FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Financial System’ Category

The people out there that believe that the U.S. economy is experiencing a permanent recovery and that very bright days are ahead for us should have their heads examined.  Unfortunately, what we are going through right now is simply just a period of “hopetimism” between two financial crashes.  Things may seem relatively stable right now, but it won’t last long.  The truth is that the financial crisis of 2008 was just a warm up act for the economic horror show that is coming.  Nothing really got fixed after the crash of 2008.  We are living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it has gotten even bigger since then.  The “too big to fail” banks are larger now than they have ever been.  Americans continue to run up credit card balances like there is no tomorrow.  Tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions of jobs continue to leave the country.  We continue to consume far more than we produce and we continue to become poorer as a nation.  None of the problems that caused the crisis of 2008 have been solved and we are even weaker financially than we were back then.  So why in the world are so many people so optimistic about the economy right now?

Just take a look at the chart posted below.  It shows the growth of total debt in the United States.  During the financial crisis of 2008 there was a little “hiccup”, but the truth is that not much deleveraging really took place at all.  And since the recession “ended”, total credit market debt has gone on to even greater heights….

So what does this mean for the future?

Well, if a small “hiccup” in the debt bubble caused so much chaos back in 2008, what is going to happen when this debt bubble finally bursts?

That is something to think about.

Sadly, most Americans seem oblivious to all of this.

If you go out to malls in the wealthy areas of America today, people are charging up a storm.  In all, Americans charged a whopping 2.5 trillion dollars on their credit cards during 2011.  Way too many people have already forgotten the lessons that we all learned back in 2008.

Of course some Americans pay off their credit cards every month, but way too many Americans are not doing that.  Today, Americans are carrying 793 billion dollars in revolving credit balances.

And student loan debt is an even bigger bubble than credit card debt is.  As I have written about previously, total student loan debt in America is rapidly approaching a trillion dollars.

So it looks like U.S. consumers have not learned to stay away from debt.

That is not good.

Well, what about the banks?

Has the financial system learned any lessons since 2008?

No, not really.

Sadly, the “too big to fail” banks are now even bigger than ever.  The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.  If they were to fail today, they would be even more of a threat to our financial system than they were back in 2008.

And our major banks continue to be very highly leveraged.  In fact, major banks all over the world are absolutely swamped with debt.

The following statistics come from Zero Hedge….

The U.S. banking system is leveraged 13 to 1.

The Japanese banking system is leveraged 23 to 1.

The French banking system is leveraged 26 to 1.

The German banking system is leveraged 32 to 1.

These are insane levels of leverage, and they are just inviting another major financial crisis.

Do you all remember Lehman Brothers?  The fact that they were leveraged so highly is what did them in back in 2008.  When the value of their holdings declined by just a little bit they were totally wiped out.

Well, during this next financial crisis large financial institutions are going to be wiped out all over the world.  Major banks all over the globe are going to be crying out for more bailouts when things take a turn against them.

They are making the exact same mistakes that they made before, and they are going to be expecting more government handouts when things go bad.

Will we ever learn?

So obviously the banking system has not learned any lessons.

What about the federal government?

Well, if you follow my blog regularly, you know that I love to write about how horrific U.S. government debt is.

Unfortunately, over the past four years things have gotten so much worse.

Back in 2008, the U.S. national debt crossed the 10 trillion dollar mark.

Just recently, it crossed the 15 trillion dollar mark.

So now we are in a much weaker position financially to respond to another major financial crisis.

Just check out the chart posted below.  This is a recipe for national financial suicide….

During fiscal 2011, the Obama administration stole close to 150 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour.

At the moment, the legacy of debt that we are passing on to future generations is sitting a grand total of $15,351,406,294,640.49.

But keep in mind that it is going up every single hour.

Meanwhile, our ability to service that debt is declining.  We are rapidly getting poorer as a nation.

During 2011, the amount of money that left the United States exceeded the amount of money that entered the United States by more than a half a trillion dollars.

This gap is called a trade deficit, and it is absolutely ripping our economy to shreds.

For a moment, imagine Uncle Sam standing next to a giant pile of money on a map of the United States.  Then imagine a half a trillion dollars being taken out of that pile every single year.

So why haven’t we totally run out of money yet?

Well, it is because we borrow those dollars back.  In order to maintain our false standard of living, our federal government, our state governments and our local governments have to go out and beg the rest of the world to lend us our dollars back.

Sadly, our government schools have “dumbed-down” the population so much that most of them don’t even know what a “trade deficit” is anymore.

Meanwhile, our economic infrastructure is being gutted like a fish.

Look, I know that I go over this point over and over and over, but it is absolutely imperative that we all understand this.

The half a trillion dollars a year that leaves this country every year could have gone to support businesses and jobs inside the United States.

But instead it is going to support businesses and jobs on the other side of the world.

