berlusconi

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Six Weeks to Save the Euro? It was Dead on Arrival

Do we have six weeks to save the Euro?

From the Guardian:

George Osborne warned on Friday that the leaders of the eurozone had six weeks to end their political wrangling and resolve the continent’s crippling debt crisis.

Speaking in Washington, the chancellor said that the turmoil in the world’s financial markets meant there was now “a far greater sense of urgency” and mounting pressure on Europe from the G20 group of developed and developing nations.

“There is a sense from across the leading lights of the eurozone that time is running out for them. There is a clear deadline at the Cannes summit [G20] in six weeks time”, Osborne said. “The eurozone has six weeks to resolve this political crisis.”

 I don’t think so. I think the Euro was effectively dead on arrival. A fundamentally broken system; and that fundamental discord has now been transmitted around the world in the form of European sovereign debt, infecting the balance sheets of nations and institutions, creating huge counterparty risk, and raising the possibility of a tsunami of defaults.

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Christine Lagarde: “There is Still too much Debt in the System”.

From the IMF:

There is still too much debt in the system. Uncertainty hovers over sovereigns across the advanced economies, banks in Europe, and households in the United States. Weak growth and weak balance sheets — of governments, financial institutions, and households — are feeding negatively on each other, fueling a crisis of confidence and holding back demand, investment, and job creation. This vicious cycle is gaining momentum and, frankly, it has been exacerbated by policy indecision and political dysfunction.

And she’s right — but with debt-issuers not interested in taking haircuts how can we reduce total global debt? How about growth?

From Zero Hedge:

A brand new study released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with McKinsey (which is a must read if only for its plethora of charts which we are certain will be used and reused in thousands of posts and articles over the next year), finds that while global credit stock doubled from $57 trillion to $109 trillion in just 10 years (from 2000 to 2010), it will need to double again to an incredible $210 trillion by 2020 in order to provide the necessary credit-driven growth (in a recursive way, whereby credit feeds growth, and growth requires additional credit issuance) for world GDP to retain its current growth rate.

So the plan is additional debt, to fund growth, to pay down debt? How is that working out?

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Will China Bail Out the World?

With fear running high on global markets, particularly regarding sovereign debt in the Eurozone, many commentators are asking: will developing nations flush with cash (i.e. China) ride into town and save the day?

From Reuters:

Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Thursday that Asian investors are reluctant to buy Italian bonds because it sees they are not being bought by the European Central Bank.

Speaking at a news conference, Tremonti also said it would be desirable for the central bank to follow the lead of the Japanese and Swiss central banks in taking expansionary steps to tackly the euro zone’s crisis.

“I note that the Bank of Japan today launched quantitative easing and the Swiss cen bank cut rates to zero, we are waiting for decisions if possible, but desirable (from the ECB),” Tremonti said.

When you talk to Asia they say: “We don’t understand what Europe is,” he continued. “The second point is that they say ‘if your central bank doesn’t buy your bonds, why should we buy them”?

That is a fairly unqualified no. And why should they? As Amschel Mayer de Rothschild famously put it:

Buy when there is blood on the streets

And China are entitled to hang onto their money and let asset prices depreciate further to get more bang for their buck. But some signs suggest they will act. The more Europe and America deteriorate, the weaker the demand for Chinese goods.  And China’s massive FX holdings’ value is dependent on the system of international trade and the economies of various Western nations retaining functionality. Most importantly, the only remedies that Western governments have are money-printing, and (China’s worst nightmare) debt-forgiveness, neither of which the Chinese would like to see.

Of course, China stepping in to buy shoddy debt isn’t going to offer any  solutions to underlying problems. At best it will kick the can do the road awhile, as Europe muddles around and continues to fail to come to any kind of meaningful or coherent agreement on its future. So as as Europeans clutch furiously at (Chinese manufactured) straws, there is still only one bailout party in town: