Monday, February 2, 2015

Europe Fractures: France "Prepared To Support Greece" In Debt Renegotiations

Despite Angela Merkel's insistence on numerous occasions this past week that there will be "no debt renegotiations," it appears a schism at the core of Europe is opening. As France24 reports, following a meeting between France's finance minister Michel Sapin and Greece's finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, the press conference had a considerably more amicable tone that Friday's Dijsselbloem dissing. "France is more than prepared to support Greece," Sapin said adding that Greece’s efforts to renegotiate were "legitimate." Sapin urged a "new contract between Greece and its partners."

France’s Socialist government offered support Sunday for Greece’s efforts to renegotiate debt for its huge bailout plan, amid renewed fears about Europe’s economic stability.

The backing was a victory for Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, holding talks with European officials to push for new conditions on debt from creditors who rescued Greece’s economy to save the shared euro currency. Worries have mounted that Greece’s new far left government might not pay back its debts.

Varoufakis is also visiting London and Rome – and said Sunday that he would visit Berlin. The German government has been particularly angry at the new Greek government’s position and bluntly rejected suggestions that Greece should be forgiven part of its rescue loans.

Varoufakis insisted that Greece wants to pay the money back, but said he wants new terms and new negotiating partners, arguing that “it’s not worth” discussing with the so-called “troika” of creditors who set the strict terms for Greece’s rescue.

France’s Socialist leadership, whose president has campaigned against austerity, presented itself Sunday as a possible mediator between Greece and creditors.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin insisted his country wouldn’t support canceling the debt, but offered support for a new timeframe or terms.

“France is more than prepared to support Greece,” Sapin said after meeting Varoufakis, saying Greece’s efforts to renegotiate were “legitimate.” Sapin urged a “new contract between Greece and its partners.”
*  *  *
Perhaps Merkel should remember her nation's own history?
Marina Prentoulis, a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia and Syriza’s London spokesman, said that Europe’s austerity drive had left an entire generation in Greece with “no future”.

"We are not going to enforce the austerity programmes, what we call the memoranda, it created a huge humanitarian crisis, she said. People have been working all their lives and their pensions have been slashed to 40pc," she told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"We have huge unemployment – 27pc. And 60pc for young people. This means that they have created a generation that has effectively no future. They have destroyed any employment rights. So this has to stop. This programme Syriza has pledged is not going to be enforced any more."

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has ruled-out cancelling more of Greece's national debt, which has climbed to more than 175pc of gross domestic product (GDP). However, Ms Prentoulis said Germany should "remember it’s own history".

"In 1953 a big part of the German debt was written off and then the repayments were associated with growth. This is what Syriza is asking for Greece as well," she said.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-01/europe-fractures-france-prepared-support-greece-debt-renegotiations 

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Greece Begins The Great Pivot Toward Russia

Ten days ago, before the smashing success of Greece's anti-austerity party, Syriza, we noted that Russia gave Greece a modest proposal: turn your back on Europe, whom you despise so much anyway, and we will assist your farmers by lifting the food import ban.
And, sure enough, Greece's new premier Tsipras did hint with his initial actions that Greece may indeed pivot quite aggressively away from Europe and toward Russia in general and the Eurasian Economic Union in particular (as a tangent recall "Russia's "Startling" Proposal To Europe: Dump The US, Join The Eurasian Economic Union").
Today we got further evidence that Tsipras will substantially realign his country's national interest away from the west and toward... the east.
First, as Reuters reported, today the new premier halted the "blue light special" liquidation of Greece to those highest bidders who have the closest access to various printing presses and stopped the privatization of Greece's biggest port on Tuesday, "signaling he aims to stick to election pledges despite warning shots from the euro zone and financial markets."
One of the first decisions announced by the new government was stopping the planned sale of a 67 percent stake in the Piraeus Port Authority, agreed under its international bailout deal for which China's Cosco Group and four other suitors had been shortlisted.

"The Cosco deal will be reviewed to the benefit of the Greek people," Thodoris Dritsas, the deputy minister in charge of the shipping portfolio, told Reuters.
Europe, for one, will be most displeased that Greece has decided to put its people first in the chain of priority over offshore bidders of Greek assets. Most displeased, especially since the liquidation sale of Greece is part of the Greek bailout agreement: an agreement which as the Troika has repeatedly stated, is not up for renegotiation.
Syriza had announced before the election it would halt the sale of state assets, a plank of the 240 billion-euro bailout agreement. Stakes in the port of Thessaloniki, the country's second biggest, along with railway operator Trainose and rolling stock operator ROSCO are also slated to be sold.
And it wasn't just this open act of defiance that marked the new government's anti-European agenda:
In a separate step, the deputy minister in charge of administrative reform, George Katrougkalos said the government would reverse some layoffs of public sector workers, rolling back another key bailout measure. "It will be one of the first pieces of legislation that I will bring in as a minister," he told Mega TV.
The Germans were not happy: A German central banker warned of dire problems should the new government call the country's aid program into question, jeopardizing funding for the banks. "That would have fatal consequences for Greece’s financial system. Greek banks would then lose their access to central bank money," Bundesbank board member Joachim Nagel told Handelsblatt newspaper.
Well, maybe.... Unless of course Greece finds a new, alternative source of funding, one that has nothing to do with the establishmentarian IMF, whose "bailouts" are merely a smokescreen to implement pro-western policies and to allow the rapid liquidation of any "bailed out" society.
An alternative such as the BRIC Bank for example. Recall that the "BRICS Announce $100 Billion Reserve To Bypass Fed, Developed World Central Banks."
And yes, the BRIC are going through their own share of pain right now as a result of plunging crude prices, but remember: crude is only low as long as the US shale sector is still vibrant. Once this marginal producer of crude with a $80 cost-breakeven is out of the picture, watch as Saudi Arabia tightens the spigots and Crude surges to $100, $150 or more. The question is whether Saudi FX reserves can outlast the Fed's ZIRP, which is the only reason - think idiots junk bond investors desperate for any ounce of yield - why the bulk of unprofitable and cash flow-bleeding US shale can still operate with WTI at $45.
Which naturally means that now Russia (and China) are set to become critical allies for Greece, which would immediately explain the logical pivot toward Moscow.
But wait, there's more.
As Bloomberg further reports, "Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias is due in Brussels on Thursday to discuss possible additional sanctions on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. Before the cabinet even meets for the first time tomorrow, the Greek government said that it disagreed with an EU statement in which President Donald Tusk raised the prospect of “further restrictive measures” on Russia."
The punchline:
In recent months, Kotzias wrote on Twitter that sanctions against Russia weren’t in Greece’s interests. He said in a blog that a new foreign policy for Greece should be focused on stopping the ongoing transformation of the EU “into an idiosyncratic empire, under the rule of Germany.”
And when it comes to the natural adversary of any German imperial ambitions in recent history, Europe has been able to produce only one answer...

Another Bailout: FXCM To Forgive 90% Of Its Mostly Foreign "Negative Balance" Customers

Two weeks after FXCM was on death's door, and only a last minute vulture investment by Jefferies prevented the company from filing, FXCM has decided that it can't afford to blow up the bulk of its clients who traded the EURCHF on the wrong side, and as the company reported moments ago, will forgive their negative balances. In other words, another bailout for HFTs, and the rich and those habitually addicted to gambling in rigged markets, who just happen to be the lifeblood of companies like FXCM.
From the press release:
FXCM to Forgive Majority of Clients Who Incurred Negative Balances

FXCM Inc.announced today its decision to forgive approximately 90% of its clients who incurred negative balances in certain jurisdictions, on January 15, 2014 as a result of the Swiss National Bank announcement on that date. FXCM will notify the applicable clients and adjust applicable client account statements in the next 24-48 hours.

"FXCM worked diligently to reach this decision and we are extremely appreciative of our clients for their patience and loyalty as we worked through this," said Drew Niv, CEO of FXCM.

The SNB announcement, extreme price movements and the resulting lack of liquidity were exceptional and unprecedented events causing many market participants to incur trading losses. These events were unforeseen and beyond the control of FXCM.

