More private property being confiscated… Get ready – its coming to a government near you!
…….. speaking of pensioners, you’ve undoubtedly heard by now that Poland has ‘overhauled’ its pension system by making a grab for private pension fund assets.
In nationalizing pension funds, the government of Poland gets to count those assets on its balance sheet, thus ‘reducing’ net public debt by roughly 8% of GDP.
This is a criminal enterprise, plain and simple. And anyone else would get thrown in jail for such a move.
Of course, the government claims that it’s for everyone’s safety and security.
By nationalizing pension funds, the government plans to gradually ‘adjust’ people’s portfolios away from stocks and into… what else? Government bonds.
Naturally, this is for people’s benefit, since government bonds are so safe and secure.
And there you have it– confiscation of private property = Safety.
We’ve been talking about this trend for four years now. This is no longer theory. It’s real. It’s happening. And it’s coming soon to a bankrupt, insolvent nation near you.
Europe is Fixed? Just Like Wall Street Was “Fixed” in May 2008, How’d That Turn Out?
Little more than three years ago, Ireland’s taxpayers were saddled with around 40 billion euros of debt, after their government had been pushed by the European Central Bank into rescuing its largest commercial banks, which had been left floundering in the wake of Ireland’s property price collapse; but there was not enough ‘cash’ to finance the rescue.
Instead, promissory notes were issued to the value of 30 billion euros. Those notes served as collateral to raise a 30 billon euro loan from Ireland’s independent central bank. The proceeds were then used to reimburse the creditors (largely northern European banks and other financial institutions) of Ireland’s failed banks.
Ireland’s loss was Europe’s gain and so a very bad deal for Ireland’s taxpayers, who faced a commitment to honour promissory notes, with annual payments of around 3 billion euros. At those magnitudes and bearing 8 percent interest, the burden was untenable. So, last year a ruse had a trial run. Instead of 3 billion euros in cash, government bonds bearing 3 percent interest were issued and swapped for the promissory notes then due. No one seemed to give the move much attention.
Sovereign debt within the eurozone has been openly monetised and will remain so pending a schedule of debt repayments beginning only in 2038 and running through until 2052; which is not something that the Governing Council would wish to make clear.
In the Commission draft report , which looks into the functioning of the EEA, the Scandinavian country is being criticized for imposing tariffs on EU products from 2013 and “resisted EU efforts for ambitious liberalization” of the EU’s single market.
“This situation might thus lead to competitive advantages for operators based in the EEA-EFTA countries, and more fundamentally risks undermining the legal certainty and homogeneity of the single market,” the report reads.
“This problem is of great concern for the EU side and should be solved as a matter of urgency,” the report states.
Danish MEP Bendt Bendtsen (European People’s Party), who has been closely following the trade issues with Norway, told EurActiv the problems started in 2012 when Norway raised the price of hydrangeas from the EU by 72%.
Bendtsen said Norway is acting “selfishly” and that the taxes were put on EU goods “deliberately” as the Norwegian Centre Party, which is part of the Norwegian government, has for a long time pushed for the extra taxes.
“Norway only wants the cream on the cake,” the MEP said.
“This development worries us. We don’t like the backlog on implementing directives, and this is a case we are trying to deal with now,” Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson of Catherine Ashton, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told Norwegian TV2 .
She confirmed that the EU is looking into the possibilities for sanctions within the EEA agreement’s frame.
However, Bendtsen said that the right EU punishment would be to hit Norway’s fishing industry, or to take the step even further: “The consequence should be kicking Norway out of the EEA,” the MEP said.
Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the country has a good relationship with the EU, but the fact that there are disagreements over individual directives is nothing new.
Erna Solberg, leader of the biggest opposition party, the Conservatives, said the Norwegian government doesn’t understand the EEA’s mutual obligations. She said Norway isn’t active enough when it comes to its Europe policy and doesn’t use the opportunities in effecting the EU legislation enough.
“It is stupid that we have put ourselves in a situation where our closest partners obviously are frustrated with us,” Solberg said .
