Memorandum Archives - The Automatic Earth

The Fed’s balance sheet for the week ending December 6, released today, completes the second month of the QE-unwind. Total assets initially zigzagged within a tight range to end October where it started, at $4,456 billion. But in November, holdings drifted lower, and by December 6 were at $4,437 billion, the lowest since September 17, 2014:

“Balance sheet normalization?” Well, in baby steps. But the devil is in the details. The Fed’s announced plan is to shrink the balance sheet by $10 billion a month in October, November, and December, then accelerate the pace every three months. By October 2018, the Fed would reduce its holdings by up to $50 billion a month (= $600 billion a year) and continue at that rate until it deems the level of its holdings “normal” – the new normal, whatever that may turn out to be. Still, the decline so far, given the gargantuan size of the balance sheet, barely shows up. As part of the $10-billion-a-month unwind from October through December, the Fed is supposed to unload $6 billion in Treasury securities a month plus $4 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) a month.

The Fed doesn’t actually sell Treasury securities outright. Instead, it allows some of them, when they mature, to “roll off” the balance sheet without replacement. When the securities mature, the Treasury Department pays the holder the face value. But the Fed, instead of reinvesting the money in new Treasuries, destroys the money – the opposite process of QE, when the Fed created the money to buy securities. This happens only on dates when Treasuries that the Fed holds mature, usually once or twice a month. In October, the big day was October 31, when $8.5 billion of Treasuries on the Fed’s books matured. The Fed reinvested $2.5 billion and let $6 billion “roll off.” Hence, the amount of Treasuries fell by about $6 billion from an all-time record $2,465.7 billion on October 25 to $2,459.8 billion on November 1.

If you can get two people to work for the same price as one did before, you have job growth.

• 2017 US Wage Growth Failed To Pick Up Despite Unemployment Rate Decline (BBG)

This rising tide isn’t lifting many boats. Wage growth in the U.S. has failed to pick up this year despite a steady decline in the unemployment rate. The sluggishness has been relatively broad-based across the labor market, including among low-skilled workers, who might seem to be the most likely candidates for bigger pay increases as labor becomes scarcer. The bottom 20% of workers by average industry pay received a 3.9% increase in hourly earnings in October from a year earlier, marking an acceleration from a 3.4% advance in the year through October 2016. The detailed industry numbers for October were released on Friday along with the Labor Department’s main employment report for November.

However, the following chart shows that the entire pickup over the last year can be traced to a single industry: security and armored car services, which only accounts for 0.6% of private-sector employment, but has seen wages shoot up by almost 20%. Removing security and armored car services from the picture knocks the 3.9% wage growth for the bottom quintile down to 3.3%. That means it’s been more than a year since workers in the other low-paying industries have seen any acceleration in wage growth. The biggest employers of low-skilled workers are restaurants, general merchandise retailers, grocery stores, elderly care services, janitorial services and child day-care. Among those industries, restaurants are doling out the biggest pay increases (4.4% in the year through October), even though wage growth for those workers has been decelerating this year. General merchandise stores are giving out the smallest raises of the group at 1.4%.

Creating new elites and bolstering old ones.

• The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40% of the Market (BBG)

On Nov. 12, someone moved almost 25,000 bitcoins, worth about $159 million at the time, to an online exchange. The news soon rippled through online forums, with bitcoin traders arguing about whether it meant the owner was about to sell the digital currency. Holders of large amounts of bitcoin are often known as whales. And they’re becoming a worry for investors. They can send prices plummeting by selling even a portion of their holdings. And those sales are more probable now that the cryptocurrency is up nearly twelvefold from the beginning of the year. About 40% of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management.

What’s more, the whales can coordinate their moves or preview them to a select few. Many of the large owners have known one another for years and stuck by bitcoin through the early days when it was derided, and they can potentially band together to tank or prop up the market. “I think there are a few hundred guys,” says Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin Capital. “They all probably can call each other, and they probably have.” One reason to think so: At least some kinds of information sharing are legal, says Gary Ross, a securities lawyer at Ross & Shulga. Because bitcoin is a digital currency and not a security, he says, there’s no prohibition against a trade in which a group agrees to buy enough to push the price up and then cashes out in minutes.

Can’t see futures doing well, even if initially they may soar.

• Bitcoin Futures Could Be “A Clusterf*ck Of Monumental Proportions” (Blain)

Crypto-‘currency’ or total carnage? Mike Novogratz doesn’t see “quick adoption” of Bitcoin as a currency, preferring to think of it as ‘digital gold’. Perhaps this is one reason why. Amid its meteroic rise, Bitcoin is now 20 times more volatile than the US Dollar… As MINT Partners’ Bill Blain exclaims, next week sees the improbable launch of Bitcoin futures:

“This looks like having the potential to be a clusterf*ck of monumental proportions when it bursts. Every bank knows BTC’s extraordinary gains are a crowd delusion fuelled by the extraordinary promise of free wealth! Yet, many will be willing to trade and settle them for their clients – largely retail. Bitcoin has become the ultimate Klondyke. Most folk don’t have a clue what BTC and the associated Blockchain ledger might be, but everyone knows what the price action has been. Where that price is going is clouded by a lack of clarity on the technological nuances, distorted by Libertarian/Geek monetary gobbledy-gook, confused by a plethora of me-too coin offerings, speculators who see the chance of a quick buck, and investors scared they are missing out.”

“I’ve spent most of this week learning more and more about the limitations of Blockchain and two things are crystal clear – it doesn’t work, and it’s an evolutionary dead end that nimbler cryptocurrencies will take the niche of. But I still don’t understand why we need them at all? If its central banks you object to, let’s have a private cryptocurrency based on gold, or oil, or something else tangible… but based on some computer babble? Not for me. On the other hand, the long-term possibilities that BTC exploits in terms of Blockchain distributed ledgers are very real. Blockchain applications are going to utterly change finance.

The ZH graph is nice, since it only runs until BTC 11,000.

• Central Banks Or Bitcoin: What’s The Greater Bubble? (Jim Kunstler)

The third round of QE was officially halted in 2014 in the USA. However, the world’s other main central banks acted in rotation — passing the baton of QE, like in a relay race — so that when the US slacked off, Japan, Britain, the ECB, and the Bank of China, took over money-printing duties. And because money flies easily around the world via digital banking, a lot of that foreign money ended up in “sure-thing” US capital markets (as well as their own ). Mega-tons of “money” were created out of thin air around the world since the near-collapse of the system in 2008. And magically, with no negative consequences! Yet. Now, Europe and Japan are making noises about dropping their batons. China’s banking system is so opaque and perverse — because it is unaccountable except to the ruling party with its own agenda — that it’s quite impossible to tell what they are really doing, though the signs of mal-investment are obvious and startling.

And the UK’s finances are tied up in its messy divorce proceedings with the EU (with the British standard of living dropping markedly meanwhile). In short, the torrent of global “liquidity” looks to be slowing to a trickle. The expectation is that this would make stock markets go down and bond interest rates to go up (fewer buyers), perhaps a lot. The dirty open secret here is that these central bank interventions are the only means for keeping the capital markets up, and that the markets are just a Potemkin false front for Western economies that are drying up and blowing away. That is certainly the experience here in the USA, where banking hocus-pocus now accounts for about 30% of GDP, and most of that activity is either out-and-out fraud or swindling, or collecting rents and dividends on past frauds and swindles.

Dem/Prog America in its Silicon Valley gourmet employee bistros and Hamptons lawn parties thinks that the flyover Trumpist Red State world of meth, joblessness, and anomie is some kind of a Netflix hallucination. But no, it’s for real. The center of the ole US of A is hollowed out. The bad news is that it probably has enough juice left in its disaffected youth, and certainly enough weaponry, to start a very serious insurrection if it continues to get dissed. Enter the joker in the deck: Bitcoin. Though it pulled back a couple of thou overnight, this strange investment vehicle blasted through $18,000-per-Bitcoin in the past 24 hours, roughly tripling from $6000 in one month. It even endured the hacking of one of its exchanges, NiceHash, where $70 million was looted without so much as a stutter in the upward thrust of the chart. Whatever else Bitcoin is — and I would suggest a “Ponzie,” a “mania,” a “con” — this thing is a message.

They’re too scared of Xi.

• Chinese Banks Didn’t Object to New Asset Rules, Association Says (BBG)

China’s banking association is organizing discussions on the nation’s proposed new asset-management rules, the group said in a social media posting, dismissing as “untrue” reports that some lenders have submitted a petition to policy makers on the subject. The statement comes after regulators last month proposed sweeping guidelines to curb risks in the nation’s $15 trillion of asset-management products, prompting a three-day drop in sovereign bonds and driving stocks to a two-month low before a late rally amid speculation state-backed funds would stem excessive losses.

The rules are scheduled to come into effect in 2019. Earlier this week, Reuters cited three people it didn’t identify as saying that some Chinese joint-stock banks had objected to the proposals, saying they would have a big impact on financial markets and possibly trigger systemic risks. The China Banking Association, in its WeChat post Friday, said it is helping formulate opinion on the draft. The new rules will be applied to the 29 trillion yuan ($4.4 trillion) of wealth-management products issued by banks, 17.5 trillion yuan of trust products, as well as asset-management plans sold by insurers, fund managers and brokerages, according to the regulators’ statement. Institutions will be required to set aside risk provisions equivalent to 10% of the management fees, they said.

Mario Draghi and the ECB are heavily invested in Steinhoff.

• Enron? Citi, BofA, HSBC, Goldman, BNP on the Hook as Steinhoff plunges (WS)

Steinhoff International Holdings – which acquired nine companies in the past two years, including Mattress Firm Holding in the US, and which presides over a cobbled-together empire of retailers and assorted other companies in the US, Europe, Africa, and Australasia – issued another devastating announcement today: It cancelled its “private” annual meeting with bankers in London on Monday and rescheduled it for December 19. This is the meeting when the company normally discusses its annual report with its global bankers. The annual report should have been released on Wednesday, December 6. But on precisely that day, the company announced cryptically that “accounting irregularities” had “come to light” that required “further investigation,” and that CEO Markus Jooste had been axed “with immediate effect,” and that it would postpone its annual report indefinitely.