FXCM will also notify certain clients (such as institutional, high net worth, and experienced traders who generally maintain higher account balances) requesting payment of negative balances, pursuant to the terms of the FXCM master trading agreements.  This group represents approximately 10% of clients who incurred negative balances  which comprises over 60% of the total debit balances owed.
Because without whale clients, no exchange can continue to skim off the bid/ask margin while suckering in more "overnight wannabe millionaires" with 200x leverage.
So who are the generous beneficiaries of this Jefferies-funded bailout? For the answer we go to the WSJ:
Retail foreign-exchange broker FXCM Inc. was nearly felled by outsize bets made by foreign customers who aren’t subject to U.S. regulations, according to people familiar with regulators’ review of the firm.

While some U.S. clients lost money when the Swiss National Bank scrapped a cap on the country’s currency, the bulk of the losses were borne by clients at FXCM’s affiliates in London, Singapore and other locations abroad, the regulators said. Those affiliates weren’t subject to leverage caps imposed by U.S. regulators, allowing overseas clients to make bigger bets—and take bigger losses.

As a result, FXCM said its customers owed the firm about $225 million, potentially putting the company in violation of capital requirements and forcing it to take a $300 million rescue from investment firm Leucadia National Corp.

The fallout illustrates both how a firm’s losses abroad can find their way to U.S. shores and that even relatively strict U.S. regulation can’t prevent losses in less-regulated jurisdictions. While regulators don’t believe the firm’s near-collapse posed any broader risks to the financial system, the incident is prompting them to consider whether their capital and leverage requirements are adequate for firms like FXCM, the people familiar with the review said.

In the U.S., the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association, a self-regulator, currently limit leverage on transactions for retail, or individual, currency investors at 50 to 1. That means an investor can borrow $50 for every dollar put in. This is because currency moves are typically small. Many overseas jurisdictions have much looser limits, particularly in Europe.
It may not be Mrs. Watanabe exactly: meet Monsier Trepreau:
Maxime Trepreau, a 33-year-old engineer from Houilles, France, placed a bet on the euro to rise against the Swiss franc several months ago, after seeing the position recommended by an analyst on Daily FX, an FXCM-owned website. On the morning of Jan. 15, Mr. Trepreau saw the value of his account rapidly declining, despite an automated order he had to exit from the position and keep losses to a minimum if the trade went the wrong way. Currency traders say liquidity evaporated as the euro made a sudden fall, which would make it difficult to execute preset orders.

By the time his order was executed, Mr. Trepreau’s loss of €50,000 (more than $56,000 at today’s rate) had eaten up all of the funds in his FXCM account and left him with a negative balance of €2,000.

Mr. Trepreau says FXCM hasn’t told him whether he is on the hook for that amount. Mr. Trepreau believes he shouldn’t be.
And just like Apple, the bulk of marginal growth when it comes to FX gambling is now in Asia:
In 2014, 41.5% of FXCM’s business by volume came from Asia; followed by 35.9% from Europe, the Middle East and Africa; 13% from the U.S.; and 9.6% from the rest of the world, according to its website.
In shart, thank you Dick Handler: Mrs. Watanabe, and Mr. Trepreau, are most grateful.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Medvedev Warns Of "Unlimited Reaction" If Russia Cut From SWIFT

While nations around the world continue to de-dollarize, Russia signed into law its anti-crisis plan today (though details will not be released until tomorrow). Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, however, was quite vociferous in some of his threats, warning The West that the "Russian response - economically and otherwise - will know no limits" if Russia is cut off from the SWIFT payments system. Additionally, as Royce, the chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, explains Iran nuclear talks "appear to be stalemated," just days after Iran completes its de-dollarization and news today, that Russia and Iran plan to create a mutual account for bilateral payments in national currencies.

Western countries’ threats to restrict Russia’s operations through the SWIFT international bank transaction system will prompt Russia’s counter-response without limits, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"We’ll watch developments and if such decisions are made, I want to note that our economic reaction and generally any other reaction will be without limits," he said.

