Daily Economics 20/04/09 - US debt problem

For those impatient - there is an estimate of Ireland Inc debt at the bottom... that can be compared with the US debt...

What is going on with the US economy? I expected the figures coming out on economic front (and earnings front outside the Federally financed banks) to be bad, but today's numbers are poor by all measures. According to the Fed's Conference Board, the index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3% in March, after a dip of 0.2% in February (revised up). But decomposition is telling:

• Building permits were the largest negative contributor in March, as builder have finally started to cut production in honest - much of this backed by the decreases in new starts, as finance committed to projects in 2008, signed for in 2007, has dried up. This is a welcome sign, as outstanding stock of unsold houses has to be pared back before any real recovery (as opposed to cliff-and-bottom bouncing) takes place.
• Stock prices, and the index of supplier deliveries also registered large negative contributions to the index in March, showing that real activity is continuing to deteriorate at, seasonally significantly faster rate. There is no spring bounce for now, and these are leading indicators, suggesting that any recovery upwards will require some new alchemy from the White House and the Fed.
  
• The real money supply was the largest positive contributor as the Feds printing presses were working overnight amidst deflation. And another sizeable positive push came from the yield spread - a sign that some of the future support might be waning - yield spreads narrowing is underpinned by lower Fed rates (not by healthier financial system, for banks are continuing to drop dead at an accelerating rate - 25 as of today in 2009 alone, and counting). So as the Fed has run out of options (short of setting negative nominal rates - e.g issuing loans with a principal repayment at a discount to the face value of the issued loan) and spreads are likely to start widening into the future as: (a) Uncle Sam's borrowing will remain buyoant, (b) debt refinancing will run rampant, and (c) Fed's helicopter drops of money thin out.
  

"There have been some intermittent signs of improvement in the economy in April," per Ken Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board. Overall, six of the 10 indicators were negative contributors, three were positive, and one was steady. Say what, Ken? Picture below is a telling one:
What Ken-omist from the Fed is referring to is the renewed momentum in the deterioration of the Leading Econ Indicators index that started in December (after a short 1-month flat) and has been going steady through March. The index has failed to bounce up in consecutive 9 months. Current Economic Conditions index is now converging downward to LEI, suggesting that unless things improve significantly in the next couple of months, simple psychology of the markets will lead to a renewed push down on LEI (the vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies might commence).

Overall, in the six months to April 1, the index fell 2.5%, it declined 1.4% in the previous six months before that.

So about the only thing positive I can report has nothing to do with the Fed's own indicators, but with the decline in the new unemployment claims reported last week. If the decline persists for the next 6 weeks or so, then using comparisons with the last 6 recessions, we are at the point of inflection in economic recovery sometime now. But it is a big if, since the series can be reasonably volatile and their deviations from the monthly moving average can be significant (see here).

And here is a good chart on inflation expectations for the US (from the Fed: here) - care to argue this? or shall we start taking pressure on commodities-linked stuff in preparation for the new 2% inflation bout?


Paul Krugman on Ireland today: a good one from Krugman here. But an even better one from a comment to his article by PMD: "...Krugman and most of our own home-grown economists appear to regard cuts in public spending as being the same as tax increases. They have a model in their head with credit and debit on two sides and they are studiously agnostic about how the government should go about balancing the books. Those of us who work in the real economy know that increasing taxes on the productive part the economy - and that's 'productive' as in 'productivity' as in the only way to generate real wealth as in the only way to escape recession / depression - will dampen its productivity and, therefore, harm its capacity to generate wealth in the future - i.e. escape recession. All this 'sharing the pain' talk is just code for: we'll confiscate private sector wealth in order to avoid reform in the public sector. You can imagine a rich Titanic passenger on a half empty lifeboat blowing his nail and calling out to a dying pleb in the sea 'Chilly for this time of year. Isn't it?' I profoundly disagree with the reversion to the cargo cult school of economic management: let rich foreigners turn up and employ us. What on earth do we pay these mandarins for if the best they can come up with is 'something will turn up'? There are core domestic issues of productivity that are not being addressed." I couldn't have put it any better than this myself!

Lorenzo 'the Not-so-Magnificent' Smaghi... (or should it be Maghi?) is ECB's latest loose cannon... In an interview with FT Deutschland, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi of the ECB predicted that the Euro-zone recovery will follow the mirror image of a J-curve – a shallow recovery after the fall. Ok, I agree with this. In fact, I have warned for some months now that any recovery in the Euro-zone and Ireland in particular will be shallow and slow and will leave the continent at the trend growth rate of below 0.75% GDP, with Ireland at below 1% GDP pa. ECB's latest would-be-forecaster also 'predicted' a persistent and significant fall in potential growth rates going forward. Another thing Smaghi went into is inflation expectations: "'Inflation expectations are moving upwards (in euro area, U.S. and U.K.); no expectations of deflation," said the text of his presentation. Again, another theme I've been hammering about for some time now.

But... (S)maghi appeared to suggest that non-conventional monetary policy action would be likely soon, without giving any details. What this might be? Negative nominal interest rates? Unlikely. A policy of accepting all and any bonds issued by the member states? Brian Lenihan can wish... It is all but inevitable that the ECB will have to rescue Ireland and some of the other APIIGS. Such a rescue will have to be unconventional and not only because there is no existent convention within the Euro framework for doing so, but because as Smaghi stated in his presentation, households across Europe have lost faith in sustainability of public finances and have started to hoard cash. Nowhere more apparent than in Ireland. After surviving through a decade of anaemic (embarrassingly low, by some standards) economic growth, this is the second greatest threat point for the Euro.

A pat on the back: A stoodgy, but occasionally interesting quasi-official Euro economics website/blog: EuroIntelligence.com has the following 'news' item today. A long recession, a shallow recovery: The IMF has prereleased chapters 3 and 4 of its WEO. This is from the introduction of chapter 3 “…recessions associated with financial crises tend to be unusually severe and their recoveries typically slow. Similarly, globally synchronized recessions are often long and deep, and recoveries from these recessions are generally weak. Countercyclical monetary policy can help shorten recessions, but its effectiveness is limited in financial crises. By contrast, expansionary fiscal policy seems particularly effective in shortening recessions associated with financial crises and boosting recoveries. However, its effectiveness is a decreasing function of the level of public debt. These findings suggest the current recession is likely to be unusually long and severe and the recovery sluggish.”

Imagine this! See here for March 3 post that uses the exact precursor to Chapter 3 release... Oh dear, sometimes it is worth checking if a 'new' release is actually 'news'...

ESB's disgraceful entry into 'stimulus' economics has moved on to the next stage. As I noted in two earlier notes, the ESB plan for 'jobs creation' is an affront to the idea of competition and consumer interests (here), as well as an insensitive move at the time of economic hardship for many (here). Now, as today's IT reports (here) we are also looking at more Georgian Dublin demolitions... Is this predatory and arrogant monopoly ever going to brought under normal market controls? And is Irish Times ever going to become a paper where journalism stops being platitudinous to state monopolies and all-and-any 'Green' / 'sustainable' labels and starts seeing the likes of ESB for what they really are? And per wages and earnings in ESB... well, indeed in the entire public sector, see this excellent blog post from Ronan Lyons here. A must read.


A late Sunday thought - with Obamamama economics, how much debt is the US economy carrying?

Well, there are many sources of debt:

• National debt = currently at $11.2 trillion (per US National Debt Clock calculator here);
• Federal bailout commitments = so far set at $12.8 trillion (up from $4 trillion left by the previous Administration, per March 30 report by Bloomberg here);
• Federal entitlements commitments under Medicare and Social Security obligations = $52 trillion in current debt from the Federal Government to the system or $117 trillion in the present value of unfunded obligations (per National Center for Policy Analysis, as of December 2009, here);
• Private sector corporate and financial liabilities = $17 trillion (per US Federal Reserve numbers of December 2008, here)
• Private households liabilities $13.8 trillion (ditto), mortgages $10.5 trillion (here and a breakdown here) = $24.8 trillion.
  

