Psst - The Problem Is NOT Greece
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2012-01-30 08:34
by Karl Denninger
in International
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Psst - The Problem Is NOT Greece
 

You better pay attention to this.....

That's the Portugal 10 year bond yield.  Price, of course, moves inverse to yield.

15%?  That's not going to work out very well.

Greece is not the problem -- it is that Portugal, among others, could take any deal that comes to provide relief to Greece and demand the same or better.

Eventually the banks buckle, having taken on this debt and getting stuck with the losses.  Someone, somewhere, winds up with a monstrous set of capital losses.

Stabilization in Europe eh?  No, in fact it's getting worse.

Much worse.

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Medicdan
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Well that would solve some of the pension fund problems of not getting 8%. smiley


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Ricka01
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Here is a web page with easy links to European bond yields:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/p/euro....

Randy123
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Unemployment in these countries is pushing 30+%....its all over.

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Jubber
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now over 17%

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Ramthebulls
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Where is unemployment at 30%?

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Asimov
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Spain is 25% UE. (And since they jack the numbers around, probably more like 33%)

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Ramthebulls
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Yep, Asimov. I was just checking for hyperbole, since I knew Spain was at 25% and I thought the rest of the troubled countries were lower.

In fact, nobody is really anywhere near 30%.

Spain: 25%
Ireland: 14%
Greece: 18%
Portugal: 13%
Italy: 8%

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its 55% for under 24's

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Bagbalm
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Ramthebulls - Do you trust those numbers to be any more honest than the ones we are fed in the US?

I try to mention how bad things are in Europe and the attitude I get is - "What do we care? That's there. We live here." These are college educated people, some are actually college professors. They imagine we are walled off somehow.
Ramthebulls
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I have no idea whether the numbers are accurate or not Bagbalm. I was just surprised to hear that unemployment had suddenly spiked up to 30% across the troubled European nations -- that was so far away from what I thought the reported numbers were -- and as it turns out, Randy was using hyperbole rather than actual statistics.

There is no need to exaggerate how bad things are -- the situation is plenty bad already without overstating things.

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Fraudster
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Ram and Asi - Married to a Spaniard, and still have lots of family there. Real unemployment in Spain is very much in the 33%+ range. They heavily discount the true unemployment picture there, same as they do in the United States.

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Degaston
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I sure hope that all these governments learn to do everything possible to ensure that their "official" numbers on unemployment are sincerely credible. What really matters IMO is to look at the medium and short term labor force participation rates by age group to see how employment really is going.

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Eli
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Randy you couldn't be more wrong.

I just read a great article that explained how government debt is not like a household budgets or debt. The Government in those countries can just borrow more debt to boost their economies and get growth and productivity going again.

See Government debt really comes at little or no cost.

I have noted Noble prize winner and New York times columnist Paul ****man to back me up.

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Degaston
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Today's bond prices for Portugal are suggesting a haircut of approx. 25 to 35% for bondholders. How often have we ever seen investors made whole when the yield on a bond issue due in 2 years is over 20%?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?tick....

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Genesis
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Rarely.

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Is there a reason that Ireland is so rarely discussed anymore?

Why would they also not be able to take another look at where they are, assess what sorts of "deals" may be offered to Greece and others, and then demand the same? Is it that their political class is even more corrupt and beholden to the banksters than the leaders of Greece, etc.? If so, why & how?

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Peter: Because their 10y yield has fallen by half over the past few months. If their yield goes back up (probably will at some point), they will be discussed more again.

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Ram -

I understand that current relatively low rates make the repayment not quite so onerous at present until they need to be rolled. However, I would think that any entity would try to avoid being under the Damoclean sword of possible (probably likely) interest rate increases in the future, and would seek to reduce the principal owed by any available means. Given that a good chunk of the debts of Greece and some others are likely to be "forgiven", I'm surprised they're not jumping in line to do the same.

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Ramthebulls
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I agree Peter. I expect all of the PIIGS to give 'haircuts' to their creditors at some point. Ireland is just out of people's minds because it hasn't been a problem recently. Once Ireland's yields start rising, the media will suddenly be interested again.

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I suspect that if they do it, their rates are going to rise dramatically. Given how the Greek debt deals are plodding along without resolution, after such a long period of time, I don't think they can count of debt default to bail them out. Basically they are trying to stay out of sight, out of mind.

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"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Circulation ceases first at the outer edges [Europe and Japan]. It will take a while yet for the decay to reach the heart [America]." - Foundation & Empire by Isaac Asimov
Degaston
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I've got a novel idea that nobody in mainstream media seems to be discussing. Why don't Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain all implement "pay as you go" government finances right now? Yes it'll hurt in the short term but the private sector will eventually more than pick up the slack once the investment capital markets figure out that the public sector isn't going to rape/pillage them for any success they have in engaging in commerce. If you don't have enough revenue to pay for your goodies then you go on a diet and live within your means. I'd like to offer the same advice for my country's federal government because my country's economy is a bit on the big side and would have a hard time finding a knight on a shining horse come to its rescue. I wish the Speaker from Cincinnati who is in charge of appropriating spending & budgeting for my government would start taking this seriously.

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Ricka01
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Quote:
Why don't Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain all implement "pay as you go" government finances right now? Yes it'll hurt in the short term but the private sector will eventually more than pick up the slack once the investment capital markets figure out that the public sector isn't going to rape/pillage them for any success they have in engaging in commerce.

And, I bet that private investment, and especially, foreign direct investment, would increase dramatically. If that happens, it would blow up the financial models of the European central bankers, and provide a very nice lesson for other countries. I can only imagine the surprise (or disapointment) on their faces when they see that fiscal prudence actually works.

Remember, there is only so much money in the world. If much less of it goes into sovereign debt, then it has to go somewhere else.
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Quote:
Why don't Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain all implement "pay as you go" government finances right now?
Because like the rest of the world they want someone else to pay for their bad decisions and fear the loss of their power and position when their people are forced into reality.
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“The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” Thatcher

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“The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” Thatcher
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