the principal. Some clients plan to visit ICBC branches to demand more interest ahead of tomorrow’s 5 p.m. deadline for accepting the offer, according to Du Ronghai, a Guangzhou-based investor.

Averting the nation’s biggest trust default may reinforce investors’ belief in implicit guarantees and the government’s backing of such risky products, stoking their appetite for products in the $1.67 trillion trust market. The bailout underscores the pressure on authorities to maintain financial and social stability even as they aim to prune the government’s role in the world’s second-largest economy and curtail debt.

This shows how government’s today fervidly dreads short term pain by undertaking measures that will even be more agonizing in the future.

Yet the article rightly puts into spotlight the risks of moral hazard from the bailout. Local governments, whom has used shadow banks as a main conduit for financing, along with other private sector borrowers will likely pile into the shadow banking sector since the government has placed an implicit guarantee via today’s actions.

China’s shadow banks—which includes wealth management products (WMPs) or a pool of securities like trust products, bonds and stock funds that offer higher yields than the bank deposits—have grown significantly.

And according to a report from Businessinsider, WMPs soared by 47.4% in the third quarter of 2013 from a year ago. Trust products, which are part of WMPs, jumped by 60.3% over the same period while LGFV loans rose sharply by 59.7% as interest rates for these products rise. The diagram above shows of the WMPs issued in 2013.

Moreover, according to the same Bloomberg report above, there are about 5.3 trillion yuan of trust products that will be due this year compared with 3.5 trillion yuan in 2013. However shareholder equity backing these has been estimated only at 236 billion yuan. This extrapolates to a higher likelihood of a wave of defaults.

Will the Chinese government bailout all problematic WMPs?  At what costs will any succeeding bailout/s bring about? How long before the next debt problem surfaces?

It’s odd that today’s rescue efforts has not spurred a celebration in China’s financial markets. 

Yields of Chinese 10 year and 5 year treasuries while down from recent highs remains elevated at 4.52% and 4.44%. Recent highs were 4.71% for the 10 year and 4.6% for the 5 year.

Chinese equities via the Shanghai Index, rose modestly by .26%.

And what’s more peculiar has been that Shibor (interbank) rates seem to have surged (green ellipse), particularly from overnight to 1 month maturities. This seem to indicate signs of a squeeze. Although it's not clear whether the above rates reflected before or after the bailout.

As I previously asked will China be a trigger to 2014’s possible Black Swan event?

2014 is certainly proving to be interesting times.

Walter Block: Why 'Social Justice' Should Not Be Thought in Schools

[update: I changed the title of this post]

I have communicated with the great Austrian economist Walter Block, I offered to publish some of his works here to help spread Austrian economics and libertarianism.

So I will start with Mr. Block’s take on academia's promotion of Social Justice. The following article is from Mr. Block’s Building Blocks for Liberty p. 235-237 (Thanks Professor Block)

On many university campuses, there is a push on to promote Social Justice. There are two ways to define "Social Justice."

First, this concept may be defined substantively. Here, it is typically associated with left wing or socialist analyses, policies and prescriptions. For example, poverty is caused by unbridled capitalism; the solution is to heavily regulate markets, or ban them outright. Racism and sexism account for the relative plight of racial minorities and women; laws should be passed prohibiting their exercise. Greater reliance on government is required as the solution of all sorts of social problems. The planet is in great danger from environmental despoliation, due to an unjustified reliance on private property rights. Taxes are too low; they should be raised. Charity is an insult to the poor, who must obtain more revenues by right, not condescension. Diversity is the sine qua non of the fair society. Discrimination is one of the greatest evils to have ever beset mankind. Use of terminology such as "mankind" is sexist, and constitutes hate speech.

Secondly, Social Justice may be seen not as a particular viewpoint on such issues, but rather as a concern with studying them with no preconceived notions. In this perspective, no particular stance is taken on issues of poverty, capitalism, socialism, discrimination, government regulation of the economy, free enterprise, environmentalism, taxation, charity, diversity, etc. Rather, the only claim is that such topics are important for a liberal arts education, and that any institution of higher learning that ignores them does so at peril to its own mission.