The consequences of this are absolutely devastating.

According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day closed down in the United States during 2010.  Overall, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have shut down since 2001.

Even many so-called “American companies” have been bought up by the rest of the world.  The following comes from a recent article posted on Economy In Crisis….

RCA is now a French company, Zenith is a Korean company. Frigidaire is a Swedish company. IBM’s Personal Computer Division—with its 500 patents—is now a Chinese company. Westinghouse Nuclear Energy’s major shareholder is Toshiba—a Japanese Company. Lucent Technologies, a former research division of AT&T, along with all the patents acquired from the beginning of the phone system, is now a French company. In 2008, Brazilian-Belgian brewing company InBev purchased the iconic American brewer Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser. With the sale of these manufacturing companies, the future profit and technologies all belong to foreign entities.

We once had the greatest economic machine in the history of the world.

Now it is being dismantled and bought up by foreigners.

When America’s economic infrastructure declines, that means that there are less jobs available for all of us.

As I wrote about the other day, the employment situation in this country is not getting better and we have never even come close to recovering from the recession that started back in 2008.

During 2008 and 2009, the U.S. economy lost millions of jobs.  Since the beginning of 2010, the percentage of the U.S. population that has had a job has remained very stable….

Normally, when a recession ends the percentage of Americans that have a job bounces back pretty dramatically.

So considering the fact that the employment situation has never recovered from the last financial crisis, what is going to happen when the next financial crisis hits?

And most of the jobs that have been “created” during this so-called “recovery” have been low income jobs.  In fact, if you look closely at the employment numbers that were released last Friday, you will find that the vast majority of the “new jobs” were part-time jobs.

But you cannot pay a mortgage and support a family on a part-time job.

Sadly, the truth is that median household income in America has been steadily dropping over the past several years.  Tens of millions of American families are deeply struggling and more Americans than ever are falling into poverty.

Back in the year 2000, about one out of every nine Americans was living in poverty.  Today, about one out of every seven Americans is living in poverty.

All of this is causing a great deal of anxiety in America today.  Large numbers of Americans know that something has fundamentally changed, even if they don’t understand the specifics.  That is one reason why sites such as this one have become so popular.  People want some answers.

And once people get some answers about what is really happening, they tend to want to prepare for the hard times that are coming.

In a few days, a new series on National Geographic entitled “Doomsday Preppers” premieres.  The mainstream media is starting to take notice of the growing “prepper” movement in America today.  It is estimated that there are at least 2 million “preppers” in the United States at this point.  Of course people are “prepping” for a whole host of reasons, but the number one concern among most groups of preppers is the economy.

As the economy crumbles, more Americans than ever have decided that it is not a good thing to be 100% dependent on the system.

Back in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans suddenly lost their jobs.  Because they did not have any finances stored up, large numbers of them also lost their homes.  Many went from being solidly middle class to being out on the street in a matter of months.

That doesn’t have to happen to you.  Instead of blowing your money on frivolous things, do what you can to set something aside for the difficult times that are on the horizon.

A lot of those “in the know” are quietly making their own preparations.  For example, legendary film director James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic and Terminator) has purchased more than 2600 acres of farmland in New Zealand and he is getting out of the U.S. for good apparently.

Unfortunately, most of us do not have the resources for something like that.  But what most of us can do is we can change our priorities and start focusing on the things that will help us survive the hard times that are coming.

So are you ready?

The Economic Collapse

This is an interesting op-ed in the morning edition of the WSJ:

We’re now in the 37th month of central government manipulation of the free-market system through the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rate policy. Is it working?

Business and consumer loan demand remains modest in part because there’s no hurry to borrow at today’s super-low rates when the Fed says rates will stay low for years to come. Why take the risk of borrowing today when low-cost money will be there tomorrow?

Why borrow at all, in the main?  Borrowing is the taking of leverage — “gearing.”  It magnifies both gains and losses, and it is the losses that turn into trouble, as often they wind up being borne by someone other than the borrower.

They’re supposed to be borne by the borrower and lender, incidentally.  But the lender rarely actually eats them, especially when things get “really bad” — then the taxpayer gets soaked, directly or indirectly, as we have seen.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers last week that fiscal policy should first “do no harm.” The same can be said of monetary policy. The Fed’s prolonged, “emergency” near-zero interest rate policy is now harming our economy.

It always was Charles.

The Fed policy has resulted in a huge infusion of capital into the system, creating a massive rise in liquidity but negligible movement of that money. It is sitting there, in banks all across America, unused.

No.  Capital and borrowing are not the same thing.  They spend the same, but they’re not the same.  Capital is economic surplus — that which you have after you earn and pay the necessities of life (or to run your business.)  Borrowing is leverage — “mechanical advantage” if you will, but it is always a negative-sum game as not only does it have to be paid back but the interest expense means you must earn even more to pay it with.