In late August 2014, media reports said the UK had proposed banning Russia from the SWIFT network as part of an upcoming new round of sanctions against Moscow over its stance on developments in neighboring Ukraine. However, this proposal was not supported by the EU countries at the time.

After recent shelling of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol some western countries again started calling to disconnect Russia from SWIFT.

SWIFT transaction system

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) transmits 1.8 billion transactions a year, remitting payment orders worth $6 trillion a day. The system comprises over 10,000 financial organizations from 210 countries.

Under the SWIFT charter, groups of members and users are set up in each country covered by the system. In Russia, these groups are united in the RosSWIFT association.
*  *  *
Russia intends to have its own international inter-bank system up and running by May 2015. The Central of Russia says it needs to speed up preparations for its version of SWIFT in case of possible ”challenges” from the West.

"Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating its own system for transmitting financial messaging... It’s time to hurry up, so in the next few months we will have certain work done. The entire project for transmitting financial messages will be completed in May 2015," said Ramilya Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).
*  *  *
As Reuters reports, Russia's isolation appears to be shrinking...
Russia and Iran plan to create a mutual account for bilateral payments in national currencies, RIA news agency quoted Mehdi Sanaei, Iran's ambassador to Moscow, as saying.

"Both sides plan to create a mutual bank or a mutual account to make payments in rials and roubles possible," the ambassador said.
*  *  *
Quickly followed by:
  • *SHELBY SAYS MORE PRESSURE ON IRAN NEEDED FOR `VIABLE' DEAL
  • *ROYCE SAYS IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS `APPEAR TO BE STALEMATED'
  • *CHAIRMAN ROYCE OF HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOLD IRAN HEARING
  • *OBAMA, SAUDI KING DISCUSSED IRAN NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS: OFFICIAL

Friday, January 23, 2015

Central bank prophet fears QE warfare pushing world financial system out of control

The economic prophet who foresaw the Lehman crisis with uncanny accuracy is even more worried about the world's financial system going into 2015.
Beggar-thy-neighbour devaluations are spreading to every region. All the major central banks are stoking asset bubbles deliberately to put off the day of reckoning. This time emerging markets have been drawn into the quagmire as well, corrupted by the leakage from quantitative easing (QE) in the West.
"We are in a world that is dangerously unanchored," said William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD's Review Committee. "We're seeing true currency wars and everybody is doing it, and I have no idea where this is going to end."
Mr White is a former chief economist to the Bank for International Settlements - the bank of central banks - and currently an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He said the global elastic has been stretched even further than it was in 2008 on the eve of the Great Recession. The excesses have reached almost every corner of the globe, and combined public/private debt is 20pc of GDP higher today. "We are holding a tiger by the tail," he said.

China, Switzerland sign deal on yuan trading in Zurich

The central banks of China and Switzerland have signed a pact to establish a yuan trading center in Zurich. The deal is expected to increase the number of European transactions in yuan.
Switzerland's central bank said on Wednesday it had signed the agreement with the People's Bank of China. The deal was concluded during the visit of Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
According to the agreement, Switzerland will receive a quota of about $8 billion (50 billion Yuan).
“It [the arrangement] will promote the use of the renminbi by enterprises and financial institutions in cross-border transactions, and promote facilitation of bilateral trade and investment," the Swiss National Bank said in a statement.
This step comes under the framework of the QFII (Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor) program that allows foreign investment in Chinese securities using foreign currencies. Similar centers already exist in Hong Kong and London.
In July 2014, the central banks of China and Switzerland signed an agreement on a $24 billion (150 billion yuan) currency swap to boost bilateral trade and economic relations.
China, the world’s second largest economy, has been pushing the yuan as a rival to the dollar in the global financial system since 2010. In November 2014, the Bank of China started to operate European yuan clearing in Frankfurt.
The Chinese yuan is traded directly against the dollar, euro, the Japanese yen and Russian ruble among other currencies. Settlement worldwide in yuan reached $485 billion (3.01 trillion yuan) in 2013 compared to $330 billion (2.06 trillion yuan) in 2012.