So that we may be crystal clear on this distinction, a Social Justice advocate of the first variety might claim that businesses are per se improper, while one who pursued this undertaking in the second sense would content himself by merely asserting that the status of business is an important one to study.

Should a University dedicate itself to the promotion of Social Justice? It would be a disaster to do so in the first sense of this term, and it is unnecessary in the second. Let us consider each option in turn.

Should an institution of higher learning demand of its faculty that they support Social Justice in the substantive left wing sense, it would at one fell swoop lose all academic credibility. For it would in effect be demanding that its professors espouse socialism. But this is totally incompatible with academic freedom: the right to pursue knowledge with an open mind, and to come to conclusions based on research, empirical evidence, logic, etc., instead of working with blinders, being obligated to arrive only at one point of view on all such issues.

This would mean, for example, in economics, the area with which I am most familiar, to be constrained to conclude that the minimum wage law is the last best hope for the unskilled, and that continually raising it is both just and expeditious; that free trade is pernicious and exploitative. It is more than passing curious that those in the university community who are most heavily addicted to diversity cannot tolerate it when it comes to divergence of opinions, conclusions, public policy prescriptions, etc.

What about promoting Social Justice in the second sense; not to enforce conclusions on researchers but merely to urge that questions of this sort be studied?

This is either misguided, or unnecessary.

It is misguided in disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, music, accounting, statistics, etc., since these callings do not typically address issues related to Social Justice. There is no "just" or "unjust" way to deal with a "T" account, a quadratic equation or an econometric regression; there are only correct and incorrect ways to go about these enterprises. To ask, let alone to demand, that professors in these fields concern themselves with poverty, economic development, wage gaps or air pollution is to take them far out of their areas of expertise. It is just as silly as asking a philosopher to teach music, or vice versa.

And it is totally unnecessary, particularly in the social sciences but also in the humanities. For if members of these disciplines are not already conducting studies on issues germane to Social Justice (and, of course, to other things as well) then they are simply derelict in their duty. If historians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, philosophers are ignoring poverty, unemployment, war, environmentalism, etc., no exhortations to the contrary are likely to improve matters.

Colleges and universities therefore ought cease and desist forthwith from labeling themselves in this manner, and from promoting all extant programs to this end. It is unseemly to foist upon its faculty and students any one point of view on these highly contentious issues. It would be just as improper to do so from a free enterprise, limited government private property rights perspective as it is from its present stance in the opposite direction. For additional material critical of these initiatives, see Michael Novak and Walter Williams.

Of course, social justice may be defined in yet a third manner: as favoring justice in the "social" arena, as opposed to other venues. Here, all intellectual combatants would favor the promotion of this value; the only difference is that leftists, for example, mean by this some version of egalitarianism, while for libertarians justice consists of the upholding of private property rights. For a college to uphold social justice in this sense would be highly problematic, in that two very different things would be connoted by this phrase.

Quote of the Day: The typical way tyrants gain power

The strategy for want-to-be tyrants is to demonize people whose power they want to usurp. That’s the typical way tyrants gain power. They give the masses someone to hate. In 18th-century France, it was Maximilien Robespierre’s promoting hatred of the aristocracy that led to his acquiring dictatorial power. In the 20th century, the communists gained power by promoting public hatred of the czars and capitalists. In Germany, Adolf Hitler gained power by promoting hatred of Jews and Bolsheviks

This is from economist, author and professor Walter E. Williams at the lewrockwell.com

Signs of Emerging Bank Runs?

One can sense trouble when banks impose limits on depositors withdrawal (or even ask depositors reasons why the have to withdraw large amounts of their own money) as with the recent case of HSBC.

More from Simon Black of the Sovereign Man.

It’s happening again. This time HSBC branches in the UK are putting limits on customer withdrawals.

Bank employees there have been telling customers that they first must demonstrate to the bank’s satisfaction WHY they want to withdraw their own money. The bank has simply decided in its sole discretion that it won’t give people their own money back.

This is positively revolting– a breach of a most sacred form of trust between a bank and its customers. It would have been unthinkable just 10-years ago. But today it’s par for the course.

Banks across most of the ‘developed’ world have razor thin liquidity and capitalization ratios—meaning that their margins of safety are extremely low.