Total = $117.8 - 172.8 trillion or 829.6-1,217% of 2008 GDP!
Financed at the current 30-year US Treasury rate of 3.79%, the interest payment on this debt alone will be $4,465-6,549 bln per annum - up to 46.1% of the country annual GDP.

We are not considering the pesky issue of the derivative instruments issued within the US system. These are notional debts, but they can come back and bite you as well. Per the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (here), as of the end of Q4 2008 US held:

• interest rate derivatives to the tune of $164 trillion;
• CDS at $15.9 trillion,
• other stuff: FX, equities, commodities -based derivatives, to the total of $20.5 trillion

So Derivatives grand total of $200.4 trillion.

Which brings US total debt obligations to $318.2-373.2 trillion = upwards of 2,628% of US GDP!

Considering that the US current population is 306,251,267, the total US debt per capita is between $1.31mln and $1.22mln, with a servicing cost of up to $46,185 per annum per person!

And amidst this, Obama is talking traditional Democratic drivel of 'spending the economy out of a recession'? While Paul Krugman is wailing that not enough is being spent?

Can anyone really doubt that inflation is around the corner? If so, consider the above figures and do tell me how can the US get out of this corner without a massive debt write-off via inflation and sustained devaluation? Dollar at 1.75 to the Euro in two years time and interest rates in double digits?

Now on to Ireland Inc's debt:

• National debt = currently at €54.245bn (per NTMA here);
• Government bailout commitments = so far set at €400bn (here) under Banks Guarantee Scheme, €70bn (my estimate in the forthcoming B&F article) under NAMA, €87bn (here); Sub-total = €557bn;
  
• Public entitlements commitments under Pensions, Social Welfare and Health obligations = €75bn (Pensions: here), €66.3bn (€38bn per annum spending on health, wages & social welfare taken over 30 years horizon with deficit of 10% per annum over term) in the present value of unfunded obligations; Sub-total = €141.6bn;
  
• Private sector corporate and financial liabilities = Monetary Financial Institutions: €810bn, inc of IFSC, corporate sectors: €551bn; Direct Investment: €183.6bn (here); Sub-total = €1,544.6bn
  
• Private households liabilities (per my earlier estimates here) = €150bn.
  

Total = €2.45 trillion or 1,440% of 2009 GDP!
Financed at the current 5-year rate over 30 year horizon (roll-over) of 4.5%, the interest payment on this debt alone will be €110.25bn per annum - up to 64.9% of the country annual GDP. Put differently - the debt/liabilities of this economy are currently amounting to ca €555,048 per every person living in Ireland...

Daily Economics 18/04/09: Nationwide fall(bail)out

Nationwide - systemic importance?
In today's Irish Times (here), Mr Cowen makes a ludicrous assertion that Irish Nationwide - or as we can call it - Irish Nationvile. How, Mr Cowen? Care to explain?

Irish Nationvile is not a systemically important organization. It is a mutually-owned closed shop (officially) or Fingleton's fiefdom (unofficially) that has done much good to this economy in the past as a safe-house for dodgy directors loans from the Anglo, a default bank for the most speculative developers, and an exemplary case study for corporate mis-governance. By its size, it is roughly equivalent to 10% of the property loans held by the two laregst banks, or just 6.4% of the property-related loans of our 6-banks system. It has virtually no productive net assets outside property sector so should the society go under, the economy of Ireland will hardly notice if, say, €8-10bn in performing loans were to be bought at a discount by the likes of HSBC or Barclays or Ulster Bank or NIB or whoever steps to the plate. Even BofI and AIB might want to step in and pick up depositors and good lending assets from the ruin.

But letting Nationvile sink - publicly and swiftly - will send two important signals to the international markets and to domestic voters. The first one will be to tell the world that Irish Exchequer is starting to manage its downside risk - throwing Nationwide out of the umbrella of state bailouts will make the case for judging Irish Government banks policies as being informed by economic efficiency rationale, not political expediency that Mr Cowen is so skilled in. The second one will be to tell the voters that there is at least some bound to the recklessness with which the Government is willing to use taxpayers hard earned cash to help its own cronies.

So, in my view, let it sink. Now!


ESB - another systemically important waster?
The Royal Bank of Scotland is toning down its flash headquarters to bring the building down to the early realities of the crisis. Many banks and large companies (including some Irish) are turning away from the posh offices they were planning to move to, but not ESB. The state monopoly that has milked its customers for years (and still does) with the second highest cost of electricity in Europe is planning to 'renovate' its (admittedly ugly) headquarters in Dublin as a package of 'stimulus' economics. To create jobs, so to speak. This amazing fact did not trace across Irish official media (Irish Times and RTE) reporting on the arrogant, in-your-face monopoly's last week's announcement.

Daily Economics 17/04/09: GGP & A dead cat bounce?

An open letter in Irish Times: here
Some of you have questioned my logic (sanity) in calling for nationalization of Irish banks. Here is a simple reason that does not involve economic theory. After the mini-Budget, it became all too apparent that Mr Lenihan and his boss are hell-bent on doing two things:

1. destroying the private economy in this country, and
2. using - without any restraint - our (public) money to prop up their power base (public sector unions, developers and banks).

I have less of a problem with the last two targets - at the very least, they are not subtracting from the real economic activity as our public sector unions do. But, following Ronald Regan's dictum (hat tip to M.E.S), if we have to give them public money, we must take the deeds.

My son, and your children - including those yet to be conceived or adopted, you, me, all of us working in the private sector are going to pay for NAMA. Inevitably! But I would like to get at least an IOU in return. Why? I do not trust this Government (and the opposition) to actually repay me my cash. If NAMA is a success, I would like my tax money back with interest, not for it to stash returns on my cash into another piggy-bank fund for public sector pensions and payoffs. If it is a failure, I would like to own the remaining pieces, not let it rest with Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan who will be able to liquidate these NAMA assets to, you've guessed it, payoff their public sector cronies.

I would also like the shareholders and bondholders in banks to take a hit - over the years they placidly supported the disastrous decisions being made by their banks boards. Now, if my cash were to be used to undo their reckless complacency, they should be taken out altogether (in the case of shareholders) and be forced to pay up to the recapitalization and clean up levels (in the case of bondholders). The latter can be squeezed via a special one-off bond tax or via a direct cut in their coupon payments.

The only way to achieve this return of money to that taxpayers is via a voucher-style disbursal of the banks assets to the households. And this requires first a nationalization. Done...


GGP - the end of a lengthy saga and the start of a new chapter in defaults
At least one of the followers to this blog will know that back in the summer 2008 I wrote a quick note on GGP, valuing the fund at the time to be worth 'asymptotically zero' on the back of a belief that (a) its debt levels and maturity structure were beyond any repair, (b) its most recent $14bn acquisition, financed exclusively by the debt, was an act of suicide, (c) its management team did not know what they were doing over the last three years of operations, and (d) that the commercial real estate troubles cycle was not over, and that it will indeed come back full circle.

Apart from finally seeing the straw giant of REITs collapse under its own weight, today's bankruptcy filing by GGP tells me that the (d) part is now in full swing. This is timely as it is likely this time around to coincide with the peaking of the Alt-A mortgages refinancing, which, in my view, will drive US housing markets deeper into trouble. The question is what will Obama administration do about the new wave of households defaults, especially since this wave is not about sub-prime lending, but about ordinary American families taking a hit.

What is even more worrisome from my point of view is that the new wave of housing/ commercial property collapse will inevitably stress financials. This is tricky for a fragile economy hanging to the ledge created by the recent 6-weeks rally.

Just imagine for a second what dumping of some 158 GGP-owned shopping malls across the US might do to commercial property values there at the time when the market for commercial transactions is virtually non-existent. An idea that Simon Property Group - the largest US REIT still standing - will pick up some of GGPs properties is hardly a point worth considering. Simon is not exactly in a rude health itself and its tenants are suffering. With 158 new properties being in fire sale under Chapter 11 filing and another 42 GGP-owned properties waiting to be sold off as well, what can happen to retail malls yields other than a steep fall off? Prices will follow.


US Consumer Sentiment improved from 57.3 in March to 61.9 - a level that is still below the Consumer Sentiment reading of 70.3 recorded prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Alkl of the improvement was pretty much already priced into market valuations. The index of consumer expectations rose from 53.5 in march to 58.9 in April perfectly in line with the current sentiment reading.

So good news then? Not really. Look at the sentiment underlying fundamentals:

• Unemployment: in March, Michigan again scored the highest jobless rate of 12.6% and the state is dependent on consumer-driven activity (autos). Next came Oregon, 12.1%; South Carolina, 11.4%; California, 11.2% (all-time record for the state); North Carolina, 10.8% (another all-time record for the state); Rhode Island, 10.5%; Nevada, 10.4%; and Indiana, 10.0%. All of these states are either manufacturing centres or sources of soft business investment products (e.g software) - in other words, many of the states are the leading indicators of an upturn. Nine other states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment at or above 9.0%. So unemployment is not the cause of a bounce in consumer confidence;
• Equity markets: sustained bear rally is now settling into a gently declining trend, but in general, there have been some gains here. So stock market is one of the potential causes for a bounce in consumer sentiment, but it is a shaky ground for a sustained hope for consumer confidence pick up;
• Housing markets: some stabilization here over time, until yesterday's disastrous figures on new construction. It looks like the builders in the US have finally figured out (with a 12mo plus delay) that they have too much stuff on their hands already. SO housing markets are hardly a sustainable underpinning for consumer confidence;
• Personal income: personal after-tax income is falling and will continue to do so. We know that Federal taxes are rising only at the upper margin, so it is local taxes (and in particular local property taxes) and state taxes that are driving declines in personal disposable income. Either way, this is not a support base for confidence;
• Inflation: or rather deflation - with still positive near-zero interest rates, the US is far from gaining new borrowing cycle momentum, so while deflation is a net positive for consumers, positive interest rates are net negative - these cancel each other and we have no gain on support for confidence boost here.

What this really says is that fundamentally, the current bounce in Consumer Confidence is not justifiable - i.e it is a dead cat bounce. This is why the markets reaction has been relatively mild to now. QED...

Time to dump some bad risk? and ESB's rip-off 'investments'

EXCLUSIVE: Is it time to let Nationwide sink?
Here is an opportunity to show the financial world that we are serious about cleaning up the mess. It is also a good opportunity to show the world that we understand, as a country, that finance is about controlling the downside as much as exploiting the upside - in other words, that risky trades must be closed off. Nationwide is one of the riskiest plays in town - so the Government should let the stronger ones - including international banks - bid for the pieces. In other words, the Government should not mix Nationwide in with the systemic banks for nationalization or future re-capitalisations, or indeed NAMA cover.

Here are tomorrow's results from the Nationwide:

1. Loss after tax €243mln on a loan impairment charge of €464m (2007 pre-tax profit of €309mln), Operating profits €260mln
2. Total Capital at 10.2%, Core Tier 1 at 7.2% (not spectacular, but on par with other Irish banks - hardly impressive for internationals)
3. Total assets at €14.43bn - down 10% (unrealistic assessment, given equity and property markets conditions and shut down of land markets - details below)
4. Loan Book at €10.474bn - down 15% (so lending stalled, the patient is dead)
5. Customer accounts €6.785bn, so accounts cover 65% of loans - up from 59% cover in 2007 (but at what cost did Nationwide achieve this gain in cover?)
6. Cost-income ratio at 17% - the lowest among Irish financial institutions (i.e they have no soft-savings left to achieve as a cushion against future losses)
7. Liquid assets stand at €3.26bn - liquidity ratio of 24% - again, good luck to them if they think they can actually sell the stuff they hold against the loans...
8. Society reserves are at €1.2bn

"The Society did a very detailed examination of the loan book with the result that the sum allocated for provisions was a very robust figure of €464m for the year under review in line with market expectations... The Society’s loan book decreased in 2008 to €10,474m from €12,332 at the end of 2007. €1,339 of the reduction was attributable to the decline in the value of sterling; the balance was a reduction in capital balances. The commercial loan book now stands at €8,183m with the residential book at €2,291ml. As a result the total assets of the Society were reduced from €16,099m in 2007 to €14,429m in 2008."

So the impairment charge is of 3.22% of the total asset base and 4.43% of the property book. This is laughable. Also, Nationwide claims that as a part of its strategy it was actively reducing its exposure to commercial loans. But this active reduction took out at most only €331mln (16,099-14,429-1,339) in real assets, or ca 4%. This is in the time when property values fell over 20% and equity values are down more than 80%?

"Because of the reserves built up over the years from cumulative profits the Society was able to absorb the impairment provision. The Society still has total reserves of €1.2 Billion to absorb further impairment charges should they arise."

Well, now, suppose real impairment rises to 15% of the property-related loan book on commercial and 5% on residential. You have a need for €1.34bn in cash right there but you have only €1.2bn... and that is in the form of Tier 1 capital...

So are Nationwide's numbers (especially in the area of impairment) a case of exemplary management? Or of reckless 'ostrich' syndrome? You decide, but it does look to me like something is amiss. Here's what.

In 2008, Nationwide repaid some €750mln plus £500mln in debt securities, and in December 2008 it raised £325mln in new term notes maturing September 2010 (note the date?). But the beast still has €2.23bn in debt maturing in 2009 alone and "the Society plans to finance [this] through reduction of its loan book, the securitization of loans as well as the issue of new loans."

Yes, you did hear this right - securitization of loans (presumably Irish buy-to-let properties in the UK and Irish developers toxic waste in Ireland have strong market with ready buyers?). Of course they have no such hope, so in reality the Society is most likely looking for refinancing.

And here comes the confession: "the ability of the Society to raise wholesale funding on a continuing basis depends on the Government Guarantee. The Government intends in line with its previous indication to put a State guarantee in place for the future issuance of debt securities with a maturity of up to five years... The society's ability to remain a going concern and achieve its Business Plan is dependant on the continuation of Government support. As a systematically important institution Irish Nationwide was included in the guarantee Scheme. The Irish Government is committed to ensuring the continued viability and stability of systemically important credit institutions."

So here is Nationwide's survival strategy in a nutshell: "Give us more tax money! Now!"

In the end, Nationvile has €2.23bn of debt maturing this year alone and needs the extension of the Government guarantee to keep itself going. It also has an acute case of denial when it comes to potential losses it faces on its asset base and its loans, so it will need even more tax money to survive. This looks like they've gone to the markets to raise refinancing, but the markets laughed at them, they've gone to the auditors for a life-line on their NAV and they got that extension, so now its up to rich Uncle Taxpayer to rescue a systemically important private estate. Hmmm...


ESB's 'stimulus'
For shortage of time - more analysis of this is to follow, but in the nutshell, ESB announced new plans to 'create' 3,700 jobs through 2013... The Government & Opposition have welcomed the move that will see a notorious state monopoly

• using consumers' and businesses' cash (remember - it cannot pass cost reductions to its clients because it's out of town subsidiary - CER - doesn't let it)
  
• hire more grossly overpaid (remember, ESB runs a unionized closed shop with highest salaries in the entire public sector and work pracices that allow its employees draw full pay even when are asigned for years to plants producing absolutely nothing)
• to expand its dominance in the market that is so starved of competition, that much of our economy's competitiveness loss can be attributed to the ESB's existence.
  

This is a farce that passes in this country for industrial, fiscal and economic policies. Instead of breaking up a noxious monopoly, the state will allow ESB to piggy-bank the revenue it gains from ripping off its customers into 'developing new infrastructure such as smart metering and a system to allow for the recharging of electric cars'.

You might also notice that the two investment objectives are a red herring. Smart metering is already widely available and does not require any 'infrastructure' - you can install smart meter at your own home. Electric cars are about as widely spread in Ireland (or indeed anywhere else in the world) as dinosaurs. By 2013, this is unlikely to change.