NFA begins Forex deleveraging

Immediate attention required – Financial Requirements Section 12 – Increase in required minimum security deposit for forex transactions

As you know, NFA Financial Requirements Section 12 requires FDMs to collect and maintain a minimum security deposit of 2% of the notional value of transactions in 10 listed major foreign currencies (including the Swiss franc, Swedish krona and Norwegian krone) and 5% of the notional value of other transactions. Importantly, Section 12 also permits NFA's Executive Committee to temporarily increase these requirements under extraordinary market conditions. Given the events of late last week involving the Swiss franc, the Executive Committee has determined to increase the minimum security deposits required to be collected and maintained by FDMs under Section 12 as follows:
Swiss franc – 5%
Swedish krona – 3%
Norwegian krone – 3%
These increases are effective as of 5 p.m. (CST) on January 22, 2015 and will remain in effect until further notice. FDMs should be aware that the Executive Committee may make additional increases in these currencies or other currencies as warranted by market conditions.
If you have any questions on these requirements, please contact Valerie O'Malley, Director, Compliance (vomalley@nfa.futures.org or 312-781-1290) or Rachel Brandenburg, Senior Manager, Compliance (rbrandenburg@nfa.futures.org or 312-781-1472).

https://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsNotice.asp?ArticleID=4531

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The End Of The World Of Finance As We Know It


I’ve said before, and quite a while ago too, – more than once-, that the world of investing as we’ve come to know it is over. It’s still as true as it was then, and I can only hope that more people today understand why it is true, and why I said it in the past. The basic underlying argument then and now is that financial markets have been distorted to such an extent by the activities, the interventions, of central banks – and governments -, that they can no longer function, period.
What we’ve seen since 2008 – not that things were fine and rosy before that – is that all ‘private’ losses were taken over by the public sector, just so the private sector didn’t have to fess up to what it lost, and the appearance of a functioning market system could be upheld. And those who organized this charade were dead on in thinking that as long as Dow and S&P numbers would look good, and they said ‘recovery’ in the media often enough, people would believe there still was a functioning financial marketplace. And they did. But those days are over. Or at least, they soon will be.
What I mean by that is that the functioning marketplace is long gone, and only now people’s beliefs, too, about it are changing, being forced to change, and soon quite radically. The entire idea that ruled the world of finance and kept it -seemingly – standing upright is crumbling fast. And we’re going to have to find a way to deal with that. As of today, we have none, we come up zero. The overriding narrative – which overrides every other thought – is that we’re on our way back to recovery. And then we’ll get back to becoming ever richer, live in ever bigger homes and drive ever bigger, smarter and faster cars. Or something in that vein.
The downfall of finance can be traced back to all sorts of points in history. Think Nixon the gold standard in 1971, for example. But the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1998, under Bill Clinton, is undoubtedly one of the major ones. Once deposit-taking banks were -again – allowed to use those deposits to ‘invest’ – read: gamble with -, it was only a matter of time before the train went off the tracks in spectacular fashion.
It now seems to stupid to be true, but Alan Greenspan, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, the guys who had pushed so hard for the repeal – and got it -, were once featured on the cover of TIME as The Men Who Saved The World. While what they did was the exact opposite: they threw the world into a financial abyss. It took a while, sure, but then, 16-17 years is not all that long. Plus, it took just 2 years for the dotcom bubble to burst, and 6-7 more for Bear Stearns, AIG and Lehman to be whack-a-moled.
The rest would have followed, but then the central banks stepped in. And now, 6 years and $50 trillion later, their omnipotence is being exposed as impotence. Which means there’s nothing left to keep up appearances. We’ll all have to leave the theater of dreams and step out into the blinding cold faint light of another morning. No choice. And we’ll figure out at some point that we’ve paid all we had just to watch the show.
No. 1) The Swiss National Bank this week threw in the towel, bankrupted a lot of foreign exchange brokers and investors and destroyed a few hundred thousand Swiss jobs in the process. And that was not the first sign that the game was up, the oil price collapse started it. Or, to be precise, made the collapse visible for the first time to most – even if they didn’t recognize it for what it was-. Central banks are pushing on a string, a concept long predicted: they have become powerless to stop financial markets events from taking their natural course of boom and bust.
No. 2) The Bank of Japan. From Asian Nikkei:
Some in the Bank of Japan are growing anxious about continuing its massive purchases of government bonds, confronted with the program’s negative side effects. [..] The BOJ’s buying of huge amounts of Japanese government bonds has pushed long-term interest rates to unprecedented lows. This has made it impossible for insurance companies to generate sufficient returns on JGB investments to pay benefits to policyholders.

