CB announcements

Just looks like the Fed lowered the rate on its swap lines to keep libor down, which had been moving up to its prior swap line rate.

No big deal, apart from the fact the Fed shouldn’t be allowed to lend on an unsecured basis like this without explicit approval of congress.

Lending unsecured on an unlimited basis has the potential to be highly inflationary.

With the currency a public monopoly, the price level is necessarily a function of prices paid at the point of govt spending and or collateral demanded when govt lends.

Allowing unlimited unsecured lending has the potential to vaporize the currency. And while in this case that kind of abuse isn’t likely, the potential is there.

Indian Firms Risk Dollar Debt Default as Rupee Slides

Another region with a private sector dollar short to worry about.

Seems the world is short dollars and euro?

Indian Firms Risk Dollar Debt Default as Rupee Slides

By James Fontanella-Khan

November 29 (FT) — Dozens of Indian companies are coming under financial stress after the sharp fall of the rupee against the dollar during the past few months made once-cheap loans in the US currency much more expensive, analysts have warned.

Indian companies face an overall short-term foreign debt maturity of $16bn for the year ending in March 2012 – according to Crisil, the Indian subsidiary of the US credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s – the majority of which is US dollar-denominated.

The most common forms of the debt are foreign currency convertible bonds, which can either be converted into a lucrative stake in the issuer on maturity, which is attractive if the issuer’s shares rise, or simply repaid in full.

Many Indian companies resorted to the FCCBs as a convenient way to raise cheap debt when the country’s stock markets were gripped by exuberance between 2005 and 2008, with the main Sensex index peaking in November last year at more than 21,000 points.

Osborne Vows More Austerity as Slump Hits U.K. Deficit Plan

Says it all, sadly.

France and Germany also announce agreement to target 0 deficits for all euro members which
takes the steam out of any relief rally as they solve the solvency issue.

Not much upside for the world economy when it all thinks and acts like this:

Osborne Vows More Austerity as Slump Hits U.K. Deficit Plan

By Gonzalo Vina

Nov 30 (Bloomberg) — Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said Britain faces two extra years of austerity as he sought to shore up his deficit-reduction plans, intensifying a conflict with unions that are staging a mass walkout today.

Osborne used his end-of-year economic statement to Parliament yesterday to announce 23 billion pounds ($36 billion) of additional spending cuts after the Office for Budget Responsibility slashed its forecasts for economic growth. The fiscal watchdog predicted Osborne will need to borrow an extra 112 billion pounds by 2016 and said more than 700,000 public- sector workers will lose their jobs over the next six years.

“Osborne acknowledges that the consolidation program is behind schedule and aims to make up for lost ground with an even longer period of fiscal austerity,” Michael Saunders, chief European economist at Citigroup in London, said in an interview. “The government has no alternative. If they slide, the markets will put the U.K. from Category A to Category B.”

Unions say as many as 2 million public-sector workers will join today’s 24-hour strike over plans to make them contribute more toward their pensions and retire later. Osborne is extending his spending cuts beyond 2015, when they were due to end, risking a backlash from voters in the election due in May of that year.

Why the IMF thing works for the euro

As a matter of chance, the euro’s lucky stars fall in line with the latest IMF musings.

Perhaps most important,
operationally,
the ECB lending to the IMF,
which then lends to euro member nations,
doesn’t count as ‘printing money’ in the Teutonic monetary bible.

To recap:

When the ECB buys bonds,
it credits member bank accounts on the ECB’s spreadsheet.
Those accounts count as ‘money’ while the bonds did not count as ‘money’
So this is said to be ‘printing money’

The ECB then offers different euro accounts,
also data on the same ECB spreadsheet,
that pay interest with relatively short maturities.
This is called ‘sterilization’ because those deposits don’t count as ‘money’

However, when the ECB buys SDR from the IMF loans to the IMF,
and it credits the IMF account at the ECB with euro,
that doesn’t count as ‘printing money.’

Nor does the IMF lending those euro to the likes of Italy count as ‘printing money’

And, while a bit of a stretch,
the IMF was, after all, set up to address balance of payments issues.
And while overall the euro zone doesn’t have a balance of payments issue of any consequence,
it’s not wrong to say the euro nations in question
do have balance of payments issues.
So here’s one place in the world of floating exchange rates between nations
where IMF involvement can be said to actually fit its original mandate.

Furthermore, if there’s one force that can be trusted to impose austerity,
it’s the IMF, of course.

Also interesting is that the IMF takes the credit risk for the loans it makes,
while the ECB takes IMF credit risk on its balance sheet.
This means the rest of world is assuming the risk for the loans to the national govts.

Lastly, while it triggers a massive relief rally,
it’s just Bigfoot kicking the can way down the road,
as the austerity continues to weaken the euro economy,
now to the point of driving up deficits as GDP growth goes negative.

So bringing in the IMF helps Germany preserve it’s ‘max austerity’ image,
kicks the solvency issue down the road,
and all without the ECB ‘printing money’!

So now let’s see if it actually happens.

Merry Christmas!