Lastly, the Government has been calling for increasing ESB's and other state monopolies contributions to the Exchequer to compensate for some of the revenue losses incurred in this crisis. Now, the same Government is welcoming ESB chipping into this contribution. Who will make for the shortfall? Well, the same people who will be paying for those 3,700 new jobs to be 'created' by the ESB - you, me and the rest of taxpayers. ESB claims it can raise funding for the investment in private markets. Maybe so, but it can't raise funding for interest charges on the loans and it can't raise funding for paying lavish salaries to its new employees. At over €80,000 per average ESB job, this 'green investment' will cost the consumers some €300mln per annum in wage costs alone. Now that's what I call 'smart' metering.

WSJ today (here) has an excellent parallel story to the ESB circus.

Hush-Hush & Sweep it under the Rug: EU's latest 'transparency' move

Last week EUObserver reported an interesting story (here) about the EU Commission efforts to keep transparency at bay.

Per EUObserver report: "New rules on public access to EU documents have prompted one of the European Commission's key departments to circulate a memo warning officials to be careful about what they write in emails and advising them on how to narrowly interpret requests for information. The 15-page handbook was circulated in January to officials working in the commission directorate for trade, one of the EU's most important policy areas affecting millions of people both within and beyond the bloc.

"Each official must be aware that all his/her documents, including meeting reports and e-mails can potentially be disclosed. You should keep this in mind when writing such documents. This is particularly the case for meeting reports and emails with third parties (e.g. industry)," reads the memo.

It asks officials... to avoid making references to informal contacts, such as meals or drinks, with lobbyists. "Don't refer to the great lunch you have had with an industry representative privately or add a PS asking if he/she would like to meet for a drink." [Hold it, folks - wouldn't such a PS qualify as a solicitation of a payoff in the first place?] The document also tips off officials on how to narrow down the interpretation of a request for information. It points to a past example where a request referred to DG trade meetings with individual companies, meaning the department could avoid making public its contacts with business lobbyists."

Well, there is more the EUObserver report worth reading, but what is absolutely clear is that the EU Commission has absolutely no interest in following the spirit of the disclosure rules, preferring instead to bend the rule-book in order to conceal the extent, nature and effectiveness of lobbyists, as well as to cover up its own governance practices.

Of course, one solution to this problem is to make all information concerning EU public - including the so-called commercially-sensitive one. Taxpayers must be allowed to know who was bidding on which projects, how these bids were evaluated and judged and how the bidding companies spent their lobbying money. This will include a transparent and complete list of lobbying organizations, bureaucrats diaries and other information that can assist us, the taxpayers, in determining who dined with whom, when, why and at whose expense.

In fact, they should also be required to post the actual bills paid - in my humble opinion, if MEPs claim expenses on things like meals and entertainment, I would like to know how many lobsters were eaten in Brussels on the back of my taxes... wouldn't you?

And let's apply the same principles to our local politicians and officials...

A quintessence of Lenihan's economics

Hat tip to Linda - here is a descriptor of the logic of 'shared pain' policies that ask us all - ordinary me and you, a lavishly paid Secretary General of Department of Somethingness, a patrician head of some Quango in charge of Everythingness etc - to make sacrifices in the name of the country - to go that extra step beyond our already up-to-my-ears-in-work existence...

So what makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?
If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
is represented as:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:
H-A -R -D-W-O -R -K 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K -N -O -W-L -E-D-G-E 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%
and
A-T -T -I -T -U -D-E 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

But
B -U -L -L -S -H-I -T 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%
and
A-S -S -K -I -S-S -I -N-G 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that
While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, its the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top - all the way to Brian Lenihan's national sacrifice economics...

Ireland, ECB & Recent Commentary

Reading Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Sunday Telegraph, 12/04/09) strikes me as an interesting case-study of stranger than life UK views of ECB - a mixture of truth, more truth and, all of sudden, bizarre ranting...

Judge for yourselves: “If Ireland still controlled the levers of economic policy, it would have slashed interest rates to near zero to prevent a property collapse from destroying the banking system. The Irish Central Bank would be a founder member of the "money printing" club, leading the way towards quantitative easing a l'outrance.”

I am far from being convinced by these arguments. Given that the ECB rates are at historic lows, an independent Irish Central Bank would only have room to move on further, say, 75bps-100bps down maximum. So what would have happened in this case?

Evans-Pritchard claims that “Irish bond yields would not be soaring into the stratosphere. The central bank would be crushing the yields with a sledge-hammer, just as the Fed and the Bank of England are crushing yields on US Treasuries and gilts.”

A maximum 100bps cut in rates would imply that Irish yields on 3-year paper would fall by ca50bps from their current levels. This assumes that the markets will take the same credibility to Irish Government commitments on fiscal policy stabilization as under the ECB oversight. This is highly unlikely. Instead, I would expect Irish yields to rise to 7-8.5% range on 5-year paper – consistent with the market pricing in double-digit deficits through 2012. Has Mr Evans-Pritchard ever seen John Hurley? or the dynamic trio of our Politbureauesque Leaders? Can anyone have confidence in their governance abilities? Being bootstrapped in the long run by the ECB does have a positive impact on our credibility and not having our currency managed by the corporatist consensus Government that we have at the very least insulates us from the monetary policies of disaster.

“Dublin would be smiling quietly as the Irish exchange rate fell a third to reflect the reality of trade ties to Sterling and the dollar zone,” says Evans-Pritchard.

Ok, but how is such a devaluation consistent with yields falling for Irish bonds? Unless these bonds were issued in Euro, devaluation would have acted to increase yields as FX risk increases would have driven bond prices down. In fact, I would suspect that the fall in our currency woud be deepr than that - say 60% (30% to restore references to the UK/US and 30% to reference the unttrustworthy Government). Such a fall would wake up even Mr Hurley - pushing him to raise interest rates to stave off a run on the Punt. The yo-yo of Irish monetary-fiscal-monetary-fiscal... debacles will commence.

“Above all, Ireland would not be the lone member of the OECD club to compound its disaster by slashing child benefit and youth unemployment along with everything else in last week's "budget from Hell".” Clearly, Mr Evans-Pritchard has failed to read the Budget. Our Government did precisely the opposite of what he claims – retained excessively lavish welfare benefits and current expenditure, taxing its way through the entire fabric of the middle class earnings and wealth creation incentives. Even child benefits and youth unemployment benefits cuts that Mr Evans-Pritchard claims to be welfare cuts are predominantly transfers to the middle and lower-middle classes. Majority of our poor are on permanent (not unemployment insurance) welfare and are collecting different types of child benefits.

“But what caught my ear was his throw-away comment that prices would fall 4pc, which is to admit that Ireland is spiralling into the most extreme deflation in any country since the early 1930s. Or put another way, "real" interest rates are rocketing. This is torture for a debtors' economy. You can survive deflation; you can survive debt; but Irving Fisher taught us in his 1933 treatise "Debt Deflation causes of Great Depressions" that the two together will eat you alive.”

I agree with Evans-Pritchard on this: real interest rates and the combination of debt and deflation will be drivers of misery for years to come. What is even more egregious is that our debt is actually growing, not shrinking and that this process will accelerate as Brian Lenihan pillages through our pockets.

“Mr Lenihan hopes to shield banks from the calamitous consequences by creating a buffer agency. It will soak up €80bn to €90bn in toxic debt - or 50pc of GDP. He borrowed the plan from Sweden's bank rescues in the early 1990s, but overlooks the key point - it was not the bail-out that saved Sweden's financial system, the country recovered only by ditching its exchange peg and regaining its freedom of action.”

Evans-Pritchard forgets couple other things that also helped to save Sweden – a rapid growth in the US and subsequently global economies during the 1994-1998 period that helped Sweden’s exports and capital inflows, and a robust programme of reforms that saw large scale privatizations and markets openings in many sectors of previously state-controlled economy.

Nationalize or else?..