If just a small percentage of their assets lose value, they’ll go under. Or, if just a small percentage of their customers want their deposits back, they won’t be able to pay up.

This is ultimately what’s happening to HSBC. It turns out their UK operations are in severe financial trouble, posting a major capital shortfall of over $100 billion.

This should come as no surprise. Less than a year ago, in response to how poorly capitalized British banks were, the banking regulators announced that it would allow banks to use creative accounting to boost their numbers.

In one method that was explicitly condoned by regulators, banks were authorized to count FUTURE earnings (i.e. profit that they may or may not earn in years to come) towards their capital TODAY.

It’s like calculating your net worth based on how much you -think- you might be earning 20-years from now.

This is fraud, plain and simple. And I wrote about this numerous times last year.

Of course HSBC is not alone. With few exceptions, most banks across Europe are in a similarly precarious position– highly illiquid and thinly capitalized.

This isn’t rocket science– it’s what broke banks do. We saw what happened in Cyprus last year when banks got “bailed-in” by their customers.

Read the rest here

In a world of central banking fractional banking system, only a fraction of reserves are held by banks to service depositor’s demand for cash. 

If or when there will be a surge of (simultaneous) withdrawals, banks with insufficient funds either resort to imposing limits or turn to their respective central banks for assistance. If the public senses the latter then this would only aggravate public’s demand to access their deposits. This happened to UK's Northern Rock in 2008 which led to the firm's bankruptcy and eventually was nationalized. 

HSBC’s actions, thus, reveal of possible signs of renewed banking distress via a “quasi” bank run.

Yet the common notion that depositors own or has full access to their money deposited with banks are mistaken. As economics Professor David Howden explains at the Mises Blog

Option clauses, for example, were widely used in the Scottish “free banking” era as a way to get depositors to stop asking for their money. A bank could elect not to hand over a deposit when asked, but would at least remunerate the customer for this inconvenience. At the time this was widely seen as problematic, as it drove a wedge between the motivations of depositors (have their cash safe and available) and bankers (use depositor funds and remain solvent).

Today’s banks don’t even do this – they just change the rules of the game half-way through. Depositors think they have full access to their money when they make a deposit. Not only that, they think they are the owners of their money. Wrong on both counts. According to the law of most lands, when you deposit your money in a bank it becomes property of the bank

(bold mine)

More signs of periphery to core dynamics?

ASEAN Crisis Watch: Indonesia’s bond market selloff accelerates

A few days back I wrote

Indonesia’s first successful offering at the start of the year represents the initial tranche of the “record IDR 357.96 trillion (USD $29 billion)” bond sales it plans to conduct “from both international and local debt capital markets in 2014”.

The question is what if the current emerging market turmoil spreads to ASEAN, will the Indonesian government be able to raise money from her targeted bond sales? If yes, at what level of rates? If not will she resort to bigger taxes or more inflation by her central bank? Yet how much increase in coupon yields in the bond markets can the Indonesia’s government afford to finance the new round of debt? How will higher rates impact the political and the economic landscape?

Here are more signs of the periphery to the core dynamic where turmoil in emerging markets seem to have spread to ASEAN.

As of this writing Indonesia’s bond market rout at the long curve appears to be accelerating:

Yields of Indonesia’s 10 year rupiah bonds soar back to the levels during the 1st week of the year prior to the government’s global bond sales

So with the yields of 20 year bonds.

Albeit yields of 5 year treasuries have risen they are far from pre bond sale level

The currency the Indonesian rupiah has also been plummeting

Indonesia’s stock market benchmark the JCI’s recent advance appears to have been foiled following the switch to a risk OFF mode. Easy come, easy go.

Indonesia’s CDS spreads have been on an uptrend while the recent EM ruckus seem to have incited a renewed spike.

Indonesia's financial markets have been signaling increasing signs of distress such that the current interest rate levels have not been enough to stanch the stream of outflows. Yet how much hike in interest rate levels can the Indonesian economy sustain before bond market rout transforms into a liquidity squeeze that eventually morphs into a crisis? And will Indonesia's problems remain isolated?

For those who think these are bullish stocks, then good luck to you.