MMT to the ECB- you can’t inflate, even if you wanted to

With the tools currently at their immediate disposal, including providing unlimited member bank liquidity,lowering the interbank rate, and buying euro national govt debt, the ECB has no chance of causing any monetary inflation, no matter how hard it might try. There just are no known channels, direct or indirect, in theory or practice, that connects those policies to the real economy. (Note that this is not to say that removing bank liquidity and national govt credit support wouldn’t be catastrophic. It’s a bit like engine oil. You need a gallon or two for the engine to run correctly, but further increasing the oil in the sump isn’t going to alter the engine’s performance.)

Lower rates sure doesn’t do the trick. Just look to Japan for going on two decades, the US going on 3 years, and the ECB’s low rate policies of recent years. There’s not a hint of monetary inflation/excess aggregate demand or inflationary currency weakness from low rates. If anything, seems to me the depressing effect on savers indicates low rates from the CB might even, ironically, promote deflation through the interest income channels, as the non govt sector is necessarily a net receiver of interest income when the govt is a net payer. (See Bernanke, Reinhart, and Sacks 2004 Fed paper on the fiscal effect of changes in interest rates.)

And if what’s called quantitative easing was inflationary, Japan would be hyperinflating by now, with the US not far behind. Nor is there any sign that the ECB’s buying of euro govt bonds has resulted in any kind of monetary inflation, as nothing but deflationary pressures continue to mount in that ongoing debt implosion. The reason there is no inflation from the ECB bond buying is because all it does is shift investor holdings from national govt debt to ECB balances, which changes nothing in the real economy.

Nor does bank liquidity provision have anything to do with monetary inflation, currency depreciation, or bank lending. As all monetary insiders know, bank lending is never reserve constrained. Constraints on banking come from regulation, including capital requirements and lending standards, and, of course credit worthy entities looking to borrow. With the ECB providing unlimited liquidity for the last several years, wouldn’t you think if there was going to be some kind of monetary problem it would have happened by now?

So the grand irony of the day is, that while there’s nothing the ECB can do to cause monetary inflation, even if it wanted to, the ECB, fearing inflation, holds back on the bond buying that would eliminate the national govt solvency risk but not halt the deflationary monetary forces currently in place.

So where does monetary inflation come from? Fiscal policy. The Weimar inflation was caused by deficit spending on the order of something like 50% of GDP to buy the foreign currencies demanded for war reparations. It was no surprise that selling that many German marks for foreign currencies in the market place drove the mark down as it did. In fact, when that policy finally ended, so did the inflation. And there was nothing the central bank could do with interest rates or buying and selling securities or anything else to stop the inflation caused by the massive deficit spending, just like today there is nothing the ECB can do to reverse the deflationary forces in place from the austerity measures.

So here we are, with the ECB demanding deflationary austerity from the member nations in return for the limited bond buying that has been sustaining some semblance of national govt solvency, not seeming to realize it can’t inflate with its monetary policy tools, even if it wanted to.

Post script:

The only way the ECB could inflate would be to buy dollars or other fx outright, which it doesn’t do even when it might want a weaker euro, as ideologically they want the euro to be the reserve currency, and not themselves build fx reserves that give the appearance of the euro being backed by fx.

Fed Chairman Eccles 1933 statement

“Individuals, corporations, cities, and States can not, of themselves, do anything except play according to the rules of the present money system and make their outgo balance their income, or ultimately “go broke.” Most of them are unable, much as they may desire, to give consideration to helping the general situation except as they may influence the action of the Federal Government, which is in an entirely different category, it being able to make and change therules of the game…A State, of course, is in the same financial category as corporations and individuals in that they do not have the power of issuing money or credit. The Federal Government is entirely in a different category because it controls the money system.” ~ Marriner Eccles (February 13 – 23, 1933 Senate Hearing Committe – prior to becoming Fed Chairman)

U.S. and Eur Data/GDP Downgrades


Karim writes:

U.S. data on the soft side (October)

  • Most notable is core durable goods orders (capex has been gwth leader of late) falling 1.8% and 3mth annual rate slowing to 4% from 7.3%
  • Core shipments (more important for current quarter growth) down 1.1%
  • Personal spending up 0.1%.
  • Personal income up 0.4% (mostly via wages) and savings rate up from 3.3% to 3.5%
  • Headline Price index-0.1% and core unchanged, so reasonable increase in real incomes. Core PCE Index now 1.5% 3mth annualized vs 2% last month

EUR Composite PMI ‘surprises’ to upside in November, rising from 46.5 to 47.2

  • Interesting that manufacturing (more volatile and more of a leading indicator) much weaker than services.
  • Also, German new orders fall 2.6pts to 42.6

Q4 GDP estimates in U.S. being shaved 0.25-0.50% on the data. Current range 2.5-3.25%.
Failure to extend payroll tax cut would have impact almost entirely in Q1 2012 (annual withholding ceilings typically reached early in the year)-about 1% on GDP.

European estimates are about -1.5% annualized for both Q4 and Q1. Germany among the weakest (due to manufacturing) with estimates in the -2.5% area.

PMI data in Europe has had a very good track record signaling ECB policy rate changes. This data pretty much cements another rate cut next month.