This is raising serious questions about the company’s viability as a going concern. The lack of transparency doesn’t help. To soothe investors, the company announced on Thursday that it was trying to prop up its liquidity by selling some units ASAP. And it made more cryptic statements: It “has given further consideration to the issues subject to the investigation and to the validity and recoverability” of some assets of “circa €6 billion” ($7 billion). “The validity and recoverability” of assets worth $7 billion? The company is infamous for its opaque communications which equal its opaque corporate structure. It’s considering selling “certain non-core assets that will release a minimum of €1 billion of liquidity.” It also “committed” to wringing out €2 billion from its subsidiary Steinhoff Africa Retail Limited (STAR) by refinancing “on better terms” some debt that the subsidiary owes the parent company, which the subsidiary should be able to handle, “given the strong cash flow.”

With these measures, it hopes “to be able to fund its existing operations and reduce debt.” Shareholders and bondholders were aghast. The shares, traded in Frankfurt and held widely by international investors, had still been in the €5-range in June. But in August, German prosecutors said they were probing if Steinhoff had booked inflated revenues at its subsidiaries. Shares began to drop. By Tuesday, there were down 41% at €2.95. On Wednesday, after the “accounting irregularities” had “come to light,” shares crashed 64% to €1.07. By Friday, they’d dropped to €0.47. Market capitalization plunged by about €18 billion ($21 billion) since June to €2 billion.

With every false report, more credibility is lost of the MSM. And they still don’t understand that.

• CNN Corrects a Trump Story, Fueling Claims of ‘Fake News’ (NYT)

CNN on Friday corrected an erroneous report that Donald Trump Jr. had received advance notice from the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks about a trove of hacked documents that it planned to release during last year’s presidential campaign. In fact, the email to Mr. Trump was sent a day after the documents, stolen from the Democratic National Committee, were made available to the general public. The correction undercut the main thrust of CNN’s story, which had been seized on by critics of President Trump as evidence of coordination between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. It was also yet another prominent reporting error at a time when news organizations are confronting a skeptical public, and a president who delights in attacking the media as “fake news.”

Last Saturday, ABC News suspended a star reporter, Brian Ross, after an inaccurate report that Donald Trump had instructed Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, to contact Russian officials during the presidential race. The report fueled theories about coordination between the Trump campaign and a foreign power, and stocks dropped after the news. In fact, Mr. Trump’s instruction to Mr. Flynn came after he was president-elect. Several news outlets, including Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, also inaccurately reported this week that Deutsche Bank had received a subpoena from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for President Trump’s financial records. The president and his circle have not been shy about pointing out the errors.

[..] CNN’s erroneous scoop, about the email to Donald Trump Jr., rocketed around cable news and social media on Friday morning. But it fell apart after The Washington Post reported that the email — which included a decryption key to access hacked documents — was dated Sept. 14, not Sept. 4, as CNN initially reported. WikiLeaks publicized links to the documents in question on Sept. 13. CNN said that its report had been based on information from two sources and vetted by the network’s in-house fact-checking team. But both sources were apparently incorrect about the date of the message. [..] “Between this and Brian Ross’ Flynn mistake, the mainstream media is doing a great job of bolstering Trump’s claims about fake news,” wrote James Surowiecki, a former columnist for The New Yorker. “It’s the most obvious thing to say, but reporters need to SLOW DOWN. Being right is more important than being first.”

Only AFTER destroying an entire economy, the EU explains why. Lock them up!

• Aim Of First Greek Memorandum: Rescue Foreign Investors – Dijsselbloem (Amna)

The main aim of the first Greek memorandum, especially, was to rescue investors outside Greece, outgoing Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem admitted in the Europarliament on Thursday. “There were mistakes in the first programmes, we improvised. The way we dealt with the banks was expensive and ineffective. It is true that our aim was to rescue investors outside Greece and for this reason I support the rules for bail-ins, so that investors aren’t rescued with tax-payers’ money,” said Dijsselblem in reply to independent Greek MEP Notis Marias. Dijsselbloem noted that it had been a huge crisis because the fiscal sector had faced the risk of a total collapse that would have left many countries with a high debt. However, he pointed out that banks had only needed €4.5 billion in the third programme because the private sector had a huge participation.

Referring to the non-performing loans, he said that a private solution that did not once again place the burden on tax-payers was near. He also pointed to measures being taken in Greece for the protection of the socially weaker groups, to make sure that they were not the victims of the auctions. Referring to the early payment of the IMF loans with the remaining money of the programme, the Eurogroup chief said that this made sense financially, given that the IMF’s loans were more expensive than those of the Europeans. However, from a political point of view, the Eurogroup prefers that the IMF remain fully involved in the Greek programme, with its own responsibilities, he added. In any case, he noted that the final decisions on debt relief will be made later, when the programme is concluded and the sustainability of the Greek debt has been examined.

Perspective. Large number of bubbles.

• The Most Valuable Companies of All Time (VC)

Before speculative bubbles could form around Dotcom companies (late-1990s) or housing prices (mid-2000s), some of the first financial bubbles formed from the prospect of trading with faraway lands. Looking back, it’s pretty easy to see why. Companies like the Dutch East India Company (known in Dutch as the VOC, or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) were granted monopolies on trade, and they engaged in daring voyages to mysterious and foreign places. They could acquire exotic goods, establish colonies, create military forces, and even initiate wars or conflicts around the world. Of course, the very nature of these risky ventures made getting any accurate indication of intrinsic value nearly impossible, which meant there were no real benchmarks for what companies like this should be worth.

The Dutch East India Company was established as a charter company in 1602, when it was granted a 21-year monopoly by the Dutch government for the spice trade in Asia. The company would eventually send over one million voyagers to Asia, which is more than the rest of Europe combined. However, despite its 200-year run as Europe’s foremost trading juggernaut – the speculative peak of the company’s prospects coincided with Tulip Mania in Holland in 1637. Widely considered the world’s first financial bubble, the history of Tulip Mania is a fantastic story in itself. During this frothy time, the Dutch East India Company was worth 78 million Dutch guilders, which translates to a whopping $7.9 trillion in modern dollars.

Debt Rattle June 24 2017

Jun 242017

June 24, 2017 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: banking union, Brexit, healthcare, home sales, Illinois, Italy, liabilities, May, Memorandum, straightjacket, zombies 5 Responses »

Fred Lyon San Francisco Cable Car rounding the curve at Jones Street 1946

• US New Home Sales Jump, Median Price Surges To Record High (R.)

• Sydney Prices To Jump ‘Overnight’ As First-Home Incentives Kick In (D.)

• The World Has Been Fitted With Two Debt Straightjackets (Steve Keen)

• The Future Prospects For Japanese Banks Look Like Hell (Makoto Utsumi)

• Europe’s Banking Union Is Dying in Italy (BBG)

• Two Italian Zombie Banks Toppled Friday Night (WS)

• ‘Emmangela’ Show Reasserts EU’s Franco-German Alliance (AFP)

• Schaeuble Says British Were ‘Lied To’, ‘Deceived’ In Brexit Campaign (R.)

• UK MPs Plan Cross-Party Alliance To Defeat May, Hard Brexit (Ind.)

• Corbyn Vows To Force Early British Election (Ind.)

• May Blocked Plan To Guarantee Rights Of EU Citizens In UK After Brexit (Ind.)

• The Fed Needs to Acknowledge the Slowing Economy (DDMB)

• Unfunded Liabilities Have Turned Illinois Into A Banana Republic (Lang)

• America’s Health-Care Rain Dance (Jim Kunstler)

• US-Led Coalition Kills Almost 500 Syrian Civilians In One Month (NW)

• The Unfinished Negotiations For A Greek “Super-Memorandum” (Press Project)

They are determined to get all the suckers they can get before the implosion. There’s a huge empty bag to be passed on.

• US New Home Sales Jump, Median Price Surges To Record High (R.)

New U.S. single-family home sales rose in May and the median sales price surged to an all-time high, suggesting the housing market had regained momentum. The Commerce Department said on Friday new home sales increased 2.9% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 610,000 units last month. April’s sales pace was also revised sharply higher to 593,000 units from 569,000 units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales, which make up about 10% of all home sales, rising 5.4% to a pace of 597,000 units last month. Sales were up 8.9% on a year-on-year basis in May.

“While the data quality of the new home sales report is notoriously poor, the general picture from this report and the existing home sales report is one of solid housing demand in the important spring selling season,” said Michael Feroli, an economist with J.P. Morgan. The housing market has been bolstered by continued strong job growth. The unemployment rate fell to a 16-year low of 4.3% in May and mortgage rates are still favorable by historical standards. However, an increase in the cost of building materials and shortages of lots and labor have crimped homebuilding. With demand outstripping supply, house prices remain elevated. The median house price rose to a record high of $345,800 in May, from $310,200 in the prior month. The average sales price last month was $406,400, also a record high.

Ditto in Australia. This is from real estate broker Domain, responsible for ad campaigns like the one in the photo -which I took in Melbourne in 2011.

• Sydney Prices To Jump ‘Overnight’ As First-Home Incentives Kick In (D.)

Property prices in affordable areas are expected to jump “overnight” on the back of changes to first-home buyer stamp duty concessions starting in July, experts say. Strategic vendors in these locations are holding off accepting offers until next month to take advantage of the expected surge in demand. First-home buyers in NSW are set to save up to $24,740 with stamp duty concessions for homes up to $800,000 and a full exemption for homes under $650,000. Among those anticipating they will benefit from the changes is Quakers Hill home owner Bhugol Kansakar who bought his house for $611,000 in March 2015 – then a first-home buyer himself. Since May his three-bedroom home at 9 Nyngan Street has been on the market for $730,000 to $760,000. “We’ve had offers around $720,000 to $730,000 … we’re holding out until next month as stamp duty will be off for the first-home buyers,” Mr Kansakar said.