Norway has previously been mentioned as a positive example of a non-EU member which still gets advantages and benefits of being part of the EU’s single market.
However, in his EU speech last Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron asked whether it was in Britain’s best interest and desirable for Britain to be like Norway or Switzerland – with access to the single market, but outside the EU.
“While Norway is part of the single market – and pays for the principle – it has no say at all in setting its rules: it just has to implement its directives,” Cameron said.
Determining the “pain threshold” beyond which the euro appreciation would significantly impair the recovery is crucial at this juncture. Deutsche Bank’s quantification of this “pain threshold”, is not fixed but depends critically on the pace of global growth. If world demand accelerates from a current pace of 1.3% YoY to 4.2% YoY by Q3 2013 (30% below trend), as per OECD forecasts, the EURUSD exchange rate which would be consistent with maintained competitiveness would stand at 1.37 (not far from where we are).
However, if growth is lower (as we humbly suspect) the threshold for currency strength to hamper growth is considerably below current levels. What is more concerning, as a dysfunctional union of economies might be suspected of, is the divergences between member states and their pain thresholds.
Crucially, the fact that Italy and France are already facing problems as the current EURUSD rate is well above their pain threshold, while Germany remains below (despite its protestations) may be fuel for more Franco-German instability as the push-pull of easier monetary policy places Draghi between a rock of core stability and a hard place of depression.
Exchange rate issues have made a spectacular come-back in European policy debate this week, on the back of speculations on “currency wars” emanating from emerging economies and Japan. While market sentiment towards the Euro area and specifically on the periphery has improved significantly over the last few months, a higher euro is seen as a potential “spanner in the works” which could rekindle doubts surrounding debt sustainability there, if the expected export led recovery is postponed by several quarters by a loss in competitiveness.
When controlling for the pace of world demand and when looking at the Euro area as an aggregate, we are according to our estimates currently in or near the “danger zone” where the exchange rate is effectively undermining competitiveness.
We apply our model to the four largest economies of the Euro area. We find that while the pain threshold for Germany, and probably more counter-intuitively for Spain, now stands higher than any level ever reached since the beginning of monetary union, it is actually quite low for France (1.24) and Italy (1.17), for a world demand pace of 4.2%.
It is therefore surprising, at first glance, to observe that most of the recent flurry of comments on exchange rate issues came from Germany. We suggest that the German concerns over currency wars do not primarily stem from a fear of the consequence for German exporters, but rather from the fact that further euro appreciation could unduly delay the normalization of the ECB monetary policy framework.
What these comments from Germany reflect in our view is a concern that currency wars ultimately generate global inflation which the ECB could not easily resist given the persistent fragility of the periphery.
It follows from these considerations that on balance further euro appreciation is the likeliest path, short of a rapid relapse in widespread doubts in the periphery’s sustainability (which would be likely if the Euro area “misses the recovery” in 1H 2013. This means that France and Italy must make rapid progress on productivity and flexibility (as well as possibly off-shoring) to enhance their resilience to currency appreciation.
I was reminded recently that there is an important distinction between a problem and a dilemma. A problem has a solution while a dilemma must be continuously managed. The euro’s situation has evolved from being a severe problem to posing a dilemma for eurozone countries seeking to grow and secure debt sustainability.
Six months ago, stress on the European financial system led to existential questions about the euro. The financial system was fragmenting, deposits were pouring out of the weaker countries, and high interest rates were converting liquidity problems into solvency ones, adding to the regional headaches caused by countries already in vicious debt cycles.
Bold policy reactions stopped this dynamic – so much so that, today, several investors are again emphasising rate convergence for many eurozone bond markets. And while harmful credit rationing persists, especially for small- and medium-sized companies in peripheral economies, banks are less fragile.
The immediate solution to the euro’s existential problem came in the form of the European Central Bank’s “outright monetary transactions “. The ECB was supported by the progress made by governments in agreeing to reinforce monetary union with greater fiscal union, political integration and banking union.