The longer ultralow interest rates continue, the more likely other insurers are to take similar steps. Household finances would suffer. Money reserve funds, used for parking individual stock investors’ unused funds, are another financial product hit by ultralow interest rates. MRFs put money into short-term government bonds and other safe investments. Generating positive returns on the bonds is becoming nearly a lost cause [..]

The BOJ has discussed these costs at its policy board. When the board took up additional easing measures in a late-October meeting, some members raised the specter of hurting earnings at financial institutions and giving the impression that the bond-purchasing program is actually a scheme to enable deficit spending. The board decided to step up the program anyway, judging the benefits to outweigh the costs.

“Since nominal interest rates are already at historically low levels, the marginal impact of more easing aimed at putting upward pressure on consumer prices is not strong,” policy board member Takehiro Sato said in a speech last month, explaining why he opposed additional easing in October. “We have caused tremendous trouble for the financial industry,” a BOJ official says. “I hope we will be able to scale back monetary easing soon by achieving the price stability target as projected.”
All the BOJ can do by now, all that’s left to do, is get out of the way. As it should have done right off the bat, before it started intervening 20 years ago. All central banks should have gotten, and stayed, out of the way. Butt out. They have no role to play in financial markets, and should never have been allowed to assume one. They can only do harm. Free markets may not be ideal, but central bank intervention is a certified lot worse.
No. 3) The Fed:
Janet Yellen is leaving the Greenspan “put” behind as she charts the first interest-rate increase since 2006 amid growing financial-market volatility. The Federal Reserve chair has signaled she wants to place the economic outlook at the center of policy making, while looking past short-term market fluctuations. To succeed, she must wean investors from the notion, which gained currency under predecessor Alan Greenspan, that the Fed will bail them out if their bets go bad – just as a put option protects against a drop in stock prices.
“The succession of Fed puts over the years has led to a wide range of distortions in financial markets ,” said Lawrence Goodman, president of the Center for Financial Stability. “There have been swollen asset values followed by sharp declines. This is a very good time for the Fed to move away.”

“Let me be clear, there is no Fed equity market put,” William C. Dudley, president of the New York Fed, the central bank’s watchdog on financial markets, said in a Dec. 1 speech in New York. “Because financial-market conditions affect economic activity only slowly over time, this suggests that we should look through short-term volatility.”

The concept of a Fed put took hold under Greenspan, who in 1998 cut the benchmark federal funds rate three times in response to market stress arising from a Russian bond default and the failure of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. The economy expanded 5% that year and 4.7% in 1999, and critics say the rate cuts helped extend a bubble in technology stocks. The Nasdaq rose 40% in 1998 and 86% in 1999 before plunging almost 40% in 2000. Greenspan said in an interview that he regarded the notion of a Fed put as a “joke.”

Bernanke told Fed officials in an Aug. 16, 2007, conference call as they prepared to cut the discount rate, according to transcripts. Bernanke recommended resisting a cut in the fed funds rate “until it is really very clear from economic data and other information that it is needed. I’d really prefer to avoid giving any impression of a bailout or a put, if we can.”