The multiplier effect that normally comes with a boost in liquidity remains at rock bottom. Sufficient capital is in the system to spur growth—it simply isn’t being put to work fast enough.

The paradox of debt is that due to the negative sum nature of it there is always less of a multiplier than the liquidity increase would suggest.  That is, mathematically it is a negative game for the borrower in every case.  This does not mean that a borrower cannot turn that disadvantage into advantage, but it does mean that the odds are against him or her in doing so.

The poker player in Vegas is at a similar disadvantage due to the house “rake.”  If six similarly-skilled players sit at a poker table in Vegas and play long enough they will all wind up broke, because the house rake will consume all their money.  It is a certainty if the game goes on for long enough, the skills are evenly-enough matched, and their luck is reasonably even.

The only way for such a player to win is to be better than the other people at the table by a sufficient amount to overcome the house rake.  He must also stop playing when he has amassed enough winnings and depart.  This means that for the player of superior skill he is incented to play at a higher level of wager, becasue he wants the fewest number of hands dealt to make his money to keep the rake’s “rape” of his stack to a reasonable level.

We’ve also seen a destructive run of capital out of Europe and into safe U.S. assets such as Treasury bonds, reflecting a world-wide aversion to risk. New business formation is at record lows, according to Census Bureau data. There is still insufficient confidence among business people and consumers to spark an investment and growth boom.

Business formation comes from capital formation which is the product of economic surplus.  That’s all.  Since capital formation is born of savings, that is, economic surplus, zero interest rates destroy the incentive to do so.  Low interest rates tend to cause people to borrow for uneconomic purpose, just as inflation provides incentive to buy things that aren’t really needed right now “because they’ll go up in price tomorrow.”  This is all malinvestment of one form or another and it’s destructive to the health of the economy.

Just look at SYSCO, which reported results this morning.  They showed that food inflation was 6.8% over the last year, contrary to the government lie that “inflation is non-existent.”  Uh huh.

What Mr. Schwab is missing here is that The Fed is hardly an “independent” central bank.  It is in fact beholden to Congress, which has pumped up $5 trillion in debt over the last three years.  That debt has a servicing cost, and it is the “ultra low” interest rates that make this temporarily affordable.

How is Congress going to service this debt when the rate of interest rises?  More to the point, where are the adults in the room in Washington DC?  We’ve had this on both sides of the aisle — “we must stimulate the economy!” — with borrowed money.

Outright bribery of the electorate both hasn’t and can’t work to lead to a durable recovery.  Instead, it has backed Bernanke and Congress into a corner.  When rates rise to just a blended 4% Congress will be facing a $600 billion annual interest bill.  From where will the money come?

This is the trap into which Japan fell and what we are facing today.  It is an extraordinarily destructive cycle that is very, very difficult to break, because it requires pulling the liquidity support at the same time Congress dramatically raises taxes, cuts spending (real cuts, not the imaginary cuts from “baseline” budgeting) or both.  In short it requires admitting that we took fiscal heroin to avoid pain and accepting the accumulated damage for a period of time, accepting the “deferred depression” that we all tried to hide.

Charles Schwab leaves this unsaid, of course, but then again he’s running a brokerage.  Were people to think this thing through they’d realize that the mathematical conundrum presented by Schwab has no resolution that doesn’t ultimately result in that contraction asserting itself.  There is always the matter of timing, but not outcome — that which is fueled by nothing other than fiscal methamphetamine either leads to a nasty crash when you stop taking or heart failure.  Pick one — both suck but while one is nasty the other is fatal.

Read this carefully and you might figure out the problem…

SPRINGFIELD — Making local school districts pick up the employers’ portion of teacher retirement benefits could save more than $1.3 billion a year for Illinois’ beleaguered state treasury. It also could mean financial ruin for some local school districts, school administrators say.

Financial ruin?  How did that happen?

“That would kill school districts, at least most districts. For us, we’re living paycheck to paycheck,” said Tony Sanders, chief of staff for Elgin School District U-46, the state’s largest district outside Chicago. Sanders said the state owes it $12 million for this school year. “There is no magic pool of dollars waiting for us to swim in.”

So what did you promise the teachers with when you negotiated the contracts, including those pensions?  Where was the magic pool of dollars then?

Oh, see, that’s the fraud, and everyone involved in it both needs to get run out of town on a rail and be prosecuted.  There was no magic pool of money, but boy oh boy did those promises get made.

This is identical to what happened in this area when the School District tried to get a 1/2 cent sales tax levy for replacement of refrigerators and roofs on school buildings.  Refrigerators and roofs that were installed years ago, which the school district knew damn well had a service life and therefore should have an impound account that is funded every year so as to provide that “pool of money” with which to replace the now-worn-out items.