I just received a good comment to an earlier post (here) that warrants a separate attention.

"Regarding NAMA, it seems to me that the one big advantage to this scheme is that it means someone will lend us enough money to cover the bank's bad debts, via the sleight of hand of issuing government bonds to the banks and then them redeeming this in hard cash from the ECB. I strongly suspect the Irish government would be hard pressed to borrow this kind of money from anywhere else.

What I don't understand is why we don't first just nationalize the banks. The question of proper pricing then becomes less of an issue. We'd be just moving money between different arms of the state.

One thing I've wondered about: can this device for swapping government bonds for euros only be done by a commercial entity? If we first nationalized the banks would such a move then be precluded? If so, maybe the government do secretly intend to largely nationalize them at a later stage after the cash has already been received from the ECB. I do hope there's some technical reason like this for not first nationalizing the banks, that the reasons are not purely political, because I've no confidence that the taxpayers will end up paying a fair price for these assets. Finbar."

There are several arguments in favour of nationalizing first, then deleveraging bad assets, recapitalizing and re-floating the banks. And there are several arguments against such an approach. I will first deal with arguments in favor of nationalization...

Pro-nationalization arguments:

1. Clarity of valuations: banks are not going to willingly reveal all pertinent information concerning loans quality to NAMA, so nationalizing them and then opening their books will provide much needed clarity concerning fundamentals relevant to valuations and pricing;
2. One-shot recapitalization: whatever price NAMA sets for impaired and stressed assets, such a price will either be too low to allow the banks to continue operating without further recapitalization injections, or too high to allow the Exchequer to recoup significant share of losses. Nationalizing the banks will resolve the problem, as capital requirements can be dropped significantly under a public guarantee on publicly-owned banks. The upside here is significant (see below);
   
3. Ownership-liability symmetry: under nationalization, ownership of banks assets will be fully coincident with the holder of liabilities - the State. This prevents a situation where taxpayers money is being used to underwrite private shareholders and bondsholders objectives;
4. Bond holders can get a haircut: under nationalization scheme, the Government can impose a stamp duty on bondholders in Irish banks, allowing for a partial recovery of funding and imposing a haircut on banks bondholders (currently covered by a blanket taxpayers'-financed guarantee);
5. Maximizing recovery for the taxpayers: if the objective of NAMA is to deliver value to the taxpayers, while deleveraging the banks balance sheets, nationalization, with a clear pre-commitment by the state to disburse banks equity via a voucher-based privatization within say 3-5 years will deliver both (see below for an outline of the scheme);
   
6. Avoiding discriminatory treatment of individual loans: Under NAMA arrangement, some developers / business owners that have performing loans against them might not want to face an arbitrary transfer of their loans to NAMA. This might be a litigious issue that can be fully resolved by an outright nationalization of the banks;
7. Change of the guard: Under nationalization, the Government will have a full right to change the executive structure of the banks and their boards to bring in new blood to run these institutions, breaking away with legacy issues in management.

Voucher scheme
To pre-commit to such a scheme, the Government can issue 3 or 5 year options on shares of the banks. For example, a part of existent equity in AIB can be converted into options at a price on the day of nationalization. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that nationalization takes place on May 4, 2009.

Suppose that the Government commits to voucher-privatizzing 50% of the value of shares, retaining 50% shares in own account. April 30 closing price for AIB is €X. The European-style call options are issued on May 4, 2009 at an exercise price of €X with maturity date of, say, May 4, 2012.

The Government re-floats a part of its share holding in AIB on May 4, 2012 (Swedish Government retained ca25% of the banks shares on own account after re-privatization, so Irish Exchequer might want to do something similar). This sets the expiration price on AIB shares at S. If S>X, households holding options will exercise them, collecting S-X in profit. If not, they will forefeit any gains with no loss.

Two questions arise concerning such transaction:

• How the vouchers should be disbursed? My preference is to issue vouchers on a flat-rate basis to all households in Ireland in order to achieve a voucher-distribution that is reflective of the economic stimulus in line with an across-the-board tax cut;
• What will happen to AIB shares when vouchers are exercised? Nothing: markets at IPO will be pricing in an inflow of shares from the households as it will be pre-announced in advance.
  

The Government can collect a special rate CGT on such profit realization at, say, 30%, so that in effect there will be a 0.3*(S-X) payout to the Exchequer in addition to the retained shares value.

The upside to capitalization savings

Banks equity capital (BEC) = assets net of liabilities must legally not fall below 8% of the Risk-Weighted Assets (crudely for any given asset - e.g a loan or a bond - held by the bank, RWA =risk weight*asset value=RW*AV).

At the end of 2008 both banks hold ca €80bn in property loans of various quality. Not all of these loans will be earmarked for NAMA, so, having no better guidance from the NAMA itself, assume that the banks would want to off-load ca 3/5ths of this amount or €48bn.

(How do I get to this number? AIB has total assets of €182bn, RWA of €116bn, RW of 116/182= 63.7%, BEC €9.28bn and the actual Tier 1 capital of €9.9bn. BofI has assets of €204bn, RWA of €134bn, RW of 65.7%, BEC requirement of €10.72bn against the actual T1 capital of €10.1bn. Note that RW(BofI)>RW(AIB) implies lower quality of the BofI book. Prior to the first round of recapitalization, combined RWA €250bn, BEC Tiers 1&2 requirement of €20bn (0.08*250bn) just covered by the actual Teir 1 held. Any change in the NAV of underlying assets would have triggered a rise in RW thus driving the banking system below the 8% requirement, so the Government injected €7bn, thereby providing for the €87bn RWA cushion and raising Tier 1 capital to 10.8%. While sounding like a high number, this is pittance compared to the US and UK trend toward raising T1 ratios to 12-14% that would require a further injection of €3-8bn in cash, assuming there has been no deterioration in the assets quality since the end of 2008. Further note that total 6-banks property exposure ex Poland for AIB is €165bn. So far, we do not know how much NAMA will take on, but in the case of Securum - Sweden's bad bank - only took on non-performing loans. Now, AIB assumes max 25% non-performing loans on total development & property investment loan book, with current running non-performing loans at 3.5%, so our €48bn assumption is about coincident with the ca 25% non-performing loans assumption on property exposure across the 6 banks).

As Government bonds carry a RW=0, the value of NAMA bonds replacing specific assets will be excluded from RWA calcualtions. If NAMA buys €Xbn in loans at discount d%, then banks will get to write off €Xbn of assets, get €(1-d)*Xbn in state bonds in return and face a net cost of €dXbn to their capital, so that the combined banks RWA becomes €(250-(1-d)X)bn against Tier 1 capital of €27bn post re-capitalization. Writing off €dXbn of the value of the loans will hit the banks straight into their book value, thus cutting their equity capital - and directly hit their Tier 1 capital as well.

So Tier 1=27bn-dX=8% of RWA=250-(1-d)X. In other words, 0.08*[250-(1-d)X]=27-dX. Now, solving for discount factor:
d=[7+0.08X]/(1.08X).

If the Government wants to buy 3/5ths of the property-related loans, X=€48bn and d=20.9% - a scenario that would see the state issuing €38bn in new bonds - over 1/2 of the entire current Government debt.

Analysts estimate that the total loans impairments across BofI and AIB can run between €19-25bn. Adverse selection under the voluntary NAMA scheme imply that the banks will dump the lowest quality assets first. This means that under the scheme of 60% of loans being purchased by NAMA, the cost of the scheme - €38bn will be underwriting the asset base with expected recovery of just €48bn-19 or 25bn = 23-29bn, making an immediate loss to the taxpayers of €9-15bn.

Under nationalization scheme, the Government can blend assets at its own choosing, spreading the loss-implying assets across the books and it can drive T1 capital to 6% if it wants to. This would imply that, under an unbiased weighting scheme, NAMA will get €11.4-15bn in loss-inducing assets against the book that has
d=[14.9+0.06X]/(1.06X)=[14.9+0.06*48]/(1.06*48)=35%
costing the Exchequer €31.2bn in new bonds for an asset base with underlying recovery of €33-36.4bn - a nice expected profit of €1.8-5.2bn.