“The put is there – it is just further out of the money,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays. As the central bank raises rates, “there could be more volatility and the Fed could be OK with it.”
No. 4) The ECB. Which is supposed to come with a $1 trillion or so QE package this week. Which has long been priced in by the markets and will have no other effect than to bring down the euro further. QE everywhere is always only a game that shifts wealth from the public to the private sector, which is another way of saying from the poor to the rich. But then you end up with the poor getting so much poorer, you don’t have a functioning real economy anymore, and therefore no functioning financial markets either.
The problem today is not one of lending, but of borrowing. Banks, even if they would want to, cannot lend to people too poor to borrow. Or spend, for that matter. And if people in the real economy, which accounts for 60-70% of GDP in developed nations, don’t spend, because they simply either don’t have the money or have no expectations of getting any, deflation sets in and central bankers are revealed as the impotent old farts they are.
*  *  *
But that will by no means conclude the story. The effects of the ill-fated megalomaniac central bank policies will reverberate through our societies for decades, if only because $50 trillion is a lot of money. Much of it may have gone somewhere, in some zero sum game, but most of it just went up in the thin air of wagers like the ones the forex trade is made of. People keep asking where did the money go, well, nowhere, or rather it went back to the virtual state it came from.
The difference between the past 6 years and today is that central banks can and will no longer prop up the illusionary world of finance. And that will cause an earthquake, a tsunami and a meteorite hit all in one. If oil can go down the way it has, and copper too, and iron ore, then so can stocks, and your pensions, and everything else.
Perhaps Yellen et al are not all that crazy for cutting QE, and soon raising interest rates. Perhaps that’s the only sane thing left to do, as sane as the Swiss cutting their euro-peg. That doesn’t mean the Fed understands what’s going to happen to the US economy because of it, but it may just mean they have an inkling of the lack of alternatives.
Japan is gone, it’s borrowed itself into oblivion. China’s ‘miracle’ was debt-financed to a much larger degree than anyone wishes to admit. Europe will end up seeing its union falling apart, because it could only ever be held up in times of plenty, and those times are gone. And the US won’t make it too long either on people making a ‘living’ flipping their neighbor’s burgers.
But the central bank bills will still come due all over. That’s the bummer about deflation: your wealth evaporates, but your debt does not.

Interest rate cut sparks warnings on Denmark ditching euro peg

Denmark dampened a rally in European financial markets on Monday after a cut in interest rates sparked warnings that it could follow Switzerland’s lead and end the krone’s peg to the euro.
The Danish central bank shaved 0.15 percentage points off its base rate to discourage investors from switching their funds out of eurozone banks ahead of the European Central Bank’s expected launch of quantitative easing this week.
The warning of a swift climbdown by Copenhagen undermined a strong surge in European shares which hit a seven-year high earlier in the day. The FTSE 100, which had climbed 78 points in mid-afternoon, finished the day up on 35 points at 6585. The Paris-based Cac following a similar path, finishing up 50 points before falling back to close only 30 points ahead.
The French prime minister François Hollande, anxious for the ECB to begin flooding the eurozone economy with extra funds, was forced to backtrack after appearing to announce that the central bank was ready to start buying eurozone sovereign debt.
“On Thursday, the ECB will take the decision to buy sovereign debt, which will provide significant liquidity to the European economy and create a movement that is favourable to growth,” he said in a speech to business leaders at the Élysée Palace.
Later, a spokesman said he was only talking theoretically and referring to QE as a “hypothesis”.
Speculation that the ECB will kick off a major spending spree has sparked increasing volatility in financial markets, especially since a European court of justice ruled that it was legal under EU law.
Last week, and only two days after the court ruling, Switzerland’s central bank chief blamed an imminent QE bonanza for his decision to cut rates to -0.75% andend a longstanding policy of tracking the euro. In a frenzy of trading on international currency markets, the Swiss franc jumped 30%.
Investors have sold the euro heavily in advance of QE, switching their allegiance to the fast-growing US economy and the dollar. In the last seven months the euro has lost 20% of its value against the dollar and could lose another 10% or 20% once QE takes effect.
Under QE, the ECB is believed to be ready to supplement its existing purchase of corporate bonds with tranches of government debt following a meeting of its governing council on Thursday. Some analysts believe only a programme worth €1tn (£767bn)will convince markets that the ECB is serious about tackling low inflation, while others say €750bn would be enough.
Foreign exchange dealer Clear Currency said: “Markets are expecting [the ECB] to announce a QE programme, €500bn would be at the low end of expectations with a programme of €750bn probably enough to appease markets.”
One plan believed to be under consideration would restrict the Frankfurt-based central bank to buying the debt of countries such as Germany and Finland, which are considered a safe bet. However, Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, has come under intense pressure from the leaders of southern European states to spread his net wider and buy government bonds from all 19 member treasuries. They are keen for cheaper funds to spur business lending and growth.
A steep fall in inflation in recent months has also raised the spectre of declining prices, which the ECB must avoid or risk deflation and a fall back into recession. European politicians from Paris to Vienna were shocked this month when figures showed with prices in December falling 0.2% prices falling 0.2% in December.
But the German chancellor Angela Merkel remains opposed to QE and has lobbied against Thursday’s announcement. Berlin has argued that the fall in inflation follows steep falls in oil prices, which may prove temporary. It has also stressed that the risks of sovereign bond purchases from the treasuries of weaker countries should be underwritten by the national central banks of those states.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley said a compromise is the likely outcome, limiting the impact. “A workable compromise for the ECB would be a hybrid programme with a core component in which financial risk is shared across the eurosystem, and an optional component relating to national central bank risk,” said the investment bank’s European economist, Elga Bartsch.
“We remain sceptical on the impact of sovereign QE because of the dissent inside the ECB, the potential political backlash, the legal uncertainties on government bond buying, and the Greek situation and its complex execution.”
To emphasise the extent of dissent inside the eurozone, the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said buying Irish bonds and making the Irish central bank take the risk for their failure was self-defeating.
“If [QE] is going to be renationalised and if monetary policy becomes a function of national central banks acting as agents of Frankfurt I think it will be ineffective,” he said.