In this price bracket, first-home buyers would get a partial exemption from July. “It is a big block of land, three-bedrooms, perfect for a first home.” He anticipates he will be likely to get $760,000 or more for the home when the new rules come in. And he’s far from the only one anticipating he’ll get a premium, his sales agent Raine & Horne Blacktown business development manager Edwin Almeida said. About 40% of inquiries on homes he had listed across the Blacktown Council area priced under $750,000 were first-home buyers asking if they could formally exchange next month. He expects local prices would jump by $20,000 to $40,000. “Easy money does not make the market more accessible for first-home buyers. It just means vendors and developers will increase the price of property to meet demand,” Mr Almeida said.

Two pieces from a PDF by “The International Economy” site, entitled: “Has the World Been Fitted With a Debt Straightjacket? Nearly forty distinguished experts offer their wisdom”. Click the link to see all.

First, Steve Keen…

• The World Has Been Fitted With Two Debt Straightjackets (Steve Keen)

T he world has been fitted with not just one but two debt straightjackets: one made of public debt and the other of private debt. The situation in the United States is typical. The total U.S. debt level at the end of World War II was equivalent to 130% of GDP, with public debt being three-quarters of the total and private debt one-quarter. Today, it is 250% of GDP, with public debt being two-fifths of the total and private debt three-fifths. But there is a simple trick that could let the United States, like Harry Houdini, magically escape from one of these two straightjackets in a flash. Like any magic act, it’s ruined by the telling: despite all the political hand-wringing over the burden the public debt imposes on future generations, public debt could be eliminated by the stroke of a proverbial pen, for two simple reasons.

First, this debt is exclusively in U.S. dollars; second, the government is the only institution in the nation that “owns its own bank,” the Federal Reserve, which can create U.S. dollars at will. The Fed could buy up—and effectively cancel—this debt overnight. You might not like this trick, but it’s both possible and perfectly legal. That leaves the second straightjacket: private debt. Here Houdini’s escape is not possible, because if any individual tried to do what the U.S. government can do, that person would be gaoled for counterfeiting. All U.S. private debt is, like public debt, owed in U.S. dollars; but only the U.S. government has the privilege of owning its own bank. For the private sector, it’s effectively the banks that own the debtors. But paradoxically, most economists obsess about the public debt trap and ignore the private debt one.

Why? Because they believe that banks do not originate loans, but instead act as “intermediaries” between savers and borrowers. Therefore, they say, private debt doesn’t matter, because if the debtor can’t spend, the lender can, and vice versa. They therefore believe that the level of private debt, and its rate of growth or decline, are economically irrelevant. They can’t see a private straightjacket. Several central banks have recently loudly declared that this model is nonsense—including Germany’s ultraconservative Bundesbank. Banks are not “intermediaries of debt” but originators. They don’t lend pre-existing money, but create money when they make an entry in the borrower’s deposit account, which is matched precisely by an entry in the borrower’s debt account.

Since debtors borrow to spend, rising private debt boosts demand while falling debt reduces it. Demand in the United States was therefore boosted substantially as private debt rose almost fivefold from 1945 until 2008. Now demand from credit is stagnant and as likely to subtract from demand as add to it. So private debt is the real straightjacket constraining the economy. But with mainstream economists ignoring it and fretting about government debt, the U.S. economy is likely to remain in its debt straightjacket indefinitely. As the public has started to realize since the 2008 crisis took them by surprise, mainstream economists are inept magicians.

…second, Makoto Utsumi, Chairman of the International Advisory Board, Tokai Tokyo F.H., and former Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, Japan.

• The Future Prospects For Japanese Banks Look Like Hell (Makoto Utsumi)

Can Japan withstand the return to conventional monetary policy? The Bank of Japan has been conducting an unconventional monetary policy for almost two decades, drastically strengthening this policy since Governor Kuroda took office in 2013. As public debt accumulated to 250% of GDP and due to the massive holdings of Japanese Government bonds by the Japanese banking sector, some argue that Japan cannot withstand the return to conventional monetary policy. Here are my points of view: First, let us consider the impact of interest rates hikes on public finances. Many analysts argue that this move would be destructive to public finances due to increased interest payments. There is a point, however, almost all analysts neglect. When interest rates on the JGB rise, the rates on savings and deposits also rise.

As 20% of the interest income is withheld at source, the incremental tax revenue would offset to a great deal the increasing cost of the debt service to be paid by the government. Although the damage caused by the shift in monetary policy on the budget balance would be limited, the fiscal situation of Japan would become increasingly serious with a sustained lack of fiscal discipline. Japanese public finances seem to be on a path to breakdown and the Bank of Japan’s policy to purchase Japanese government bonds up to an amount equal to 80% of new issuances looks more and more like the monetization of the budget deficit. Next, let us see the impact on the banking sector. Two decades of unconventional monetary policy have been squeezing the banks’ profit margins through the extreme flattening of the yield curve.

From this view point, the return to conventional monetary policy is good news for the Japanese banking sector in the long run. On the other hand, in the short and medium terms, this would represent the harshest challenge for banks due to massive valuation losses on their bond holdings. According to the Bank of Japan’s survey, a 1 percentage point rise of interest rates on bonds would cause a loss of US$20 billion for mega-banks, US$25 billion for regional banks, and US$19 billion for credit unions. While the U.S. Federal Reserve is firmly committed toward exit and as the European Central Bank seems to be quietly probing a future exit strategy, where is the Bank of Japan going? If it continues to maintain zero or negative interest rates, current profits of the banking sector would be further squeezed.

If it starts to take steps toward conventional monetary policy, the banking sector would face serious valuation losses. Either way, the future prospects for Japanese banks look like hell. We will probably witness a clear distinction between two groups of banks: those who manage their business based on foresight and those who don’t. And we would see a deep reshuffle in the banking sector along with the exit process from the unconventional monetary policy of the Bank of Japan.

To paraphrase Juncker: “When things get serious in Europe, no rules or laws are immune to lies.”

• Europe’s Banking Union Is Dying in Italy (BBG)

The Italian government looks set to put Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, two troubled regional lenders, into liquidation, selling off the good assets to a rival bank for a symbolic price. The toxic assets would be transferred to a bad bank, mostly funded by the government. Shareholders and junior bond-holders would contribute to the rescue, while senior creditors would be spared. The rival bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, would be getting a great deal for little risk. But for the Italian taxpayer, and the credibility of euro zone financial regulation, the plan is a loser and should be stopped. The Italian scheme is radically different from the one put in place two weeks ago, when the Spanish lender Banco Santander bought Banco Popular for one euro. In that case Santander also acquired Popular’s non-performing loans as well as all the future legal risks.

It also immediately went to the markets to raise capital to pay for it. Here, Intesa will only pick the assets it wants and insists that the operation not impact its capital ratio. This plan is a slap in the face of Italian taxpayers, who according to some estimates could end up paying around €10 billion ($11.1) for it. The government could have taken a less expensive route, involving the “bail in” of senior bondholders. It chose not to: Many of these instruments are in the hands of retail investors, who bought them without being fully aware of the risks involved. The government wants to avoid a political backlash and the risk of contagion spreading across the system. However, €10 billion is a whale of a premium to pay as an insurance against a contagion. And Rome may still face a backlash – from taxpayers who will feel defrauded.

Most importantly, this plan is a dagger in the heart of the euro zone banking union. This was one of Europe’s main responses to the sovereign debt crisis, designed to limit the contribution of taxpayers to bank rescues and to ensure all euro zone lenders faced a coherent set of rules. Italy is relying for its plan on its domestic liquidation regime. Rome will effectively by-pass the EU’s “single resolution board” which is supposed to handle bank failures in an orderly way and the “Banking Recovery and Resolution Directive,” which should act as the euro zone’s single rulebook. The advantage will be to spare senior bondholders but the cost will be huge: denting, perhaps irreversibly, the credibility of Europe’s newly formed institutions.

And there we go. After years of trying to save them. One day we’ll realize just how epic this failure is.

• Two Italian Zombie Banks Toppled Friday Night (WS)

When banks fail and regulators decide to liquidate them, it happens on Friday evening so that there is a weekend to clean up the mess. And this is what happened in Italy – with two banks! It’s over for the two banks that have been prominent zombies in the Italian banking crisis: Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, in northeastern Italy. The banks have combined assets of €60 billion, a good part of which are toxic and no one wanted to touch them. They already received a bailout but more would have been required, and given the uncertainty and the messiness of their books, nothing was forthcoming, and the ECB which regulates them lost its patience. In a tersely worded statement, the ECB’s office of Banking Supervision ordered the banks to be wound up because they “were failing or likely to fail as the two banks repeatedly breached supervisory capital requirements.”

“Failing or likely to fail” is the key phrase that banking supervisors use for banks that “should be put in resolution or wound up under normal insolvency proceedings,” the statement said. This is the first Italian bank liquidation under Europe’s new Single Resolution Mechanism Regulation. The ECB explained: “The ECB had given the banks time to present capital plans, but the banks had been unable to offer credible solutions going forward. Consequently, the ECB deemed that both banks were failing or likely to fail and duly informed the Single Resolution Board (SRB), which concluded that the conditions for a resolution action in relation to the two banks had not been met. The banks will be wound up under Italian insolvency procedures.”