Quote of the Day: Measuring nothing (with great accuracy)

The weight of a television set has nothing at all to do with the clarity of its picture. Even if you measure to a tenth of a gram, this precise data is useless.

Some people measure stereo equipment using fancy charts and graphs, even though the charts and graphs say little or nothing about how it actually sounds.

A person's Klout score or the number of Twitter followers she has probably doesn't have a lot to do with how much influence she actually has, even if you measure it quite carefully.

You can't tell if a book is any good by the number of words it contains, even though it's quite easy and direct to measure this.

We keep coming up with new things to measure (like processor speed, heat output, column inches) but it's pretty rare that those measurements are actually a proxy for the impact or quality we care about. It takes a lot of guts to stop measuring things that are measurable, and even more guts to create things that don't measure well by conventional means.

This splendid quote is from marketing guru Seth Godin at his website.

Even from the marketing perspective, it is the relevance and the quality of measurement (statistics) that matters. Importantly, measurements have inherent limitations.

Phisix: A Bull Trap and the Switch to a Global Risk OFF Mode?

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly-Plutarch

I was supposed to write about Japan as one of the potential triggers for the Black Swan event in 2014 and on the US shopping mall bust as this week’s topic but an unscheduled family event have forced me to truncate and alter my outlook for the week.

To add, another reason for this outlook is due to flash developments that have transpired in the global markets during the last two days. This may signal a change in the complexion of the markets.

Local bulls have been delighted by the apparent rekindling of the animal spirits as the Phisix roared anew for the second straight week.

As one would note, the Phisix outsprinted her neighbors with a 3.41% jump (see blue square). The gains during the past two weeks at 5.88% have accrued to yield a 5.12% return year to date.

We can expect the mainstream Pollyannas to say, “you see the bull market is still alive. “Fundamentals” rule the day and that those bears are being “irrational”.

Of course “irrationality” applies to both the base instincts of fear and greed. And of course, whatever fundamentals these commentators will refer to are statistics that have been cherry picked to justify the current stock price surges.

In reality the impassioned rally by the embattled ASEAN stock markets, has been led by Indonesia (JCI-green) that has spilled over to Thailand (SET-red) and the Phisix (PCOMP-gold). The Phisix and the SET only picked up steam only during the last two weeks.

The story of Indonesia I will continue later as well as the late Risk OFF mode by European and US stocks (red ellipse in first chart)

Three Against One, Who will Prevail?

Now back to the Phisix.

There is big hole in the supposed Risk ON mode for the Phisix: it is called Divergence.

First of all, the Phisix rally has not been shared by the domestic currency, the Philippine peso. It is an irony to see that considering the modest net foreign buying in the Philippine Stock Exchange for the week, the peso’s decline has been accelerating. Who is doing all the selling, the locals? Why? Have they not been bullish the economy?

Second, in spite of the tightly held and controlled domestic bond markets by the banking system and the government, there have been little signs of improvement across the curve.

In fact during this week, yields have gained at varying degrees through the curve.

Yields of one month and 6 month Philippine peso denominated treasuries remains elevated despite inflation being “manageable” and “within target” story as trotted out by the BSP.

The one month yield has been up 50 basis points from December, the 6 month has also been up by more than 100 bps.

Yields of one year and 5 year treasuries have been up about 100 bps and 120 bps respectively.

Meanwhile yields of the longer 10 year and 20 year has risen modestly compared to the shorter yields by about 80-90 bps from the lows of last year

Rising yields means that there has been selling pressure on the local bond markets. Have banks and financial institutions been selling out signs of inflation or from signs of credit strains?

Are these signs of cracks in the stranglehold by banks and the government on the local bond markets?

How much of an increase in interest rates can the Philippine financial system withstand?

The third factor has been that the price to insure debt via annual probability of default from CDS spreads has been rising for the Philippines.

Increasing CDS spreads means heightened concern over the credit quality of Philippine debt.

Again from the above are several concerns. How will the lower peso affect the financing cost of companies whose debts have been priced in foreign exchange? While there may be some companies who may benefit from weaker peso, to what extent will higher revenues from a weak peso offset rising input prices/operating costs? As for the local companies, how will higher consumer price inflation affect real demand? How will higher price inflation affect the cost of doing business, thereby profits? And how does growing concerns over quality of debt become a plus for stocks, especially for companies with substantial debt exposures?