Russian Central Bank Bans Western Ratings Agencies

On the heels of last week's downgrades by Fitch and Moody's to just above junk status, The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has issued a statement that it will no longer use credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch, or Moody’s that were assigned after March 1, 2014. All credit ratings will now be at the discretion of the Board of Directors of the Bank as regulators assess whether or not the ratings made after March are accurate. Sounds like Spain, Greece, and USA's previous derision over ratings agencies proclamations is heading east.
The Central Bank of Russia will no longer use credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch, or Moody’s that were assigned after March 1, 2014.

All credit ratings given to Russian companies and banks will now be at the discretion of the Board of Directors of the Bank,according to a press statement Monday. The regulator will assess whether or not the ratings made after March are accurate.

The decision comes after Fitch and Moody’s downgraded Russian sovereign debt to just above junk status. Standard & Poor’s will decide whether it cuts Russian debt to junk level by the end of January after cutting it last April, after Crimea rejoined Russia and the West began to levy sanctions against Moscow.
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On dates of credit ratings’ use for the purpose of Bank of Russia regulations

In line with scope of authority established by Bank of Russia Ordinance No. 3453-U, dated 25 November 2014, ‘On the Specifics of Credit Ratings’ Use -to Implement Bank of Russia Regulations’, the Bank of Russia Board of Directors determined the dates when credit ratings shall be assigned to implement Bank of Russia regulations.

Under this Ordinance, should any Bank of Russia regulation contain information on credit rating assigned by Standard&Poor’s or Fitch Ratings or Moody’s Investors Service to credit institutions or other Russian legal entities, constituent territories, municipal entities, their issued securities or other financial instruments, the date when the mentioned rating is assigned (hereinafter, the rating date) may bedetermined by the decision of the Bank of Russia Board of Directors in the corresponding regulation.

According to Bank of Russia Board of Directors’ decision, the rating date for credit institutions and their issued financial instruments, including securities, to implement Bank of Russia regulations, shall be 1 March 2014; as for other entities, listed in the Ordinance, and their issued securities, this rating date shall be 1 December 2014.
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“They’re private companies, so we assume that they’re completely independent and not subject to political pressure.

However, they do exist in an American context and are subject there to the international media’s reporting which tends to give a single narrative – a very negative narrative when it comes to reporting – particularly the Russia story,”
All sounds very similar to the responses that troubled and over-indebted western nations had when the ratings agencies dared to downgrade them.