[..] nothing worked. Private sector money stayed away in droves. JP Morgan, which had been recruited to save the Italian banks, threw in the towel. These banks had been zombies for too long. Everybody knew it. But the government kept denying it. Just weeks ago, Italy’s Minister of Economy Pier Carlo Padoan insisted that the two banks would not be wound down. Last year, to dispel the mountain of evidence to the contrary, he insisted that that there would be no need of any future bail outs; and that, furthermore, Italy did not even have a banking problem. In early June, the two banks were instructed by the European Commission to raise an additional €1.25 billion in private capital. No one bit. Italy’s government then tried to persuade the European Commission and the ECB to water down the requirement to €600-800 million, and it urged Italian banks to chip in to the bank rescue fund. All that failed.

That leaves 25 sovereign countries with nothing to say on issues that are vitally important to them. Who are we kidding?

• ‘Emmangela’ Show Reasserts EU’s Franco-German Alliance (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel used the French president’s first Brussels summit Friday to deliver an unmistakeable message: their countries intend to lead the EU’s post-Brexit revival. The Franco-German power couple held an unusual joint press conference after meeting their 26 European Union counterparts, against a backdrop of their respective flags and the bloc’s blue banner with yellow stars. “When France and Germany speak with one voice, Europe can move forward,” newcomer Macron told a room almost filled to bursting point with reporters as he stood alongside the German chancellor. “There can be no pertinent solution if it is not a pertinent solution for France and Germany,” the 39-year-old centre-right leader.

Despite her more pragmatic tone, the message from 62-year-old Merkel was the same. “This press conference shows that we are resolved to jointly find solutions to problems,” she said. The joint press conference came exactly a year after Britain’s shock referendum vote to become the first country to leave the European Union, which prompted dire predictions of the break-up of the bloc. But Europe has jumped on the bandwagon of Macron’s stunning election victory over French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to trumpet a newfound optimism after years of austerity and crisis despite Brexit. At the heart of that is the idea that Macron may be able to repair the traditional “engine” behind European integration – the post-war alliance of Paris and Berlin after centuries of conflict.

Can the Greek finance minister please state that Schaeuble lies to Germans? Just to see the reaction?!

• Schaeuble Says British Were ‘Lied To’, ‘Deceived’ In Brexit Campaign (R.)

British people were “endlessly lied to and deceived” in last year’s Brexit referendum campaign, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday. Speaking in Berlin on the first anniversary of the Brexit vote, Schaeuble was scathing about the “leave” campaigners who persuaded a majority of voters to opt to quit the EU. “The Britons were endlessly lied to and deceived,” Schaeuble told a conference of family-run companies. When the Brexit campaigners “happened to be successful, the ones who did it ran away because they said they can’t take responsibility”. The two sides in Britain’s referendum campaign swapped bitter accusations they were making misleading or untrue statements, such as the claim that leaving the EU would free up large sums for public health spending.

In the days after the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum, resigned, and several prominent leave campaigners dropped out of the race to succeed him. Schaeuble said the 70 years of growth and prosperity Europe had known since World War Two was not based on pure majoritarianism but on sustainable democratic models. “(We need) not just mechanisms that consist of my promising something to a majority,” he said. “Then you only have to look at the demographics to see that you’ll end up with endless debates about redistribution that lead to jealousy.”

May has become a very damaging force in Britain.

• UK MPs Plan Cross-Party Alliance To Defeat May, Hard Brexit (Ind.)

MPs from all parties are already planning an alliance to defeat Theresa May’s plans for a hard Brexit, just days into the new Parliament. Strategies to amend future legislation – including a key immigration bill – to force ministers to listen to business groups and to show the EU that Parliament wants a “softer” exit are being drawn up, The Independent has learned. One Conservative MP said the aim was to give confidence to “bullied” ministers who are reluctant to “speak out”, despite sharing the view that the Prime Minister’s plans put Britain on the road to disaster. Another MP outlined the importance of convincing Brussels that Parliament can “coordinate” to present a different, more EU-friendly policy to that of the Government. “It would really show how power has shifted if Parliament can coordinate itself – and that’s not impossible,” the MP said.

Pro-EU Tory Anna Soubry told The Independent: “We are talking to each other and will continue to talk to each other – this is something that transcends normal party political considerations. “It doesn’t have to be about forcing votes, but it may come to that. Certainly, the threat of losing a vote will weigh very heavily on the Government’s mind.” Another MP spoke of giving voice to changing public opinion, amid the first evidence that some people who voted Leave a year ago are changing their minds. Ms Soubry added: “I am up for working with everybody. Hopefully something concrete will come out of it, because this is the most important thing that’s been done in decades.” She said she was in contact with some of the 34 Labour MPs who, this week, challenged Jeremy Corbyn to change course by fighting to stay in the single market.

Noy much use, perhaps. Don’t say it out loud. Just wait for the Tories to blow up.

• Corbyn Vows To Force Early British Election (Ind.)

Jeremy Corbyn has said he will look to “force an early general election” after claiming it was “ludicrous” to suggest Theresa May could stay in power. The Labour leader made the claim before speaking at Unison’s annual conference in Brighton and also added he was pleased with the party’s recent surge in opinion polls. Mr Corbyn’s approval rating has been on the rise since the general election and it appears he will now attempt to pile pressure on the Prime Minister. “Mrs May called the election so not to have a coalition of chaos, but that is exactly what we have got, they don’t seem to have come to an agreement with the DUP two weeks after the election,” Mr Corbyn told the Daily Mirror. “We will challenge this Government at every step and try to force an early general election.”

George Osborne has some accounts to settle. And a very easy target to blame his own whoppers on.

• May Blocked Plan To Guarantee Rights Of EU Citizens In UK After Brexit (Ind.)

Theresa May single-handedly blocked a plan to immediately guarantee the future rights of the 3m EU citizens in the UK last summer, George Osborne has revealed. The then-Home Secretary was the only member of the Cabinet to oppose David Cameron, who “wanted to reassure EU citizens they would be allowed to stay”, after Brexit. “All his Cabinet agreed with that unilateral offer, except his Home Secretary, Mrs May, who insisted on blocking it,” revealed the Evening Standard, now edited by Mr Osborne. The proposal was discussed “in the days immediately after the referendum” exactly one year ago, said the newspaper. Ms May has denied the accusation and said that “was certainly not my recollection” of events. But Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman, said: “It is a badge of shame that Theresa May blocked attempts to guarantee the rights of EU nationals after the referendum.

“It shows how cold and heartless she is. “Now that mean-spirited decision is coming back to haunt her as we see an exodus of skilled EU workers, from nurses to academics.” The revelation comes after EU citizens in the UK protested that Ms May’s “generous” offer – outlined last night – will leave them with less rights after Brexit than “British jam”. The Prime Minister’s proposals also ran into trouble from other EU leaders who warned of “open questions” and a “long, long way to go” before agreement. Ms May was forced to defend her position and said she wants to give EU citizens in the UK “certainty” but the details of the arrangement would be outlined during the negotiation process. Since reaching No 10, Ms May has faced down pleas to act unilaterally, insisting she would only offer guarantees to EU citizens if British ex-pats in the EU were given the same protection.

It’ll happen only after the round of rate hikes. There’s not enough room to go down right now.

• The Fed Needs to Acknowledge the Slowing Economy (DDMB)

As any market veteran can tell you, those on the sell-side are the second-to-last to concede to a slowdown in economic activity. It’s unseemly to make negative calls when a firm’s main objective is keeping its clients fully invested in risky assets; the two aims naturally conflict. Hence the surprise when Bank of America Merrill Lynch said autos are headed for a “decisive downturn” that will trough in 2021 at around a 13-million-unit annualized rate, down from last year’s blistering record 17.6 million. A week earlier, Morgan Stanley, whose numbers are not quite as grim, also reduced its sales forecast, recognizing that the best days of the cycle have come and gone. The U.S. economy is consumption-centric. Growth in the current recovery has centered on three industries that have fed through to consumption in its various forms – autos, energy and financial services.

There’s something almost poetic in finance’s re-emergence, especially for those on Wall Street who’ve profited smartly from unprecedented levels of deal flow. Have a debt problem? Solve it with more debt. And why not? This system has worked for generations; insatiable demand for debt is why interest rates have staged their historic decline. Debt lit the fire that ignited the shale revolution. Debt put a floor under and then helped commercial real estate reach for the skies. Debt kept dying retailers alive. And debt made easier back-to-back years of record car sales. The question so many bullish economists must answer is what debt can do for the economy in the future. Much to the Saudis’ dismay, the energy industry is as lean and mean as it’s ever been; operating efficiency gains have been magnificent in a do-or-die environment. Energy is growth neutral going forward.

[..] It’s all good and well that strained industries want to extract what value remains from their CRE exposure as part of their exit strategies. But this only works in isolation. If motivated sellers move in tandem, you can bet teetering CRE valuations will be among the casualties, taking many over-exposed mid-size and small banks down with them. Call it a confluence of factors that bodes ill for the economic recovery, even as optimists hope the growth streak can stretch into a 10th year. By the way, leading the optimists’ charge is the Federal Reserve itself. Central bank policy makers’ expectations for future growth indicate the current economic recovery will unseat the record holder, the expansion that finally flamed out in 2001 after enjoying a life of exactly 10 years. But then it is the Fed that’s the very last to capitulate, to say nothing of forecast, a slowdown in economic activity.

“The best thing to do is to break Illinois into pieces right now. Just wipe us off the map.”; “Illinois is merely the canary in the coal mine.”

• Unfunded Liabilities Have Turned Illinois Into A Banana Republic (Lang)

Illinois is the perfect example of what happens when your state is run by fiscally irresponsible dunces for decades. The state is buried in debt, and hasn’t passed a budget in over 700 days. 100% of their monthly revenue is being consumed by court ordered payments, and the Illinois Department of Transportation has revealed that they may not be able to pay contractors (who are working on over 700 infrastructure projects) after July 1st if the state doesn’t pass a budget. To top it all off, the state’s credit rating is one step away from junk status, the lowest of any state. Because of these factors, Illinois may become the first state to declare bankruptcy since the Great Depression. Governor Bruce Rauner has gone so far as to call his state a “banana republic.” The state’s comptroller has admitted that “We are in massive crisis mode.”