But the district instead effectively stole those funds and spent them elsewhere by not allocating them to that impound account in the first place, thereby allowing the district to spend money it didn’t factually have.  Once the shortfall became apparent years later they bleated to the people and asked that we pay twice.

The people here (wisely) said “No — you did not properly budget and set aside these funds, you figure out where to take it from and restore fiscal sanity.”  My personal recommendation is that the board members and administrators be fired and/or have their salaries confiscated, including that of the Superintendent, until it’s covered.  After all, what you really need in a school is teachers, a janitor to sweep the floor, a principal and perhaps one vice principal, and one person to answer the phones.  Everything else may be nice, but in terms of actually educating kids it’s not required.

“I’m trying to see how it equates to good education, sound education, fiscal education, for students if you want the best for them,” said Pam Manning, superintendent of Cahokia School District 187, already on the state’s “financial watch list” because of a shaky budget condition. “We need more services, or at least need to maintain the services we’ve been providing.”

No, you need to stop stealing the people’s money.  When you make promises you must be prepared to fulfill them.  If you can’t reasonably figure out where the funds are going to come from and secure them, then you can’t make the promises.  This called accountability and we the people need to start demanding it from top to bottom.

You’ve made promises you can’t cover and now you want everyone else to take care of that for you.

The correct answer to that request, incidentally, is “No.”

Oh no, it’s just Greece, right?  Uh, wrong.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary is seeking an international credit line of 15 to 20 billion ($20 to $26.3 billion) euros, the secretary of state heading the prime minister’s office, Mihaly Varga, was quoted on Saturday as saying.

Hungary is seeking backup from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union to reassure investors it has financing even if it gets cut off from debt markets later this year.

Uh huh.  Remember that Hungary has been having some wee problems of late with regard to its government, the EU and IMF.

Hungarian bond yields are over 11%, which is not good at all in a world of ZIRP.  This effectively precludes most borrowing.

The problem with these pleas and “rescues” is that they continue to belie the real problem, which is that governments cannot continually borrow more than they tax.  It is simply not possible on a long-term basis for this to work, as compounding eventually gets you.  It might not immediately, but in the longer run it will with certainty.

Do I expect Hungary to eschew that which it must?  Not right away, and perhaps not at all until there’s a disaster, but in the end all governments must reconcile their budgets to this underlying fact — like it or not.

A default by any other name is still a default. When Greece defaults, the  inter-connected chains of credit default swaps will fall like dominoes.

For your Superbowl half-time reading, here is a brief summary of the situation in Europe:

1. Greece is poised to default, the end-game everyone anticipated in 2011. It is not a matter of if but when.

2. That default will trigger credit-default swap contracts, derivatives known as CDS that protect the owner from events such as default.

3. This will implode the shadow-banking system and the visible banking system, as those who sold the CDS (financial institutions) do not have enough cash or assets to pay the owners of the CDS.

4. The general idea is that sovereign default is very unlikely, so you can sell protection (CDS) against that possibility for a low premium, and cover that bet by buying your own protection from another player.

5. If that player (counterparty) can’t pay you off, then you can’t meet your obligations on the CDS you originated and sold.

6. So the failure of one counterparty can trigger a systemic failure akin to a row of dominoes being toppled by the fall of one domino.

7. To avoid such a CDS-triggered collapse, the European Union and its proxy agencies (European Central Bank, etc.) are attempting to call a default by Greece something other than “default.”

8. This will theoretically keep the first domino–a credit-default swap–from falling.  In other words, if we call a default by some other name, then it isn’t a default.

9.  Those absorbing the losses caused by a Greek default (and let’s stipulate that this references owners of Greek debt who bought CDS as insurance, not speculators who leveraged CDS at 30X the actual bond value) will want to cash in their insurance, i.e.  the CDS they own against a Greek default. They have every incentive to demand a default be  recognized as a default. If they accept the official plan to avoid calling a default a default, then all the losses will be theirs and none will fall to the counterparties who sold them  the CDS.

10. How is this fair?

11. The official response of avoiding default is focused on self-preservation, not fairness, justice or the rule of law.

12. The system can be likened to a pool of $100 bets leveraged off $5 in cash. If every bet is covered perfectly, then it’s somewhat like $95 in bets being paid by passing $5 around–much like the famous email that depicts all debts in a small town being paid by the same $5.

13. In the real world, somebody’s bets and insurance will not be perfect and their obligations will exceed their cash on hand. In other words, they will end up with $3 and owe $5. They will default and the dominoes will start falling as everyone down the line doesn’t receive their $5 counterparty payoff.

14. Empires tend to fall when the interests of their Elites diverge.  We are at such a point in the global financial Empire.

15. “Extend and pretend” has “worked” for almost 2 years. If Greece defaults and it is recognized by even one player as a default, then the system will quickly unravel and cash/dollars will be king until the deleveraging runs its course.

Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds