It’s official: The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) plan announced at the EU summit on October 27th is essentially dead prior to arrival.
As a consequence, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy appear to be betraying signs of throwing in the towel on the Euro project as it exists today. They appear to be actively contemplating ways to engineer an orderly breakup of the Euro.
As financial market participants gets wind of their intentions – albeit tentative – expect financial markets to accelerate the unfolding of events. The entire Euro edifice could collapse before the New Year.
EFSF Chief: The Insurance Plan Is Dead Prior To Arrival
When the Chief of the EFSF is pessimistic about the capacity of the EFSF to be leveraged to an extent that is adequate to the task at hand, then you might as well kiss the whole thing goodbye.
In a little noted article in Thursday’s FT, Klaus Regling, head of the EFSF essentially admitted that the plan agreed upon at the EU summit on October summit to use the EFSF as collateral for a first-loss insurance scheme is essentially dead.
As I predicted would occur in an article of mine several weeks ago entitled “Europe’s Inane Idea: Fake Brady Bonds,” the EFSF chief has acknowledged that there is no interest on the part of investors to purchase PIIGS bonds with a first-loss guarantee of only 20%.
Regling believes that a first-loss guarantee of 30% may be required to garner any interest.
Personally, I have serious doubts that there would be sufficient interest. Any issuance that actually requires a 30% loss guarantee in order to be viable simply has an implicit default risk profile that will be unable to garner sponsorship of sufficient size.
Since there are only about 250 billion euros available for the EFSF first-loss insurance scheme, that means that, even assuming 30% were sufficient, the mechanism would only be adequate to cover about 800 billion euros worth of debt issuance by Italy and Spain — and any other euro area country that needed funding.
It has been estimated that roughly two trillion euros of funding are needed to simply merely meet projected roll-over and fresh financing needs through mid 2013. Therefore, the 800 billion projection is totally insufficient to the task at hand.
If $800 billion in guarantees are all that Europe can come up with, Europe would probably better off wasting precious resources on this scheme at all.
That is why the EFSF first-loss guarantee proposal seems to be dead on arrival. The plan is totally insufficient, and therefore is unlikely to be implemented at all.
I believe that this realization is thoroughly discouraging the Eurocrats that are charged with structuring the EFSF insurance facility and selling it to investors. These Eurocrats are relaying their pessimism back to Merkel and Sarkozy in real time. This in turn, is prompting Merkel and Sarkozy to begin to contemplate “exit strategies.”
Imminent Fiasco
Because Merkel and Sarkozy are unwilling or are unable to support the only viable option available to them that is to fund bond purchases via the ECB, they appear to be engaging in preliminary speculations regarding a possible exit plan. The problem is that there is no viable exit plan that would not entail a total economic and financial disaster.
It will be impossible for Merkel, Sarkozy and other European leaders to prepare an exit strategy without their intentions being leaked to the press. Financial markets will therefore unravel any and all plans that they contemplate before they can even commit them to paper.
As soon as markets realize that the original EFSF scheme is being abandoned and that the entire Euro project will be restructured, the Euro will be crushed, the European banking system will become insolvent and global financial markets will freeze up.
Merkozy Musings
Sarkozy is already openly musing about a “two-speed” Europe. He envisions a group of countries that will quickly move towards tight fiscal and economic integration and another group of countries that will remain fiscally and monetarily independent.
Sarkozy has stated that he believes that a tight federation is impossible for a large group of economically, politically and culturally disparate countries. The implication is that the group of 16 nations that currently comprise the Euro is probably too large to be manageable.
At the same time, Merkel is already dreaming about a “New Europe.” Exactly what Germany’s Chancellor means by this is ambiguous. However, it is clear that Merkel has in mind much tighter fiscal and economic integration. In this regard Merkel must know that several current Euro members may be unable or unwilling to join in such a tight federation.
The problem with Sarkozy’s and Merkel’s musings is that they are completely irrelevant and even counterproductive to the current task at hand. The issues that they are touching on were issues that needed to have been resolved at the inception of the Euro. At this point, the question is how the damage can best be undone, not to debate what should have been.
Conclusion
Merkel and Sarkozy will soon learn that an orderly break-up of the Euro is not possible. Even the slightest hint that a breakup is being contemplated will cause a global financial disturbance that is so great that any perceived benefits of a break-up will be completely overwhelmed by the costs that will be imposed by the market.
Prepare For Europe Collapse Before New Year by James A. Kostohryz
The evidence is building that global growth has stalled. And it’s about to get much worse.
I think the most notable development this week was Thursday’s big release of global factory activity surveys. It wasn’t pretty. Overall, the JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI dropped for the third straight month and fell below the 50 level — the line of demarcation between growth or contraction in monthly factory activity — for the first time since recession was descending upon us back in early 2008. Scary stuff.
Although U.S. activity was buoyant (no doubt a remnant of the sentiment tailwinds enjoyed from the market rally in October), we cannot remain an island of tranquility as Asia and Europe fall into the abyss.
Here are the highlights (any reading under 50 indicates a drop in activity):
*Brazil PMI: 48.7 vs. 46.5 prior
*Ireland PMI: 48.5 vs. 50.1 prior
*Sweden PMI: 47.6 v. 49 estimated
*Norway PMI: 48.6 vs. 50.2 estimated
*Denmark PMI: 47.7 vs. 43.6 prior
*Poland PMI: 49.5 vs. 51.7 prior
*Spain PMI: 42.8 vs. 43.9 prior
*Swiss PMI: 44.8 vs. 46.6 estimated
*Czech PMI: 48.6 vs. 51.7 prior
*Italy PMI: 44 vs. 42.8 estimated
*France PMI: 47.3 vs. 47.6 estimated
*Germany PMI: 47.9
*Greece PMI: 40.9 vs. 40.5 prior
*South Korea PMI: 47.1 vs. 48 prior
*Taiwan PMI: 43.9 vs. 43.7 prior
And, now for the big boys:
*Eurozone PMI: 46.4 — lowest reading since recession ended in July 2009
*U.K. PMI: 47.6 vs. 47 estimated — lowest since June 2009
*China PMI: 49 vs. 49.8 estimated — lowest reading since February 2009
*China HSBC PMI: 47.7 vs. 51 prior — 32-month low
In addition to signs of economic weakness — which was enough for a Chinese vice finance minster to say the global economy faces a “worse situation” than in 2008 — there was evidence that the financial system remains under severe stress despite the freak out over Wednesday’s move by the Federal Reserve to lower dollar funding costs for foreign banks (which, as I discussed at the time, wasn’t really a game changer). The European Central Bank reported that eurozone banks borrowed nearly €9 billion in overnight emergency cash — up from €2.7 billion earlier this week. Not good.
Other signs of strain could be seen in the way German 12-month bill yields dropped below zero on Wednesday as European investors were willing to pay Berlin for the luxury of lending it money. The motivation is that, if you’re holding a big wad of euros, German short-term debt is one of the few “sure bets” left out there. It’s a sign of extreme risk aversion and fear.
Of course, the epicenter for all this is Europe.
Adding to concerns were comments this week from new ECB chief Mario Draghi that while downside risks to the economic outlook have increased, he cannot ride to Europe’s rescue by engaging in unmitigated money printing and bond buying; instead, it must adhere to its founding principles, including an inability to engage in monetary financing of government debts (exactly what the likes of Italy would love right now).
Draghi’s comments were akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater before announcing all the fire extinguishers are empty. Whoops.
According to the team at Capital Economics, based in London, the eurozone economy is on track to contract by 1% next year and by 2.5% in 2013, with risks to the downside for both forecasts. Recession will only deepen the budget deficits at the center of the eurozone debt crisis. The only way out is growth. And the only way the likes of Greece, Portugal, and Italy can restore growth is via massive currency depreciation and domestic inflation — something that’s not going to happen as long as they’re in the eurozone.
Sure, there will be distractions like Wednesday’s move by the Fed or additional stimulus measures out of places like China and Brazil. That’s just how the market gods like it. All the better to keep the masses confused and complacent as the fundamentals just get worse and worse.
To put it differently: When you look around the theater, everyone’s still focused on center stage blissfully unaware what’s happening around them. Turn around. The balcony level is in flames.
The Economy Is About To Get A Lot Worse – Anthony Mirhaydari, MSNBC