And a reporter for the Chicago Tribune thinks Illinois has gone so far past the point of no return, that the state should be broken up. He recently wrote what basically sounds like a suicide note for Illinois. “Dissolve Illinois. Decommission the state, tear up the charter, whatever the legal mumbo-jumbo, just end the whole dang thing. We just disappear. With no pain. That’s right. You heard me. The best thing to do is to break Illinois into pieces right now. Just wipe us off the map. Cut us out of America’s heartland and let neighboring states carve us up and take the best chunks for themselves. The group that will scream the loudest is the state’s political class, who did this to us, and the big bond creditors, who are whispering talk of bankruptcy and asset forfeiture to save their own skins. But our beloved Illinois has proved that it just doesn’t deserve to survive.”

So how did it get to this point? The root of the problem is Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities, which amount to $130 billion. The state’s leaders simply promised what could not be delivered. Most of their employees can retire in their 50’s, and many of them will receive 1-2 million dollars over the course of their retirements. As the debts associated with those pensions reached astronomical levels, the government increased taxes so much that many of the wealthiest and most productive citizens and businesses have moved away, leaving an even smaller tax base to draw from. In short, Illinois is in a death spiral, but it’s not alone. Illinois is merely the canary in the coal mine.

Hopeless.

• America’s Health-Care Rain Dance (Jim Kunstler)

The cost of everything medical is worked out in a private rain-dance between the aforementioned manifold concerned parties on the basis of what they think they can get away with in any particular case. In hospitals, this is enabled by the notorious ChargeMaster system which, to put it as simply as possible, allows hospitals to just make shit up. Any bill in congress that affects to reform the gross financial malfeasance in healthcare ought to start with the absolute requirement to publicly post the cost of everything that doctors and hospitals do, and enable the “service providers” to get paid only those publicly posted costs — obviating the lucrative rain-dance for dividing up the ransoms paid by hostage-patients who come to the “providers,” after all, in extremis. Notice that this crucial feature of the crisis is missing not only from the political debate but also from the supposedly public-interest-minded pages of The New York Times and other organs of the news media.

Perhaps this facet of the problem never entered the editors’ minds — in which case you really have to ask: how dumb are they? (The funniest claim about ObamaCare in today’s New York Times is the statement that 20 million citizens got access to health care under the so-called Affordable Care Act. Really? You mean they got health insurance policies with $8000-deductables, when they don’t even have $500 in savings to pay for car repairs? What planet do The New York Times editorial writers live on?) The corollary questions about deconstructing the insurance armature of the health care racket, and assigning its “duties” to a “single-payer” government agency is, of course, a higher level of debate. I’m not saying it would work, even if it was modeled on one of the systems currently working elsewhere, say in France.

But Americans have acquired an allergy to even thinking about that, or at least they’ve been conditioned to imagine they’re allergic by self-interested politicians. So, the current product of debate in the US Senate is just a scheme for pretending to reapportion the colossal flow of grift among the grifters. Spare yourself the angst of even worrying about the outcome of the current healthcare debate. It’s not going to get “fixed.” The medical system as we know it is going to blow up, and soon, just like the pension systems across the country, and the treasuries of the fifty states themselves, and the rest of the Potemkin US economy.

“The coalition says it takes as many precautions as possible within the laws of warfare..”

• US-Led Coalition Kills Almost 500 Syrian Civilians In One Month (NW)

The U.S.-led coalition’s strikes against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in two Syrian provinces killed 472 civilians in the last month, according to a monitor. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based monitoring group that has an extensive network of contacts on the ground in Syria, said the toll was more than double the month prior and the highest for a single month since raids began in September 2014. In Raqqa province, where the city of the same name is located, coalition strikes killed 250 civilians, including 53 children, SOHR said. In Deir ez-Zor, strikes killed 222 civilians, 84 of which were children. Rami Abdul Rahman, director of SOHR, told the AFP news agency that the total deaths caused by coalition strikes in Syria now amounted to 1,953. Of the deceased, 456 were children and 333 were women.

The coalition continues its bombing campaign in and around the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, the largest under ISIS’s control in the country. It is supporting an Arab-Kurdish alliance waging a ground offensive against ISIS in the de facto capital of its self-declared caliphate that straddles the Iraqi-Syrian border. The coalition says it takes as many precautions as possible within the laws of warfare, but top coalition generals have admitted that civilian deaths are inevitable in the campaign to defeat ISIS. Some 100,000 civilians remain under ISIS control in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and thousands remain in Raqqa. Human rights groups have criticized the coalition for not exercising enough caution. One case in particular was a March 17 strike in Mosul that killed more than 100 civilians. The coalition investigated the incident and concluded that ISIS had placed booby traps in the building that maximized the damage on impact.

Greece must refuse.

• The Unfinished Negotiations For A Greek “Super-Memorandum” (Press Project)

They say that history repeats itself first as a tragedy then as a farce. It’s a commonplace expression that is nevertheless clearly true in crisis-ridden Greece. During the SYRIZA-AnEl coalition’s time in power(especially under the second mandate), even the seasons of the year have come to resemble each other. Winter is a time of tension, harsh disagreement and bluster. Spring is the season for gradual capitulation. May (2016 and 2017) is the month for government betrayal; June for further prerequisites and an “agreement.” The rest of the summer then marks a period of government euphoria, followed by an autumn of initial discussions with an eye to the next set of negotiations. By using what happened over the same span of time in 2016—along with the language of the Third (and “fourth”)Memorandum of Understanding—as a kind of textbook, it’s easy to tell where we are and where we’re headed.

The June 15 Eurogroup joint statement condenses all the results of the most recent set of negotiations. These are the most essential and specific points: “The reform measures cover areas such as pensions, income tax, the labour market as well as the financial and energy sectors. These should make Greece’s medium-term fiscal strategy more robust and support the growth-friendly rebalancing of the economy. The Eurogroup invited Greece together with the institutions and relevant third parties to develop and support a holistic, growth enhancing strategy.”

In this paragraph, the Eurozone Finance Ministers are essentially borrowing a page from 1984. In that legendary novel by George Orwell, war is peace; freedom is enslavement; ignorance is power. For the Eurogroup (as per usual), pension cuts, reductions in tax exemptions, an administration well-disposed to mass lay-offs, and the sale of Public Power Corporation shares all count as positive “reform measures.” Greece’s sentence to a “long-term memorandum,” requiring surpluses of 3.5% until 2022 and a little over 2% until 2060, constitutes “support [of] a holistic, growth enhancing strategy.” “The Eurogroup reconfirmed its approach to the sustainability of Greece’s public debt that was agreed in May 2016, while providing some further detail on the medium-term debt measures that could accrue to Greece. These measures would be implemented after successful completion of the programme, if a new debt sustainability analysis were to confirm that such measures are necessary.”

These two brief paragraphs finalize the results of the multi-month Greek debt negotiations. In short and as is plainly evident, the Greek government gained nothing in terms of its debt, while after months of Eurozone attempts to secure further relief the Eurogroup simply determined that everything decided back in May 2016 still holds. Even the government’s recent expectation that the (highly dangerous) phrase “if necessary” would be removed from the relief-program wording was ultimately frustrated. “The Eurogroup welcomed Greece’s commitment to maintain a primary surplus of 3.5% of GDP until 2022, and a fiscal path consistent with the European fiscal framework thereafter. According to analysis by the European Commission, such compliance would be achieved with a primary surplus of equal to or above but close to 2.0% of GDP in the period of 2023-2060.”

Debt Rattle June 14 2015

Jun 142015

June 14, 2015 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:24 am Finance Tagged with: endgame, Greece, IMF, mayors, Memorandum, review, Snowden, Spain, Syriza, TTIP, Ukraine 3 Responses »

Harris&Ewing Newsie, Washington DC 1920

• The IMF Knew In 2010 That The Greek Memorandum Would Increase Debt (SYRIZA)

• Why Greece Should Reject the Latest Offer From Its Creditors (Philippe Legrain)

• The Saga Of The Greek Review That Never Ended (Kathimerini)

• Endgame Looms For Greek Crisis As Both Sides Take Talks To The Brink (Guardian)

• Greece’s Last-Ditch Talks Aim at Agreement Before Monday (Bloomberg)

• Germany Is Bluffing On Greece (Weisbrot)

• Spain Swears In Leftist Mayors for Madrid, Barcelona in Historic Turn (AP)

• Why Keynesian Voodoo Doesn’t Work Anymore (Bawerk)

• US Labor Movement’s War Against Fast-Track May Not Be Over (Guardian)

• Doubts Over EU Proposals For Saving TTIP Deal (Reuters)

• The Warren Buffett Economy – Why Its Days Are Numbered-Part 4 (David Stockman)

• End of the Line: China and Germany Look Ready to Pop (Herry Dent)

• IMF Says It Will Continue To Back Ukraine (DW)

• How One Accounting Rule Wrecked The Middle Class (Daniel Drew)

• Britain Pulls Out Spies As Russia, China Crack Snowden Files (Reuters)

• US Is Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in Eastern Europe (NY Times)

• Did Mathematician John Nash Help Invent Bitcoin? (CoinDesk)

• Elon Musk Asks Permission To Put 4,000 Internet Satellites Into Orbit (Ind.)

• High-Tech Solar Projects Fail To Deliver (WSJ)

The Audit Commission is set to unveil its findings June 18.

• The IMF Knew In 2010 That The Greek Memorandum Would Increase Debt (SYRIZA)

An IMF document is in the possession of the Greek Audit Commission proving that the creditor knew that the memorandum would increase the Greek debt. The Audit Commission has in its possession a document which shows that the IMF knew from March 2010 that the Greek memorandum would increase Greek debt. The President of the Greek Parliament Zoe Konstantopoulou and the scientific coordinator of the Audit Commission of the Greek debt, Dr. Eric Toussaint, spoke yesterday about the contents of this document.