And this is the exact value of nationalization...

Arguments against nationalization will be dealt with in the follow up... (I need a smoke break!)

Daily Economics 14/04/09

University Quality & Earnings: this week's paper "University Quality and Graduate Wages in the UK" (IZA Discussion paper 4043, available here) estimates the relationship between the quality of UK universities and earnings of their graduates. From the abstract: "We examine the links between various measures of university quality and graduate earnings in the United Kingdom. We explore the implications of using different measures of quality and combining them into an aggregate measure. Our findings suggest a positive return to university quality with an average earnings differential of about 6 percent for a one standard deviation rise in university quality. However, the relationship between university quality and wages is highly non-linear, with a much higher return at the top of the distribution. There is some indication that returns may be increasing over time."

Of course, these findings present a much expected dilemma for Irish education system. Over proliferation of degrees-issuing organizations: from ITs to various private colleges and state support for increasing the quantity of graduates and post-graduates produced by our education system have done nothing to improve the quality of degrees in Ireland. With only 3 universities making it into top 1,000 world rankings, Ireland is hardly in the league of top performance by the quality of our research or post-graduate supervision. With less than 1/2 of the top professorial staff actually teaching students, we are not in the top league of teaching either. What have we been paying for over the last 15 years when it comes to the third level education?


Good & Bad Volatility: Before news, a quick note for those of you who are interested in academic finance. Per materials I have covered in my recent MSc course on Investment Theory, here is an interesting study of volatility designed to deal with the issue of skewness. The author argues that asymmetric nature of distribution of conditional returns (skewness) is predicated on the existence of two different dynamic processes underlying volatility of returns. In other words, the author tests whether positive returns volatility and negative returns volatility are driven by different dynamic processes. Good read.

Here is another interesting paper, from different field: "Do More Friends Mean Better Grades?: Student Popularity and Academic Achievement" from RAND looks at 'peer interactions' (socializing) role in student academic achievement. The results indicate that, controlling for endogenous friendship formation results in a negative short term effect of social capital accumulation. In other words, social interactions crowd out activities that improve academic performance. Who would have thought that hanging out at frat parties, attending football matches and going out boozing were supposed to be good for academic achievement in the first place, you might ask? The paper has tons of references to the studies that actually claimed this to be the case...


Thin newsfront today due to Easter break, but the US markets have started another week of the ongoing prolonged (some would say overextended and overbought) rally with a small correction. Despite ending trading in the negative, the markets held firm above 8,000 mark - psychology in action. So it's a 'green shoots' theme for now.

Goldman Sachs reported some good results on higher earnings and revenue and announced commencement of a $5bn common shares issue. GS has been a relative out-performer for the sector since the beginning of the crisis. GS said net earnings to March 31 were $1.8bn ($3.39 a share), compared to $1.5bn ($3.23 a share) in the same period a year earlier. This beats (by 2:1 margin) the analysts forecasts. Analysts expected earnings of $1.64 a share, according to Thomson Reuters data. Revenue net of interest expense rose to $9.4bn from $8.3bn. It is hard to estimate how much of this increase came from lower interest rates and access to preferential (TARP etc) lending. GS said that it intends to use proceeds of the $5bn shares issue to help redeem "all of the TARP capital." Good news indeed.

Wells Fargo & GS however are not enough to convince me that we are in a bounce off the bottom. Rather, it looks to me like a cyclical bear rally is upon us, driven by the simple shift of liquidity out of fixed income, commodities and cash and into equities. Thus, the volumes are starting to fall and it is worth tracing this dynamic:
most importantly, see the volumes. Needless to say - once the support folds, liquidity will outflow from equities and the new rally momentum will move onto commodities (assuming the 'green shoots' are still green) or to fixed income (should corporate reporting season turns out nastier than we expect).

And this view is pretty much coincident with the macro outlook predicted by Lary Summers (here): "I think the sense of a ball falling off the table -- which is what the economy has felt like since the middle of last fall -- I think we can be reasonably confident that that's going to end within the next few months and you will no longer have that sense of freefall," said Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council. The recovery is likely to be slowed by "substantial downdrafts" in the economy. "Economies don't go from losing 600,000 jobs a month to a terribly happy path overnight."


Russian markets rally and this means inflation is just around the corner... Yes, I do mean Inflation West of Oder, not in Russia. How? Russian stocks advanced to a five-month high last week, driven by investors taking inflation hedge against oil price increases. RTS index closed up 6.6% at 810.90, breaching 800 mark for the first time in almost 5 months. Ruble-denominated index Micex also rallied. The latest rally brings overall annual gains to 28% since January 2009, beating by 16 percentage points global MSCI emerging markets index. Two big gainers were: state-controlled OAO Sberbank +12% on the strengthening of global finance shares and the largest independent oil producer OAO Lukoil +6.7% on the back of price of oil consolidating above $50pb.

French Leafs of Green? I am less swayed by the claims that the French economy is starting to show signs of stabilization (see the story here). Why? All the data underlying the claim is related to industrial activities that experienced significant - extraordinarily deep - contractions in recent months. A technical bounce is long overdue and signals nothing in terms of bottoming-out. In addition, French data usually is less volatile than that of the US, simply due to significant persistence around the trend. This means shorter falls and smaller rises, shallower recessions that are more prolonged. Timing-wise, I would not anticipate France to come out of the slump before Germany and Germany will lag the US. The former conjecture is simply based on the lack of investment capacity in France internally and the lags in investment inflows into France relative to the US and BRICS. The latter conjecture is based on the nature of two economies - US growth will restart once US consumers de-leverage (a process that is underway for some time now), German economy will restart when foreigners start buying luxury durable goods. This, in turn, cannot take place before the US consumers recover their demand for smaller consumption items...

Daily dose of fun... Courtesy of www.TheDailyStuff.ie is the following test for budding photo journalists out there: You are on an assignment to photograph flood-striken Dublin.
You shoot Sandymount and waves spilling onto the strand. Liffey waters raging to the bay.
You see a man swept by the current, rushed out to the sea ahead. You suddenly realize who it is... It's Brian Cowen! You notice that the raging waters are about to take him under. You think to yourself, you can save the life of Brian, or you can get a Pulitzer Prize winning photo.

QUESTION and please give an honest answer: Would you select
(A) a high contrast colour shot
or (2) a classic black & white?


More to come later...

Daily Economics 10/04/09: Rappers want Euros

Taxpayer champions?
An excellent argument by David Quinn on the need for someone to step out of the shadows and become a taxpayers champion (here). FG to the front, suggests David. Most likely. But in the end, in my view, even Sinn Fein will do? Or a backbenchers'-led revolt in the FF. The country is now at its knees and the ZanuFF's leadership is so out of touch with reality, Cowen is telling us - private sector workers battered by unemployment, wage cuts, higher taxes and unbearable debts - that public sector employees know pain endured by the economy first hand. "I believe that the reality of the crisis we face as a society is particularly evident to public servants who are dealing at first-hand with the consequences – personal, social and economic – of our current difficulties,” said our out of touch leader (here). Tell me Brian - how? Through their jobs-for-life, strike-for-any-reason, guaranteed-pensions, increments-wage-rises, Partnership-giveaways, excessive-holidays, take-your-time-to-do-anything positions?


Consumer prices... deflation is of little help to the consumers: Per yesterday's figures on Irish CPI, see my comment in today's Irish Independent (here). And a quick comment to the Wall Street Journal from me relating to the latest Gov plan for a 'bad' bank (here).


And Gerard O'Neill has an excellent post on Partnership (here). Stockholm Syndrome at the IBEC and:
"Oh, I forgot: there's the Enterprise Stabilisation Fund - a grand total of €50 million this year. Let's work it out: say there's 1,000 companies eligible for support (about par with the numbers Enterprise Ireland works with every year). That equates to €50,000 in support - or stabilisation - for each company. Jaysus lads, this time next year we'll be millionaires..."
Actually it is even worse - of the €50mln, only €25mln is in new allocations to DETE, the other €25mln is coming from somewhere else - already in existence. And there was no support for export credits - a mad lunacy of the Government that is willing to waste billions on bad developer loans, but pinches an odd €10mln to provide short-term credit to companies with exports waiting at the dock and willing buyers on the other end. Instead of this virtually risk-free financing, we have the net 'stimulus package' is €25mln - a slap in the face to private sector Ireland and a clear indication of the arrogance and incompetence at the head of DETE.


A solution at hand for Cowen, Lenihan and Coughlan... Here is an excerpt from the post (here) by a celebrity masseuse, Doctor Dot:
"Tonight... I massaged the best looking President on earth, Mikheil Saakashvili... He is the President of Georgia and super fun to talk to. He originally wanted only a 30 minute massage but 90 minutes later, he told me my massage is "the best massage I have had in my life so far". Mikheil had body gaurds [sic] outside the massage room the whole time, who were all over 6 feet tall and like 4 feet wide. One spoke English really well and told me his favorite group is Metallica. Ha. He said "I am a rocker!" so we got along fine, whilst waiting for the President to finish his work out. I was excited to finally get to massage a President. I have massaged the Prince of Saudi Arabia before and a few Mayors, but this was the first President for me."

Thus we have a prescription to presidential joy: get your economy demolished, country demoralised, make some spectacularly disastrous decisions across the board, appease your cronies, get your country into debt to the EU and then, get a massage...

Doctor Dot, we have three Saakashvilli equivalents here in Ireland - not as good looking and with less pleasing body guards, but otherwise, even more spectacular disasters... Massage sessions on taxpayers' bill?


Inflation cometh... Here is an excellent recent blog post from Marc Faber on the issue of upcoming inflation (and a related blog here). I've spotted the risk a while ago (here), so I am happy to report that we are now seeing more and more commentators beginning to concerns themselves with the obvious problem: where can all the liquidity that the Fed and other Central Banks are pumping into the global economy go. From the point of view of the long-term policy consistency for the Irish Government, this is a proper conundrum.

Having raised taxes in 2008-2009, what will Brian do when we have externally imported inflation hammering households, the ECB hiking rates killing off scores of Irish homeowners and we have no control over tax levers (because we have borrowed so much that rising interest rates will simply make it impossible to cut tax rates as the inflationary spiral uncoils)? Oh, I get it - he will simply remind us all of our patriotic duty to keep paying his wages.


Hopes are rising?.. No, not in Ireland, but my hedge funds networking group website has been inundated with jobs offers - sales, technical, trading etc - from US headhunters. For the first time since early 2008, the usual daily page of posts has been dominated not by 'distressed assets for sale' or 'looking for a position' memos, but by jobs offers. May, just may be, should jobs situation abroad stabilise, by the mid 2009 we will have that Irish solution to an Irish problem - emigration - becoming available to Irish financial sector professionals. Then we'll truly arrive in the 1980s scenario.


On the US data: Yesterday's data from the US is painting an interesting, and cautiously encouraging picture.

First, the jobs front. First-time claims for unemployment benefits fell a seasonally adjusted 20,000 to 654,000 in the week ended April 4. The level of first-time claims is 83% higher than the same period in 2008. The four-week average of th2 initial claims fell 750 to 657,250. However, for the week ended March 28, the number of people collecting state unemployment benefits reached yet another new record, up 95,000 to 5.84mln - double the level in 2008. Per Marketwatch, "continuing claims have gained for 12 consecutive weeks, and have reached new weekly records since late January." The 4-week average of continuing claims was up 146,750 to a record 5.65mln. The insured unemployment rate - the proportion of covered workers who are receiving benefits - rose to 4.4% from 4.3%, reaching the highest level since April 1983. All of this signals that while the new unemployment may be bottoming out, workers are not seeing an increase in new jobs availability. Of course, unemployment itself is a lagging indicator relative to, say, capital investment. Inventories declines, posted in recent days, have probably more to say about the underlying dynamics, signalling potentially a flattening of the downward trend in economic activity.

Corporate earnings... Two major corporates announced pre-reporting updates last night. Wells Fargo & Co surprised the markets yesterday with the Q1 2009 earnings note claiming that earnings will rise to $3bn - ahead of analysts forecasts - on the back of falling impairments and rising mortgage lending. Earnings figures were quoted net of dividends on preferred securities, including $372mln due to the Treasury Department. Analysts expected earnings of ca $1.94bn.

Total net charges will be $3.3bn, compared with Q4 2008 net charges of $2.8bn. Wachovia - purchased by Wells Fargo on December 31, 2008, will see net charges of $3.3bn. Provisions will be about $4.6bn in the quarter compared to $8.4bn in provisions during Q4 2008.The news drove US financials to significant gains yesterday as the markets were delighted to see the bank finding a way of generating profits out of free Federal money it received. Who could have thought that possible.

Aptly, US stocks jumped higher across the board, with the Dow Jones Industrial closing its first five-week stretch of gains since October 2007, rising 246.27 points, or 3.1%, to finish at 8,083.38, up 0.8% for the week. The S&P 500 added 31.40 points, or 3.8%, to end at 856.56, a 1.7% rise in the week. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 61.88 points, or 3.9%, to 1,652.54, a weekly rise of 1.9%.

But there were some side-line noises from the real (i.e non-financial) side of the US economy when Chevron and Boeing issued earnings warnings on the back of lower oil prices, high production costs and falling demand for aircraft respectively. No free money from the taxpayers in their sectors has meant that the real economy continues to push lower.

World's new reserve currency... We have arrived - the Euro is becoming a reserve currency. The dollar is toast per BBC's latest report (here). And no, Euro's gains are not just in the market for Russian mafia wealth (remember those €1,000 bills issued in hope of diverting some of 'cash' reserves away from dollars). In fact, it is well diversified. As BBC reports, for some time already there has been a strong movement of US rappers out of dollars into euro. And there has been growing trade in services for euro-based money laundering by the drug cartels. At last, the hopes for a reserve currency challenge on the dollar are being realised.

I am of course being sarcastic - a disclaimer I have to put up for all Brusselcrats so concerned about any criticism of the euro. But to be honest, do we know how much of the EU paper been stuffed into the black markets? Seriously: rappers, mafia, drug barons... and Chinese Government - all think euro is the best thing since sliced bread... we've arrived.


And here is the latest take on the Budget (hat tip J):

Daily Economics 09/04/09: Riches in peril

Today's statement by Peter Sutherland on RTE radio concerning the alleged riches of Irish households is misleading in so far as it focuses on two mis-interpreted claims:

1. Irish GDP per capita is still on of the highest in the OECD; and
2. Irish wealth is well underpinned even despite the ongoing crisis.
   

I will tackle these in order.

Per Irish GDP per capita:

Ireland's GDP is expected to be €170-171.5bn(my forecast and DofF April 2009 forecast) in 2009. Our GNP is €142-144bn (as above). The GDP-GNP gap is standing at 16-16.5% and it is accounted for by the transfer pricing of multinational companies located in Ireland. In other words, the Dells and Intels of this world take inflated price of inputs they import into the country and then inflate value added in this country so they book more profits here. Precious little of the actual activity takes place here, but accounting shows it to be Irish-generated. This then goes into our figures for GDP. GNP excludes multinational transfers, so it is a cleaner measure of what we actually do produce in Ireland (inclusive of the real production by the multinationals).

Now, per CSO data for April 2008 - the latest we have - total population of Ireland is 4,422,100, which implies that 2009 GDP per capita is €38,443 and GNP is €32,111. There is an added trick. This does not take into the account the relative cost of living in Ireland, compared to the rest of the world. This is done by applying Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) adjustments. I don't have much recent data on PPP rates of exchange, but it does not change dramatically our position in the world rankings.