These three factors, namely tanking peso, slumping bond prices (higher yields) and higher CDS spreads (concerns over credit quality) point to the opposite direction of the rose colored performance of the Phisix.

Obviously the current relationship isn’t sustainable. The question is who will fold? Will it be the Phisix or the latter three?

The Intensifying Emerging Market Turmoil

This brings us back to the Indonesian inspired ASEAN equity market rally.

At the start of the year I pointed out that the Indonesian government successful raised US $4 billion from global bond markets. This has prompted for a full risk ON mode for Indonesia’s financial markets as shown last week whether seen in bonds, stocks or the rupiah.

But it appears that the global bond magic, which seems to be eroding, has a very short life cycle.

Yields of Indonesian 10 year rupiah denominated bonds have skyrocketed anew to approach the former highs. The latest weakness in her bond markets seems to be reflected on the diminishing momentum of the stock market bulls in Indonesia.

I would add that the selling pressure in emerging markets financial markets have been accelerating, as this Bloomberg article entitled “Contagion Spreads in Emerging Markets as Crises Grow” notes

The worst selloff in emerging-market currencies in five years is beginning to reveal the extent of the fallout from the Federal Reserve’s tapering of monetary stimulus, compounded by political and financial instability.

The Turkish lira plunged to a record and South Africa’s rand fell yesterday to a level weaker than 11 per dollar for the first time since 2008. Argentine policy makers devalued the peso by reducing support in the foreign-exchange market, allowing the currency to drop the most in 12 years to an unprecedented low.

Two issues of concern, as the article duly highlights. The concern over emerging markets is about growing risks “crises”. Since crises is plural then this means that it is not just one but many emerging markets are at risks of a crisis. Emerging markets account for 38% share of the global growth according to the Standard Chartered. A big share of EM economies hit by crises will have a negative effect on global growth.

Second, Indonesia’s first successful offering at the start of the year represents the initial tranche of the “record IDR 357.96 trillion (USD $29 billion)” bond sales it plans to conduct “from both international and local debt capital markets in 2014”.

The question is what if the current emerging market turmoil spreads to ASEAN, will the Indonesian government be able to raise money from her targeted bond sales? If yes, at what level of rates? If not will she resort to bigger taxes or more inflation by her central bank? Yet how much increase in coupon yields in the bond markets can the Indonesia’s government afford to finance the new round of debt? How will higher rates impact the political and the economic landscape?

These are stock market bullish?

Interesting no?

From the Periphery to the Core Dynamic

This leads us to the third issue. The Phisix ignored the Thursday’s selloff in US markets.

Unfortunately, instead of recovering from Thursday’s setback, the US and European stocks fell off the cliff from record highs on Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial plummeted 1.96% or 318.24 points last Friday. Ironically the US stock market tremblor comes in the face of record optimism on the global economy.

Notes the Bloomberg:

International investors are the most upbeat about the global economy than at any time in almost five years, buoyed by the U.S.-led revival of industrial nations, according to the Bloomberg Global Poll.

I will show again the first graph above. Heavy two day losses from record high US and European markets have cumulated to losses from anywhere above 2-4% for this week (see red ellipse). 

Yet based on the futures markets Friday’s losses in US and European markets may be sustained next week.

And Asian markets are expected to open on Monday deep in red territory. 

The question is, have the selling pressure in US and European equities merely been a temporary profit taking shakeout or has this been the initial portent of a possible major inflection point that could lead to a Black Swan event?

The spiking yen have appears to have prompted an unwind in yen carry trades that seem to have escalated the plunge in equities of US (S&P), Europe (Stox 50) and the Nikkei.

Should selling pressures persist, will the Phisix and ASEAN markets be immune to such adverse developments?

Lastly the fear of financial instability has led China’s PBOC to infuse 255 billion yuan into the system. This has prompted for a rally in China’s stocks. How long will this band-aid treatment last?

Yet reports over anxieties on credit conditions in various parts of China continue to surface. As the Zero Hedge notes, “depositors in some of Yancheng City's largest farmers' co-operative mutual fund societies ("banks") have been unable to withdraw "hundreds of millions" in deposits in the last few weeks”.

Amidst signs of credit crunch, China’s runaway housing bubble reportedly reached record $1.1 trillion in new home sales in 2013

The Chinese will be celebrating their Spring Festival or New Year by the end of the month which is next week, for one week. It will be interesting to see how China’s financial markets will react to the escalating risk OFF mode prior to the holidays.

A bull trap according to Investopedia.com is a false signal indicating that a declining trend in a stock or index has reversed and is heading upwards when, in fact, the security will continue to decline

Has the bullish consensus been right about the revival of the bull market? Or have many of these “greater fools” been suckered into a bull trap?

Will central bankers get into the picture? Will they be able to kick more cans? Yet in so far as central banks actions are concerned, Turkey’s central bank’s efforts to create a “shock and awe effect” to stop her hemorrhaging currency, the lira, has failed miserably. Certainly not a good sign.

We should expect sharp volatility in the global financial markets (stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies) in the coming sessions. The volatility may likely be in both directions but with a downside bias.

Oh don’t forget as I have been repeatedly saying, denial rallies tend to be dramatic. But they have consistently failed especially in the historical account of the PSE since 1980. 

Will this time be different? Or will history rhyme?

Quote of the Day: The vision of the left is a vision of themselves

The vision of the left is not just a vision of the world. For many, it is also a vision of themselves -- a very flattering vision of people trying to save the planet, rescue the exploited, create "social justice" and otherwise be on the side of the angels. This is an exalting vision that few are ready to give up, or to risk on a roll of the dice, which is what submitting it to the test of factual evidence amounts to. Maybe that is why there are so many fact-free arguments on the left, whether on gun control, minimum wages, or innumerable other issues -- and why they react so viscerally to those who challenge their vision

This is from economist, author and political philosopher Thomas Sowell at the Townhall.com. 

Quote of the Day: Why you don't need equations to understand economics

Stripped of his numbers an economist would have to resort to the old home truths about how the world works: If you tax something you get less of it; as a general rule an individual manages his own affairs better than his neighbor can; it's rude to be bossy; the number of problems that resolve themselves if only you wait long enough is far larger than the number of problems solved by mucking around in them. And the cure is often worse than the disease:

In the long run, the aggregate of the decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is likely to do less harm than the centralized decisions of a Government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster.

Somehow the most successful practical economist of the twentieth century knew this was true, and he didn't have to work out a single equation.

This is from Weekly Standard’s Senior Editor Andrew Ferguson published at the Wall Street Journal Notable & Quotable section. (hat tip Prof John Cochran at the Mises Blog)

Mr. Ferguson proposes that the Federal Chairman Janet Yellen adapt a John Cowperthwaite paradigm. Mr. Cowperthwaite has been largely credited for the economic success story of Hong Kong via free markets.

The point of the above isn’t entirely to shun or scorn statistics but to know of its fundamental limitations and the perils of relying on them to solve social problems. Obsessing over statistics has mostly been the handiwork of scheming interventionists, as well as, knowledge pretenders in pursuit of the social desirability bias

Infographics: Prison Inc. USA

Some numbers on the US Prison industry (hat tip zero hedge)

 

Source: Online-Paralegal-Degree.org

Let me add: Half of the federal prison population have been due to the war on drugs. The Prison population constitutes the bottom one percent. Read more on US incarceration rate here.

Thailand's political nightmare exposes her financial fragilities

Following an escalation of political violence, Thailand’s government declared a 60 day emergency rule yesterday

The New York Times reports

The embattled government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra declared the imposition of emergency rule in Bangkok and surrounding areas on Tuesday, suggesting a more aggressive posture toward protesters who have occupied parts of the city during the past two months and are seeking to overthrow the government.

But officials said they had no plans to crack down on protesters, who have escalated their campaign over the past week by blocking government offices, taking over major intersections and staging daily marches across Bangkok. The emergency decree enacted Tuesday gives the government the power to invoke curfews, censor the news media, disperse gatherings and use military force to “secure order.”…

Protesters have been attacked by unknown assailants in recent days. Three grenade attacks left one person dead and dozens injured. The government and the protesters have blamed each other for those attacks.

The emergency decree, which is valid for 60 days, was passed under the same law that a different government used in 2010 to start a military crackdown that left dozens of people dead. Underlining the seesaw power struggle that has gripped Thailand for the better part of the past eight years, the man responsible for the crackdown four years ago, Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister, is now leading the antigovernment protests.

A video of the man who threw a grenade that wounded 28 protesters captured here

Yet it’s rather odd, if not contradictory, for the Thai government to impose an emergency rule but claim “they had no plans to crack down on protesters”.  So what’s the emergency rule for?

Anyway, the aggravation of political violence headed towards election day in February 2, has led to increasing anxiety in Thai’s credit markets.  Default probability from Thailand’s 5 year CDS spread surged to September highs.

But the angst over Thailand’s politics has had mixed responses on her financial markets so far. Such has been partly due to the recent rally in US Treasuries, expectations for the Bank of Thailand to cut rates and the People’s Bank of China’s recent liquidity injections.

As a side note: to the surprise of the consensus, the Bank of Thailand kept rates on hold. It is bizarre, if not absurd, for pundits to expect that manipulation of interest rates to function like a magic wand that would solve real world economic problems. The economy is a micro dynamic. For instance, we shouldn’t expect interest rates to solve Thai’s political impasse that affects investor sentiment. Investors will be concerned about the sanctity of property rights that may be affected political turmoil, rather than by low interest rates. The Bank of Thailand surprisingly cut interest rates last November, yet the political nightmare and slowing economic growth continues. [note: the last sentence is an add on]

Thailand’s stocks (via the SETI) have recovered most of the New Year’s day crash but the rally appears to be faltering again.

Yields of Thailand’s 10 year local currency bonds have likewise recovered but like the stock market, pressures appear to have re-emerged.

Importantly, the US dollar-Thai baht is at a 3 year in spite of the recent decline.

Foreign investors were reported to have pulled $4 billion from stocks and bonds since October 2013

It would be easy to dismiss the effect of politics on the financial markets, but as I have been pointing out, Thailand has a credit bubble

Loans to the private sector ballooned by more than 20% over the last 2 years that has fueled a property bubble.

The credit bubble has been manifested in her monetary aggregate M3 which has swelled over the same period.

Thailand’s external debt which inflated by about 75% from 2010 will likewise be under pressure as the baht continues to weaken.

This will further impact Thailand’s once vaunted foreign exchange reserve cover which appears to be rapidly dwindling.

As you can see, political instability will only magnify Thailand’s fragile financial and economic conditions.

As I pointed at the start of the year, there are many potential flashpoints for a Black Swan event to occur. ASEAN may be one of them or if not would be vulnerable to a contagion.

Things are turning out to be very interesting.

Quote of the Day: Colonial Nationalism and Anti Colonial Nationalism

If nationalism inspired two incompatible movements, how should we evaluate it?  You might just call it a wash: Nationalism giveth, and nationalism taketh away.  But this shoulder shrug overlooks two mountains of bodies.  The first mountain: All the people killed to establish colonial rule.  The second mountain: All the people killed to overthrow colonial rule.  It is perfectly fair to blame nationalism for both"transition costs." 

Surprising implication: Regardless of the relative merits of colonial versus indigenous rule, the history of colonialism makes nationalism look very bad indeed.  Why?  Because colonial rule didn't last!  So if you're pro-colonial, nationalism led to a high transition cost, followed by ephemeral wonders, followed by another high transition cost.  And if you're anti-colonial, nationalism led to a high transition cost, followed by ephemeral horrors, followed by another high transition cost.  Two dreadful deals, however you slice it.

But don't you either have to be pro-colonial or anti-colonial?  No.  You can take the cynical view that foreign and native rule are about equally bad.  You can take the pacifist view that the difference between foreign and native rule isn't worth a war.  Or, like me, you can merge these positions into cynical pacifism.  On this view, fighting wars to start colonial rule was one monstrous crime - and fighting wars to end colonial rule was another.  Nationalism is intellectually guilty on both counts, because it is nationalism that convinced people around the world that squares of multi-colored cloth are worth killing for.

(italics original)

This is from economics professor,  prolific blogger and author Bryan Caplan at the Library of Economics and Liberty