“We have an internal document of the IMF of March 2010, detailing the measures provided for inclusion in the 2010 Memorandum This is a very detailed and predefined plan, which was not communicated to the parliaments of 14 European Union countries who have lent to Greece nor to the Greek Parliament. Because, as you know, there was a violation of the Greek Constitution in May 2010, when the agreement was concluded, “said Mr. Toussaint.

“During our work, we have also managed to establish that the means used to make the Greek debt restructuring in 2010 was absolutely detrimental, because the rights of the pension funds of Greece and of Greek citizens who held State bonds were sacrificed. For example, there was a haircut of over 50% for some employees of Olympic Airways, who had received government bonds after their dismissal without their own agreement, and through no fault of their own. No compensatory measure was arranged for them. However the big private banks that participated in the haircut received compensation of €30 billion, which was added to the Greek public debt. ” said Toussaint.

On her part the President of the Parliament said: “We seek the truth corresponding to the legitimate and illegitimate parts of the debt and of our burdensome obligation.” The preliminary findings of the Greek debt Audit Commission will be published in June 17-18, 2015.

Legrain gets it too.

• Why Greece Should Reject the Latest Offer From Its Creditors (Philippe Legrain)

Reform — Greece sorely needs it. Cash — the government is running desperately short of it. So it is time for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to do what’s best for Greece and accept its creditors’ reform demands in exchange for much-needed cash. That is how the Greek situation is usually framed. It is utterly misleading. Imagine you’re in prison for not being able to pay your debts. (You’re right, it’s almost unthinkable — civilized societies no longer lock up bankrupt individuals. But bear with me.) After five years of misery, you lead a rebellion, take control of the prison, and demand your release. The jailers respond by cutting off your water supply. Should you back down and return to your cell, perhaps negotiating for slightly less unpleasant conditions, in order to obtain a little liquidity?

Or should you keep fighting to be free? That, in essence, is what the standoff between an insolvent Greece and its eurozone creditors is really about. For months, Greece has had “only days” to agree a deal with its creditors before it runs out of cash. Eventually that will be true. But even if Tsipras accepted the creditors’ demands, Greece would still have “only days” before it ran out of cash. The €7.2 billion on offer right now wouldn’t even cover the Greek government’s debt repayments until the end of August. And for a measly two months of liquidity, Tsipras is expected to surrender his democratic mandate: break his election promises, agree to yet more tax increases and spending cuts that would depress Greece’s economy further, and relinquish his demands for debt relief.

Then the wrangling would start again. Because so long as Greece remains in its debtors’ prison, it will be dependent on its jailers for liquidity and therefore expected to comply with whatever additional conditions they impose. Tsipras should not submit to this debt bondage. Nine of every 10 euros that eurozone governments and the IMF have lent to the Greek government since 2010 have gone to repay its unbearable debts, which should instead have been restructured back then. But from now on, every last cent of additional funding would go to pay back debt. The Greek government now has a small primary surplus: It doesn’t need to borrow, except to service its debts of 175% of GDP.

Nice history lesson. Not flawless.

• The Saga Of The Greek Review That Never Ended (Kathimerini)

It was a sunny morning in Brussels on November 7 last year when Greek Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis received an e-mail from the team of inspectors of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank – collectively known as the troika – that changed everything. In that moment it became clear that the review of the Greek reform process was not about to end anytime soon, as the troika was toughening its stance and demanding that Athens complete all the prior actions outlined in its second bailout deal to the letter. The government was shocked as the e-mail came just a few hours after a Eurogroup meeting ended with what appeared to be a positive message for Greece.

It came at the moment when, if the country passed the review that was being carried out – and is still being carried out – it would be able to turn over a new leaf, free of demands for more austerity, and would be able to apply for a precautionary credit line that would allow it access to the markets. That e-mail, however, detailed 19 tough measures the Greek government had a month to implement in order to wrap up the review. For the government, those measures were impossible to implement given the political climate at the time.

Seven months after that e-mail, and with a different government in Athens and the same review still pending, Kathimerini seeks answers as to why the talks with the troika stalled by speaking to the protagonists, and attempts to explain what went wrong, ultimately leading the country to elections on January 25. Did the creditors pull the rug from under Antonis Samaras by increasing their demands, as some of the former prime minister’s associates argue? Was it that the Europeans misread the intentions of the opposition SYRIZA party and its chief, current Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras? Or was it fatigue after years of tough fiscal adjustment that prevented the Greek economy from rebounding?

Endgame’s been looming forever. Why still use that word?

• Endgame Looms For Greek Crisis As Both Sides Take Talks To The Brink (Guardian)

Eleventh-hour talks to avoid Greece defaulting on its debt and plunging the eurozone into crisis intensified at the weekend with Greek officials flying to Brussels only days before a meeting of Europe’s finance ministers that many regard as a final deadline. Almost five months after he assumed power, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has come to a fork in the road: either he accepts the painful terms of a cash-for-reform deal that ensures Greece’s place in the single currency or he decides to go it alone, faithful to the vision of his anti-austerity Syriza party. Either way, the endgame is upon him.

Thursday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers is viewed as the last chance to clinch a deal before Athens’s already extended bailout accord expires on 30 June. “It is in his hands,” Rena Dourou, governor of the Attica district, said. “Tsipras, himself, is acutely aware of the historic weight his decision will carry.” The drama of Greece’s battle to keep bankruptcy at bay has, with the ticking of the clock, become ever darker in tone. What started out as good-tempered brinkmanship has turned increasingly sour as negotiations to release desperately needed bailout funds have repeatedly hit a wall over Athens’s failure to produce persuasive reforms.

“It is as if they work in Excel and we work in Word,” said one insider. “There just seems to be no meeting of minds.” Last week the mood became more febrile as it emerged that Eurocrats, for the first time, had debated the possibility of cash-starved Athens defaulting. The revelation came amid reports that Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, was resigned to letting Greece go. Berlin is by far the biggest contributor to the €240bn bailout propping up the near-bankrupt state. Last week, the EU council president, Donald Tusk, ratcheted up the pressure, warning: “There is no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I am afraid, that someone says the game is over.”

On Saturday Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis hit back, telling Radio 4 that he did not believe “any sensible European bureaucrat or politician” would seriously contemplate the country’s euro exit. “The reason why we are not signing up to what has been offered is because it is yet another version of the failed proposals of the past,” he said. The persistent demand of foreign lenders for pension reform, given the scale of austerity already undertaken in a country that has seen its economy shrink by more than a quarter in the past five years, was not only silly but plainly a deal-breaker, he said. “It is just the kind of proposal that one puts forward if you don’t want an agreement,” insisted the academic-turned-politician.

Endgame, last ditch. Whatever.

• Greece’s Last-Ditch Talks Aim at Agreement Before Monday (Bloomberg)

Greece and its creditors are locked in last-ditch talks, with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker trying to broker a deal over the weekend. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sent a delegation to Brussels Saturday with a new set of proposals to close differences on pensions, taxes and a primary surplus target. With positions hardening on all sides, the talks are Juncker’s last attempt to try to bring the sides to a compromise, according to a European Union official, who asked not to be identified. Representatives of the Troika are waiting in the wings to join the discussions if progress is made between Greece’s envoy and Juncker’s chief of staff and the aim is to reach an accord before markets open on Monday. Both sides are prepared to continue talks on Sunday.

European leaders have voiced growing exasperation with Greece’s brinkmanship that has pushed Europe’s most-indebted country to the edge of insolvency. Flitting between intransigence and conciliatory overtures, Tsipras has spent four months locked in an impasse with the country’s creditor institutions. The latest Greek counter-proposal is the second in June. The first was roundly dismissed. Greek stocks dropped 5.9% on Friday, with bank shares dropping 12%, as talks remained deadlocked. The yield on Greek 2017 bonds rose 137 basis points to 20.03%. US and European equities and the euro-area’s higher-yielding bonds also tumbled amid growing concern Greece will run out of time for reaching a deal to stave off default.

An attempt by Juncker to broker a compromise allowing Greece to defer €400 million of cuts in small pensions if it reduced military spending by same amount was spiked by the IMF, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the negotiations. With a deadline for a deal looming, Merkel told Tsipras it’s time to accept the framework for financial aid. Greece’s bailout extension expires June 30 and some national parliaments need to ratify any agreement before funds can be disbursed, which narrows the window for a deal.

Germany simply believes its own fiction.

• Germany Is Bluffing On Greece (Weisbrot)

It would be nice to think that the worst features of US foreign policy have changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they have not. The Cold War never really ended, at least insofar as the US is still a global empire and wants every government to put Washington’s interests ahead of those expressed by its own voters. The current hostilities with Russia add a sense of déjà vu, but they are mainly an added excuse for what would be US policy in any case. Once we take all these interests into account and where they converge, the strategy of Greece’s European partners is pretty clear: It’s all about regime change. One senior Greek official involved in the negotiations referred to it as a “slow-motion coup d’état.” And those who were paying attention could see this from the beginning.

Just 10 days after Syriza was elected the ECB cut off its main line of credit to Greece and then capped the amount that Greek banks could lend to the government. All the hype and brinkmanship destabilize the economy, and some of this is an intentional effect of European authorities’ statements and threats. But the direct sabotage of the Greek economy is most important, and it is remarkable that it has gotten so little attention. The unannounced objective is to undermine political support for the Syriza government until it falls and get a new regime that is preferable to the European partners and the US This is the only strategy that makes sense, from their point of view. They will try to give Greece enough oxygen to avoid default and exit, which they really don’t want, but not enough for an economic recovery, which they also don’t want.

Thai is getting Brussels scared. “Madrid and Barcelona for the first time are not going be governed by political parties, but by coalitions made up of social movements..”

• Spain Swears In Leftist Mayors for Madrid, Barcelona in Historic Turn (AP)

Spain’s biggest cities — Madrid and Barcelona — completed one of the nation’s biggest political upheavals in years Saturday by swearing in far-left mayors. The radical leaders have promised to cut their own salaries, halt homeowner evictions and eliminate perks enjoyed by the rich and famous. The landmark changes came three weeks after Spain’s two largest traditional parties were punished in nationwide local elections by voters groaning under the weight of austerity measures and repulsed by a string of corruption scandals. In Madrid, 71-year-old retired judge Manuela Carmena was sworn in to cheers from jubilant leftists who crowded the streets outside city hall shouting “Yes We Can!” as they ended 24 years of city rule by the conservative Popular Party, which runs the national government.

“We want to lead by listening to people who don’t use fancy titles to address us,” Carmena said after being voted in as mayor by a majority of Madrid’s new city councilors. Carmena has vowed among other things to take on wealthy Madrilenos who enjoy exclusive use of the city-owned Club de Campo country club — opening it up to the masses. “We’re creating a new kind of politics that doesn’t fit within the conventions,” she said before being voted in. “Get ready.” In Barcelona, anti-eviction activist Ada Colau was later sworn in as the city’s first female mayor. Smiling broadly, Colau took possession of the city’s mayoral sash and scepter before thanking voters and her coalition partners. “Thank you for making possible something that had seemed impossible,” she said.

Colau has questioned whether it’s worth spending €4 million of city money to help host the glitzy Formula 1 race every other year. She thinks the funds would be better spent on free meals for needy children at public schools. Carmena and Colau ran for office as leaders of leftist coalitions supported by the new pro-worker and anti-establishment Podemos party formed last year. It is led by the pony-tailed college professor Pablo Iglesias, a big supporter of Greece’s governing far-left Syriza Party. Iglesias smiled from a balcony inside Madrid’s city hall as he watched Carmena being sworn in, then pumped his arm into the air with a clenched fist as he celebrated the victory with others on the streets.

The left’s takeover of Madrid, Iglesias said, is the goal his party has nationally for general elections that must be called by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy by the end of the year. “Our principal objective is to beat the Popular Party in the general elections,” he said. The political fragmentation propelling Carmena and Colau into office marks a historic moment in Spanish politics, said Manuel Martin Algarra at the University of Navarra. “Madrid and Barcelona for the first time are not going be governed by political parties, but by coalitions made up of social movements,” he said.

“Just as with drugs, the abuser must increase the dosage to feel the same high and spend accordingly.”

• Why Keynesian Voodoo Doesn’t Work Anymore (Bawerk)

Keynesian policy of manipulating economic “aggregates” through countercyclical macro-measures appeared to work when balance sheets were not stretched to the brink. As we wrote in “Goebbelnomics”

“If collective exuberance and apathy is the sole cause of the business cycle, then it logically follows that human emotions need to be manipulated accordingly. Only by doing so can policymakers smooth out the ups and downs in economic activity. And what better way to do that then to change the money supplied to the general public.”

While people called this the “most sickening article ever written” it is unfortunately what economics has come down to. Through fractional reserve banking and a central bank freed from the shackles of a barbarous relic, the money supply can be expanded without limit…or at least as long as the greater populace voluntarily will leverage up their balance sheets to buy stuff and simultaneously agree to their own servitude. Nothing more than collective manipulation on a scale that would make Goebbels himself envious. The glaringly obvious result of such policies, gross capital consumption through malinvestments epitomized through a serial bubble economy, did not discourage our money masters. The best and brightest even suggest bubbles are the only remedy to what they believe is some sort of secular stagnation. Just as with drugs, the abuser must increase the dosage to feel the same high and spend accordingly.

Many more rounds to come.

• US Labor Movement’s War Against Fast-Track May Not Be Over (Guardian)

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, was uncharacteristically ebullient after the House voted down fast track on trade Friday, delivering a sharp rebuke to Barack Obama. Trumka called the vote “a marvelous contrast to the corporate money and disillusionment that normally mark American politics today”. He added that “this was truly democracy in action”, a nod to the millions of Americans who had sent emails, met with lawmakers and marched in the streets to oppose fast track and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation pact that is being negotiated.

Trumka repeatedly boasted that never before had so many unions fought so vigorously on a trade issue – they fear TPP will cause job losses, push down wages and do little to increase worker protections in Asia. Labor’s threats to deny donations and campaign support to Democrats who embraced fast track pressured many lawmakers to vote against, and not risk labor’s ire. Fast-track authority would ease efforts to ratify TPP because it requires an up-or-down vote and prohibits amendments. Even while rejoicing, many fast-track foes voiced fears that the war was not over –House Republicans said they would seek to pass a re-worked bill next week. “I don’t think it’s over yet,” Tim Waters, political director of the United Steelworkers, told the Guardian.

“They’re trying to do everything they can to get this back on track.” Organized labor’s victory – one of its biggest triumphs in years – grew out of a new strategy the AFL-CIO adopted two years ago. Trumka announced that labor would henceforth seek to form broad coalitions out of recognition that it was no longer as powerful and was having a harder time securing legislation it supported. The anti-fast track coalition was immense – labor was at its heart, and it included environmental, faith, immigrant and food safety groups. The coalition spanned the Democratic base, including 2,000 groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, the Electric Frontier Foundation, Friends of the Earth and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

A lot more protest will be needed.

• Doubts Over EU Proposals For Saving TTIP Deal (Reuters)

The European Union has more work to do, experts say, if it hopes to seal a transatlantic trade deal that has been criticized for leaving governments open to international legal action from companies affected by changes to tax and regulation. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, is right now negotiating a trade and investment treaty with the United States – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – that it says could add €119 billion annually to Europe’s economy and €95 billion to the US economy. However the treaty faces growing opposition in Europe from politicians, labor unions and campaign groups who fear it may prevent governments from being able to ban unsafe products or tax businesses because of a provision protecting investors’ rights.

The provision referring to “fair and equitable treatment”, was introduced to treaties decades ago to allow investors to seek redress if their assets were expropriated by governments. It allows businesses to sue via international courts that do not defer to national interests and has increasingly been used to sanction governments over everything from banning chemicals, withdrawing tax breaks or writing new environmental regulations. Matthias Fekl, French minister for trade, is especially critical of the EU’s plan to include this right to sue in tribunals in the TTIP. He said in a recent interview that France would “never allow private tribunals in the pay of multinational companies to dictate the policies of sovereign states.”

But businesses and their lobby groups have told the European Commission they object to any scaling back in their ability to sue governments or any requirement they do so in national courts. In response, the EC has redrafted parts of the trade treaty to limit the circumstances under which a claim can be made. It has also proposed a new appeals process for governments and suggested new rules for selecting arbitrators – currently mainly corporate lawyers who campaigners say are biased towards corporations. It’s not a watertight solution, some say. “There are definitely some improvements but it’s not a dramatic reform,” said Lise Johnson, Head of Investment Law and Policy at Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment.

“..the real 2014 US unemployment rate was 42.9%, not 5.5%!”

• The Warren Buffett Economy – Why Its Days Are Numbered-Part 4 (David Stockman)

The Fed has generated a $50 trillion financial bubble since Alan Greenspan took the helm in August 1987. After 27 years, honest price discovery has been destroyed, thereby reducing the nerve centers of capitalism – the money and capital markets – to little more than gambling casinos. Accordingly, speculative rent-seeking in the financial arena has replaced enterprenurial innovation and supply side investment and productivity as the modus operandi of the US economy. This has resulted in a severe diminution of main street growth and a massive redistribution of windfall wealth to the tiny share of households which own most of the financial assets. Warren Buffett’s $73 billion net worth is the poster boy for this untoward state of affairs.

The massive and systematic falsification of asset prices which lies at the heart of this deformation of capitalism is a direct and unavoidable consequence of monetary central planning. That is, the pursuit of Keynesian business cycle management and stimulus through central bank interest rate pegging and massive monetization of existing public debt and other securities – especially since the latter has no purpose other than to artificially goose the price of bonds and lower their yields; and also via other indirect methods of financial asset levitation such as the Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen doctrine of wealth effects and the implicit central bank “put” which underpins the economics of buy-the-dip speculators.[..]

At the present time, there are 210 million adult Americans between the ages of 16 and 68—to take a plausible measure of the potential work force. That amounts to 420 billion potential labor hours, if we accept the convention that all adults are at least theoretically capable of holding a full-time job (2,000 hours/year) and pulling their share of society’s need for production and work effort. By contrast, during 2014 only 240 billion hours were actually supplied to the US economy, according to the BLS estimates. Technically, therefore, there were 180 billion unemployed labor hours, meaning that the real unemployment rate was 42.9%, not 5.5%!

Watch out below.

• End of the Line: China and Germany Look Ready to Pop (Herry Dent)

The US stock market has finally hit a speed bump after more than six years of a Fed- and QE-driven rally. The S&P 500 is up 232% since March of 2009 despite this unprecedented stimulus in the feeblest economic recovery in history. But since late December 2014, US stocks have gone nowhere as investors face some growing realities. GDP, retail sales, production and exports are slowing. The dollar’s sharp rise in recent years has crushed global exports. Long term interest rates are rising consistently… what I call the beginning of the end of stimulus policies designed to keep rates low forever. Meanwhile, in just six months Germany saw its key stock market, the DAX, rise nearly 50% from mid-October into early April. Germany’s bubble has shot up 245% since March 2009 — greater than the US, despite its slower economy. It won’t last! [..]

But if Germany looks bad, there’s nothing short of “terrible” to say about China! China’s stock market makes Germany’s late-stage bubble look pathetic! China saw the shortest and steepest bubble from early 2005 to late 2007, up over 500% in less than two years. Its crash into 2008 was one of the largest, down 72%. After a “dead” market from 2010 into mid-2014, China’s stocks have literally exploded again… up 159% in a straight shot in one year while its economy and exports have continued to slow! A 48% late-stage bubble in Germany unwarranted by its demographics… 159% in China despite its weakening economy.