For example based on 2007 data - the latest for which global comparisons are available - we were still ranked the 3rd highest PPP-adjusted GDP per capita. However, taking PPP- adjustments to GNP and comparing ourselves with the rest of the world shows that Ireland ranked 14th in terms of PPP-adjusted GNP per capita in the world in 2007, which is, incidentally exactly where we were ranked in terms of our PPP-adjusted per capita consumption as well.

This shows two things:

1. using an actual measure of our income (GNP) instead of a bogus measure (GDP) implies that we are scoring below (in order of ranking): US, Iceland, UK, Norway, Canada, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Australia, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and Denmark in terms of our income, and
2. that GNP per capita is reflective of our true consumption and investment positions, unlike GDP per capita.
   

Now to the second point concerning our wealth
In March issue of Business & Finance magazine I gave a detailed analysis of the wealth destruction that hit Ireland since 2008. Here is an excerpt.

“The bursting of the property bubble and of the equity bubble… showed that most of the ‘wealth’ that supported the massive leverage and overspending of agents in the economy was a fake bubble-driven wealth; now that these bubbles have burst it is clear that the emperor had no clothes…” said Nouriel Roubini in a recent update on the US economy. The same rings true for Ireland.

Two years ago, the Irish media was full of self-congratulatory patter about our riches. Our social welfare NGOs were using this myth as the grounds for demanding more welfare increases to offset the allegedly growing ‘relative poverty’. At the time just a handful of economists, this column included, were warning that our wealth was excessively geared toward one asset class – property. This lack of diversification, coupled with a lazy and often inept management of investment portfolios by the majority of Irish investors – from the most influential ones, like Sean Quinn, down to the 3-bed-semi families – is now coming to haunt us.

Nursing Real Losses
Majority of us are, by now, aware of the deep declines in housing (minus 30% plus relative to peak already and counting) and commercial (down 15% and still dropping like a stone) property values, and share prices collapse (off ca 70-80% depending on the index used). But few understand that our investments performance to date relative to other countries’ investors has been even more abysmal. This is true because of the opportunity cost of not actively managing our portfolios.

Per July 2007 Bank of Ireland report Wealth of the Nation (based on 2005 data) an average Irish investor held some 70% of gross assets in housing, 10% in cash, 8% in pension funds and 5% in business equity. Direct ownership of equity, investment funds shares and commercial property accounted for 2-3% allocations each. My own study, conducted in February 2007 on the basis of a sample of some 1,200-plus actual and potential high net worth individuals produced very similar results. In addition, it also showed that majority of Irish investors (over 72%) do not actively manage their own portfolios. Some 65% reported zero willingness to let professionals handle their investments. Instead of seeking proper advice (only 30% of Irish investors sought investment advice outside real estate agents’ offices) and acting upon well-researched information (only 43% of our savers actually searched around for best financial product offers), majority of Irish investors were keen on simply leveraging their assets as much as possible and dump most of it into high-risk property and shares deals.

Even less important for Irish investors was the idea of sectoral and geographical diversification. According to my data, only 10% of Irish retail investors held any exposure to non-property asset classes with allocations outside Ireland. Just 8% had more than 25% of their equities in non-property linked plcs.

2008 was a pivotal year in terms of changes in the Irish investment markets. Since then, factoring in the declines in asset values, the composition of the Irish wealth has been changing.

One important aspect of this change is that residential property share of overall wealth is poised to decline from ca70% in 2005 to ca55% in 2010. The latter figure is still roughly 38% above the OECD average, but the dynamic of change suggests some diversification out of property. Does this mean we are getting wiser with our money? Recently, a senior financial services professional suggested to me that because of the large pools of wealth we have allegedly held in the past, once the upturn occurs, cash will be available for investment in shares and financial funds. Sadly, I do not share his optimism.

Most of this diversification away from bricks-and-mortar is happening not because we somehow wised up to the need for diversification, but due to attrition in property values and lack of transparency in business equity valuations. In the longer term, most of this diversification will be going into increasing the importance of cash deposits implying excessively low yields in years ahead. Direct equity, investment and pensions funds and other asset classes that give investors exposure to the potential upside due to active management will remain the poor cousins of property and cash.

Using the changes in values for the main categories of assets held by Irish investors, I estimate that in 2008 Ireland’s total net private wealth has contracted by ca €150bn – from €712bn in 2005 (€805bn in 2006) to €559bn today. By my estimates, the current trend may see private net worth in this country shrinking to €307bn by the end of 2010 – a total loss of a staggering €405bn on 2005 figures. Adjusting for inflation, the total loss in wealth between 2007 and the end of 2010, by my estimates, will equal to roughly €470bn. Assuming marginal propensity to consume out of wealth of, say 3-3.5% (for US, this value is around 5%, so ours is a conservative estimate for Ireland), such wealth destruction will imply a fall-off in overall annual consumption of ca €4.8-5.5bn in 2008-2010, with a knock on loss to the VAT revenue of €900-1,100mln per annum.

A hefty opportunity cost
But this would be only half of the problem, were Irish investment portfolios actively managed through the downturn. During the current contraction cycle equity and property markets have posted unambiguously deep declines in all developed and middle-income economies around the world. However, several other highly liquid asset classes have shown relative gains. Prior to Autumn 2008, a number of international Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) with commodities and fixed income exposures have recorded double digit dividends that would have seen the returns on these investments offsetting some of the short-term capital losses. Since late 2008, fixed income ETFs focusing on some corporate and public debt have continued to produce strong yields. Other classes of debt were also providing upsides. In many cases, such ETFs offer capital gains potential in the medium term similar to the fully diversified equities-based portfolios, but unlike equities, they pay strong current yields.

So what does this mean in practical terms? Over a dozen balanced managed portfolios blending ETFs, corporate and sovereign fixed income and actively managed money markets funds that I reviewed in recent months have been trading since September 2008. On average, this class of products has delivered a yield of ca 6-7% pa and a capital loss of 2-4%, when traded on a higher frequency basis. Compared to NASDAQ’s – 6% year to date slide, S&P500’s -13%, ISEQ’s -10.4%, accounting for re-invested dividends, some managed non-equity portfolios are returning a premium of 6-17% on average US, Asian, UK, EU and Irish indices.

In terms of the losses in Irish wealth, a switch of personal investment allocations into the actively managed asset classes (pensions and investment funds) and reversal of the direct equity holdings into an actively managed non-equity, yield-generating strategy could have saved some €1.2-3.4bn pa in wealth that is being lost due to asset allocations imbalance in Irish investment portfolios between 2009 and 2010. This is far from chop change. More active management of portfolios can generate enough savings on the investors’ balance sheets side to offset over 30% of the expected fall in our national income between these years. It can also, potentially, generate some €200-570mln in Exchequer revenues annually. The latter, of course, requires for such investment management to take place in this country – a proposition that is not exactly likely, given our poor tax treatment of investment markets and investors.

And the cost of poor governance
So enter our Government’s latest attempt at economic policy – the mini-Budget 2009 Part A. Why part A? Well, having predicted in this very column last year that we will face a new Budget by the end of Q1 2009, I can pretty much with certainty predict that whatever comes on April 7 will not be sufficient to plug the hole in the public deficit. Expect Part B some time before the end of the summer.

April’s mini-Budge will attempt to soak any PAYE earner with income above €60,000. The Government will do absolutely nothing to stimulate new investment and savings in this country. This, in turn, will lead to a double blow to our economy. First, in a series of straight jabs rapid flight of private investors’ capital out of the tax-choked economy will lead both to falling national wealth and further shortfalls in the Government revenue. Second, an uppercut of collapsing wealth will hammer pension funds across Ireland, as retail investors lose incentives to save at home and shift their longer term assets to jurisdictions with better management and more economically literate Government.

Should such scenario unfold, we’ll be lucky if our total national net assets pool does not fall below €200bn mark by the end of this recession.

Peter Sutherland is simply wrong to stress our relative wealth - just as the NGO were wrong to stress the importance of the relative poverty. The latest CSO stats on CPI - issued today - show that we are now worse off in real income terms than we were in August 2006.