Having solved its urgent problem, the eurozone needs to deal with a new dilemma: that of an appreciating currency. There is a growing number of countries seeking to weaken their own currencies. Indeed, in the last six months, the euro has appreciated by 11 per cent against the US dollar and by 8 per cent in nominal trade weighted terms. It has appreciated by a lot more against the Japanese yen.
With growth already sluggish, the eurozone can ill afford a stronger currency. Sharp appreciation undermines economic activity – not only for export powerhouses such as Germany but also for countries such as Spain where, for the past eight quarters, the contribution of net exports has been positive.
With budgetary concerns continuing to dominate mindsets, few countries are able and willing to stimulate their economies by loosening national fiscal policies. As a result, the number of unemployed citizens – which is 6m higher than at the outset of the global financial crisis – remains alarmingly high, and especially so among the young.
Given what other countries are doing around the world, European politicians need to significantly accelerate policy reforms if they wish to maintain competitiveness in a safe and orderly fashion. This involves quickly moving from the design to the implementation of key measures.
At the regional level, productivity-enhancing structural reforms need to accompany a renewed push on fiscal union, banking union and political integration; and, for starters, politicians should not wait for the June summit to press ahead with the “four presidents” report .
But, having averted an existential financial problem, politicians seem more interested to bask in their success than deal with remaining challenges. This understandable desire to savour the moment – and with it, the illusion of stability – is inevitably strong in the run-up to several key elections this year.
With politicians failing to manage the dilemma directly, it is only a matter of time until they again look to the ECB for help.
Expect the ECB to be pressed hard to join other central banks in actively seeking to depreciate the currency – by cutting the policy rate (currently 0.75 per cent) and quantitative easing of the type pursued by the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve.
This is not a road that the ECB will embark on easily. And if it does, it would seek to address a regional dilemma by adding to a global one.
Being a relative price, all countries cannot simultaneously weaken their exchange rates (except against gold, real estate and other “real” assets). And should the ECB feel forced to join collective attempts to do the impossible, the risks of a global currency war and related beggar-thy-neighbor outcomes would increase meaningfully.
Euro-area jobless data this week will expose the social cost of last year’s debt crisis and recession on southern European economies as unemployment across the region probably rose to a record in December.
While measures to stem the region’s debt turmoil have helped reduce sovereign bond yields from Spain to Greece, the recession and crisis have led to job cuts by companies and governments. The European Central Bank predicts the currency bloc’s economy will shrink 0.3 percent this year and President Mario Draghi said last week that the “jury is still out” on whether investor optimism can be reflected in economic momentum.
Spanish data last week showed a record 26 percent of the workforce without jobs in the fourth quarter, bringing the total close to 6 million people. In Greece, the rate was even higher in October, at 26.8 percent, also a record.
While economists predict the German unemployment rate will stay unchanged, they still see an increase of 8,000 people without work this month from December, according to the median forecast of 31 economists in a Bloomberg news survey.
The euro-area economy has shrunk for two successive quarters and economists predict a further 0.4 percent decline in gross domestic product in the final three months of last year, according to the median of 26 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The International Monetary Fund on Jan. 23 cut its global growth forecast and projected a second year of contraction in the euro region.
While investor confidence in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, rose to the highest in 2 1/2 years this month as debt tensions ease, high unemployment and continued austerity measures elsewhere are undermining household sentiment and spending. An index of euro-area economic confidence probably rose to the highest level since June, according to median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 30 economists.
“We’re in the phase of financial conditions improving and markets becoming more optimistic, but that has to feed through to the real economy,” ING’s Van Vliet said.
ECB Governing Council member Luc Coene said he would prefer the central bank’s as-yet-untapped bond-buying program to stay that way and it’s now up to governments to generate growth in the euro area.
No country has yet asked for a bailout that could trigger bond buying by the ECB after Draghi’s rescue plan, announced in July, ended a wave of panic in euro-region debt markets. The currency block will see a “shallow” recovery starting this year as long as leaders don’t hesitate to implement measures to reduce debt and increase competitiveness, Coene said.
France needs an economic overhaul to revive growth and help underpin the political union required to stabilize the euro region, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff said.