Dismantle the IMF along with NATO.

• IMF Says It Will Continue To Back Ukraine (DW)

The IMF stated that it can continue backing Ukraine amid stalled negotiations between Kyiv and its private creditors. Christine Lagarde, head of the Washington-based crisis lender, which had launched a four-year loan program of $17.5 billion (15.6 billion euros) in March for Ukraine’s government, said that the IMF was still encouraging a settlement in the debt talks, while highlighting that there were backup options in place. “But in the event that a negotiated settlement with private creditors is not reached and the country determines that it cannot service its debt, the fund can lend to Ukraine consistent with its lending-into-arrears policy,” Lagarde explained. “Rapid completion of the debt operation with high participation is vital for the success of the program, since Ukraine lacks the resources under the program to fully service its debts on the original terms.”

Lagarde had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko in Washington earlier this week to discuss economic developments and implementation of economic reforms. Bloomberg Business reported that Jaresko has now been in talks with private creditors for months, seeking a write-down of its debts from creditors who had only offered delayed payments. “I believe that their program warrants the support of the international community, including the private sector, which is indispensable for the success of this program,” Lagarde said. She stressed that the IMF did not have to cut off its funding of the Ukraine government if it stopped servicing its private debts.

Employees are counted as a liablity. Paper clips are an asset.

• How One Accounting Rule Wrecked The Middle Class (Daniel Drew)

Maybe you heard your CEO say, “Our people are our greatest asset.” He’s probably lying. That’s not how he really feels about you. Despite how much management talks about “human capital” as if it were an asset, it’s not. The accounting system that the whole world uses classifies labor as an expense. Anyone who has studied accounting even briefly can see that it’s a lot of bullshit designed to appear objective. In reality, it is filled with assumptions, estimates, and sometimes, fraud. Yes, it is rule-based, but with any system, who makes the rules is often more important than the rules themselves. Accounting is the language of business, and in the mouth of a double-talking CEO, it’s just another way to promote their own interests.

One of the most insidious rules in accounting is that labor must be classified as an expense on the income statement. Actually, it should be classified as an asset on the balance sheet. The accounting profession has rigged the system against the worker. The misclassification of labor as an expense has branded every employee with a negative dollar sign. The way the accounting system defines labor causes CEOs and upper management to view employees as expendable. When profits decline, the CEO says, “It must be those damned employees dragging us down! Let’s fire a few thousand of them. That will get us on track again.”

According to current accounting rules, inanimate objects like pencils, clothing, or any type of inventory are assets, but people are expenses. The CEOs want you to believe that a pen is an asset, but a person with knowledge, skills, and experience is an expense, something that should be avoided. This is actually what they teach business students in school all around the world, and the students just accept it as fact. Have we all gone insane? We are being held captive by dumbass accountants and shrewd CEOs who realize the whole system is rigged in their favor. The proper way to account for labor would be to classify it as an asset on the balance sheet.

The employee would be valued with mark to market accounting at every reporting period, and the value would be determined by calculating the profit per employee, the average tenure, and the net present value of this amount. This would accurately account for the true value of labor. If this rule were implemented, balance sheets would be dramatically altered. Some companies that appeared valuable before might look like complete garbage. Other companies would prove to be much more valuable than previously thought.

Here’s wondering how recent this is.

• Britain Pulls Out Spies As Russia, China Crack Snowden Files (Reuters)

Britain has pulled out agents from live operations in “hostile countries” after Russia and China cracked top-secret information contained in files leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the Sunday Times reported. Security service MI6, which operates overseas and is tasked with defending British interests, has removed agents from certain countries, the newspaper said, citing unnamed officials at the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Home Office (interior ministry) and security services.

The United States wants Snowden to stand trial after he leaked classified documents, fled the country and was eventually granted asylum in Moscow in 2013. Russia and China have both managed to crack encrypted documents which contain details of secret intelligence techniques that could allow British and American spies to be identified, the newspaper said citing officials. However an official at Cameron’s office was quoted as saying that there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed.”

The bogeyman narrative expands.

• US Is Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in Eastern Europe (NY Times)

In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say. The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the United States has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine have caused alarm and prompted new military planning in NATO capitals.

It would be the most prominent of a series of moves the United States and NATO have taken to bolster forces in the region and send a clear message of resolve to allies and to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that the United States would defend the alliance’s members closest to the Russian frontier. After the expansion of NATO to include the Baltic nations in 2004, the United States and its allies avoided the permanent stationing of equipment or troops in the east as they sought varying forms of partnership with Russia. “This is a very meaningful shift in policy,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, now at Tufts University.

“It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course.” The amount of equipment included in the planning is small compared with what Russia could bring to bear against the NATO nations on or near its borders, but it would serve as a credible sign of American commitment, acting as a deterrent the way that the Berlin Brigade did after the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961. “It’s like taking NATO back to the future,” said Julianne Smith, a former defense and White House official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a vice president at the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies.

Interesting argument.

• Did Mathematician John Nash Help Invent Bitcoin? (CoinDesk)

Could John Nash, someone who had been at the forefront of mathematical and economic thought into the prospect of ‘ideal money’, be justly attributed credit for the formation of the electronic cash system of cryptocurrency? He once stated in a lecture:

“The special commodity or medium that we call money has a long and interesting history. And since we are so dependent on our use of it and so much controlled and motivated by the wish to have more of it or not to lose what we have we may become irrational in thinking about it and fail to be able to reason about it like a bout of technology, such as a radio, to be used more or less efficiently.”

Nash described the concept of ideal money as having the function of a standard of measurement and, thus, it should become comparable to the watt, the hour or a degree of temperature. He asserted an ideal form of money should provide a viable solution to the Triffin dilemma – it should serve both short-term domestic and international long-term objectives where central banking money has utterly failed (the average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years). Asymptotically ideal money, a concept Nash studied in depth, focuses on the fluctuations and long-term perceived value of money, where the ideal inflation rate is as close to zero as possible, without being negative (deflation). Currently, this accurately describes the economic nature of bitcoin, as it is a disinflationary money supply by design – that is, it is decreasing in its inflationary nature by halving the block reward (and new currency issuance rate) at regular intervals.

The inflation rate of bitcoin asymptotically approaches zero as we inch closer to the currency limit of 21 million units. Nash described this ideal of money as something which could provide a global savings outlet for people who would otherwise be subject to ‘bad money’, or money expected to lose value over time under conditions of inflation among other things. In a paper published in the Southern Economic Journal, Nash described a nonpolitical value standard for comparisons of value, asserting that an industrial consumption price index could be “appropriately readjusted depending on how patterns of international trade would actually evolve”. Moreover, Nash described how actors that were in control of this standard could corrupt this continuity, yet the probability of damages through corruption would be as small as the probability of politicians altering the measurements of meters and kilometers.

And for the subsidies to pay for it.

• Elon Musk Asks Permission To Put 4,000 Internet Satellites Into Orbit (Ind.)

Elon Musk has asked the government to let his private space travel company, SpaceX, put 4,000 satellites into orbit to provide internet for the earth. The PayPal founder hopes that the satellites could take on conventional internet companies by sending internet signals across the globe, allowing it to provide cheap and fast internet even to places that have traditionally struggled to get connected. It hopes to find success by both taking customers from existing internet service providers as well as getting the billions of people that can’t get online onto the internet. Musk has moved forward with the project by filing with the US Federal Communications Commission to ask to be given permission put the satellites into space.

It was first mooted at the beginning of the year, but the submission was made public by the Washington Post. The filing asks to start testing the satellites next year, according to the newspaper. After that, the service could be working in about five years. In the tests, Musk would send the satellites up on a Falcon 9 rocket, made by SpaceX. They would communicate with ground stations in the US, and establish whether those connections would be enough to send information from the ground to the satellites with enough speed and consistency to work for internet connections.

Always over-promise.

• High-Tech Solar Projects Fail To Deliver (WSJ)

Some costly high-tech solar power projects aren’t living up to promises their backers made about how much electricity they could generate. Solar-thermal technology, which uses mirrors to capture the sun’s rays, was once heralded as the advance that would overtake old fashioned solar panel farms. But a series of missteps and technical difficulties threatens to make newfangled solar-thermal technology obsolete. The $2.2 billion Ivanpah solar power project in California’s Mojave Desert is supposed to be generating more than a million megawatt-hours of electricity each year. But 15 months after starting up, the plant is producing just 40% of that, according to data from the US Energy Department.

The sprawling facility uses “power towers”–huge pillars surrounded by more than 170,000 mirrors, each bigger than a king-size bed–to capture the sun’s rays and create steam. That steam is used to generate electricity. Built by BrightSource and operated by NRG Energy, Ivanpah has been advertised as more reliable than a traditional solar panel farm, in part, because it more closely resembles conventional power plants that burn coal or natural gas. Turns out, there is a lot more to go wrong with the new technology. Replacing broken equipment and learning better ways to operate the complex assortment of machinery has stalled Ivanpah’s ability to reach full potential, said Randy Hickok, a senior vice president at NRG.

New solar-thermal technology isn’t as simple as traditional solar panel installations. Since older solar photovoltaic panels have been around for decades, they improve in efficiency and price every year, he said. “There’s a lot more on-the-job learning with Ivanpah,” Mr. Hickok said, adding that engineers have had to fix leaky tubes connected to water boilers and contend with a vibrating steam turbine that threatened nearby equipment.

One big miscalculation was that the power plant requires far more steam to run smoothly and efficiently than originally thought, according to a document filed with the California Energy Commission. Instead of ramping up the plant each day before sunrise by burning one hour’s worth of natural gas to generate steam, Ivanpah needs more than four times that much help from fossil fuels to get plant humming every morning. Another unexpected problem: not enough sun. Weather predictions for the area underestimated the amount of cloud cover that has blanketed Ivanpah since it went into service in 2013.