European governments’ policy responses to the debt crisis, such as a “half-hearted” banking union and national budget oversight by the European Commission, aren’t enough, Rogoff was quoted as saying in an interview published in German newspaper Die Welt today. Leaders need to start now with a push toward political integration that includes a European government with taxation powers, he told the Berlin-based daily.
If governments follow through on their promises in the coming months, underlying momentum could mean the ECB will revise its prediction that the euro-area economy will contract by 0.3 percent this year, Coene said.
Mark Carney, who is due to take over as Bank of England governor in July, said policy makers should secure “escape velocity” for their economies and there’s room for more monetary stimulus around the world. Policy in developed countries isn’t “maxed out” and central bankers can be flexible in meeting inflation goals, Carney, currently governor of the Bank of Canada, said on Jan. 26 in Davos.
Alongside the euro-area unemployment data, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, will also release data on consumer prices for January. The annual inflation rate will remain at 2.2 percent compared with December, according to the median of 39 economists’ forecasts in a survey.
Euro-area economic conditions will be “tough” in the first half before a wider recovery takes hold in 2014, according to Patrick de Maeseneire, chief executive officer of Adecco SA (ADEN), the world’s biggest supplier of temporary workers.
PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG), Europe’s second-largest carmaker, said last month it will eliminate an additional 1,500 jobs by 2014, on top of 8,000 announced in July.
How many European Union officials does it take to change a light bulb?
None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are an illusional spin from the American media. Illuminating European rooms is hard work. That light bulb has served honorably, and any commentary not approved by the EU undermines the lighting effort.
One thing that is rationally learned from watching Europe is that what is said, what is fed to the media as fact, is often only factual in the minds of those that have created the fairy tale. Whether it is the debt to GDP ratios of the nations in Europe or the uncounted liabilities of a country or the loans to some bank that are recorded as investments and not liabilities; the drape of charade hangs resiliently over the entire spectacle. It is often a farce interwoven with a sham presented as fully cooked pie that is really half-baked and then we are all expected to eat it and rave about not just the recipe but the ingredients and the presentation. All well and good for the sheep and the herders leading them; but I have been to the top of Mt. Olympus and there are neither gods nor temples.
Now on January 30 the ECB will get paid back $182.2 billion from the European banks that borrowed the money in the LTRO operations. This is not 25% of the loans made, as touted in almost every headline, but about 10% of the loans outstanding as somehow it is conveniently forgotten that there were two loan packages totaling $1.3 trillion which were initiated in December 2011 and the second in February 2012. This is not two years ahead of schedule as headlined in the Press as about half of the loans ($655 billion) were made in the 2011 tranche. Let us begin then with a nod to accuracy and explore the rest of what we are told.
I have learned, over the last several years, that Europe is psychotic. They create an illusion, tell us that it is reality and then are angered when we question the validity of what we are told. This is not authenticity but pretense and this sort of pretense is concocted to lead you into places that no rational man wants to wander.
The interest rate, being paid by the European banks to the ECB is 0.75%, so one may rationally assume that no financial institution, in their right mind, would pay off such a loan for economic reasons. The banks cannot borrow on their own for three years at this level and so to pay them off early makes no economic sense. Yet they are being paid off and if it does not make sense economically then it must make sense for some other reason or reasons. If the agenda is devoid of common sense in its presentation then there must be a hidden agenda and a man working feverishly behind the curtains and manipulating the levers. Here it may well be the financial condition of the ECB itself which, without doubt, is stuffed with both loans and securitizations that given the wretched state of most economies in Europe, must be in very poor condition where the assets are only worth cents on the dollar or perhaps not even that if one considers the Real Estate markets in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. It is then quite obvious that the banks did not want to pay off the loans but that they were “encouraged” to do so for other reasons and one reason may well be to fund the ECB so that the central bank does not have to take on even more debt and inflate its own balance sheet as its assets values have deteriorated. Here we have a variation of the “Public Sector Involvement” which can be termed “Bank Sector Involvement” which may not cause losses on its face but which will certainly increase the funding costs for the European banks and so impair their balance sheets by the increased cost of funding which of course goes unmentioned in any European Press release and so uncommented upon by an accepting European media that blissfully accepts and willingly comments upon what it has been officially told.
The Wall Street Journal, yesterday, published an article, “Europe’s Banks to Repay Aid Early,” which stated, “The data provide one of the clearest illustrations to date of the surprisingly swift healing of large swaths of the European banking system. It removes a major impediment to a gradual recovery of the broader European economy, which hinges on the health of its banks.” With great respect for the Journal I must say that they have it totally wrong. The banks, without doubt, will have higher funding costs in paying off these loans and less attractive balance sheets as a result and so it is neither Europe nor her banks that will benefit with the only possible beneficiary being the European Central Bank. All of this has been made possible not by healthier economies nor by particular cheaper funding rates for the European sovereigns or banks but by the continual and unobstructed flow of money created by the ECB and other central banks. The world has become addicted, like in Frank Herbert’s marvelous Science Fiction novel, “Dune,” where “The spice must flow.” Whether it is the global equity or debt markets, the troubled nations in Europe and even the economy in America; there is but one pillar supporting the construct and that is the printing of money and the use of the newly created pieces of paper that are supporting the various houses of cards where politics in America and on the Continent have no other answer other than to spew out money in such a torrent and at such a velocity that it puts Niagara Falls to shame.
The world seems devoid of politicians that sensibly lead though they have been quite adept at spending past what can be afforded. The worlds’ central banks have been left to pick up the bills. The balance sheets bulge, the quality of the assets, especially in Europe, deteriorate. More is spent, more money is created, the markets head higher, more money is created, there is no other answer or response than more new paper, more green ink, more blue ink, and the bubble is systemic and perilous and chock full of fiscal risks. Remember, this morning, what I have told you because there will come a time when you will wish that you had considered more carefully what I said.
One attractive aspect of an EU exit would be the exit of the Common External Tariff. As Daniel Hannan has pointed out , the Single Market is more like a customs union than a free trade bloc. All goods coming into Britain from outside the EU are subject to tariffs, designed to protect European industries from cheaper competition.
There’s a 16% tax on bananas from outside the EU, a 17% tax on trainers, 12% on stoned fruit like peaches and plums, and 12% on shirts, suits, coats and school uniforms. Cars are taxed at 9.7%. Twine and string get a 9.2% hit. Knitted gloves carry an 8.8% tariff whereas non-knitted gloves are hit by 7.6%. You name it, they tax it.
The loser is the consumer. On its own, the European cucumber industry (protected by a 12.8% tariff) might not be very influential, but any threat to a tariff causes businesses and their lobbyists to circle the wagons.
The ‘bra wars ‘ ended with European consumers paying more for Chinese underwear – not because Big Brassiere is unbeatable, but because related industries recognised that, individually, they would fall, and marshalled their political representatives into action.
The most perverse part is that if we got rid of all these tariffs, many, if not most, producers would be better off too. They are consumers as well as producers, and tariffs make the inputs they use (like steel – 2.7%) more expensive. But they face exactly the same collective action problems as consumers at large do.
The old public choice problem holds: free-riding is more costly for members of small interest groups than for members of big ones. Ostracism from trade associations, and so on, is much easier (and more harmful) for firms that don’t go along with the lobbying. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people who will ostracise their fellow consumers for failing to renew their subscription to the Adam Smith Institute.
The public choice problem in politics is often overstated. Most of the people who march against austerity really do think the cuts are bad. Most of the people who want to keep out immigrants really do think that they’ll cost them jobs. And, no doubt, most people who support tariffs really do think that protecting native industries is a good idea.
But voters are not as aware of the Common External Tariff as they are of many other issues. It isn’t clear what the ‘left-wing’ position on taxing cheap clothes from China ought to be, nor the ‘conservative’ position on exposing native industries to the free market. It’s hard to escape the impression that the Tariff really is an example of businesses hijacking democracy. The External Tariff represents one of the biggest swindles of modern times: a collective theft from consumers by politically powerful producers.