Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Slovenia Rules Out Bailout; Translation: "Slovenia Bailout Coming Right Up"

Posted: 09 Apr 2013 09:08 PM PDT

An official denial is in: Slovenia Rules Out Bailout. Here is my interpretation: "A bailout is already in the works, only the date of the announcement is uncertain".
Slovenia insisted on Tuesday that it could avoid an international bailout as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned Ljubljana to tackle more rapidly a "severe banking crisis" whose costs it might have underestimated.

The OECD report came amid investor concerns that the 2m-strong country's banking problems could make it the next eurozone state to require a bailout after last month's mishandled rescue of Cyprus.

The OECD said Slovenia should sell viable state-owned banks and allow others that were not viable to fail. It added that bank debtholders should take some losses to reduce the cost of banking sector resolution, and warned that Slovenia might have "significantly" underestimated the level of bad loans and need for new capital.

But Yves Leterme, OECD deputy director-general, said while presenting the report that Slovenia was in no immediate need of rescue, noting that "the government ... has been able to meet its financial needs without difficulties so far".

Speaking in Brussels, Slovenia's Alenka Bratusek, the newly-installed prime minister, said the country did not require an international rescue to shore up the teetering banking system.

"We will solve our problems on our own," she said, after a meeting with José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president.
Slovenia On Its Own

Slovenia will solve its problems on its own just like Ireland did, just like Greece did, just like Portugal did, just like Spain did, just like Cyprus did: Under duress, with threats of eurozone expulsion if the nannycrats in Brussels are not pleased.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

"Corporate Profits in Bubble Ready to Burst" John Hussman; PDF Synopsis of Hussman's Presentation at Wine Country Conference

Posted: 09 Apr 2013 10:53 AM PDT

Yahoo! Finance presents another video interview from the Wine Country Conference. This one is an interview of John Hussman by Lauren Lyster: U.S. Stock Market Is "Overvalued, Overbought and Overbullish".
Fund manager John Hussman wrote in a recent weekly market commentary, "the real hook, in my view, is the absence of a bubble in any individual sector, and instead a bubble in profit margins across the entire corporate sector."

"Even marginal improvements in the federal deficit and in household savings, which are necessary because of the debt burdens households have taken on…we are likely to see -12% earnings growth annualized over the next three to four years - in other words substantial weakness in corporate profits," Hussman tells The Daily Ticker. We sat down with him at the 2013 Wine Country Conference benefiting the Les Turner ALS Foundation.
Click on the first link to play the interview.

Why Prospective Returns Are Low

Robert Huebscher at Advisor Perspectives put together an outstanding PDF synopsis of Hussman's presentation at the conference.

Please see Why Prospective Returns Are Low for Huebscher's synopsis of Hussman's presentation.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Euro-Skepticism was Thatcher’s Most Relevant Legacy; Had Europe Only Listened

Posted: 09 Apr 2013 09:50 AM PDT

Margaret Thatcher, former UK prime minister died on Monday. "Euro-skepticism was Thatcher's most relevant Legacy" says MarketWatch in its report If Europe had only listened to Thatcher's warning.
Thatcher's basic take on a tight European federation was that it was unnecessary, unworkable, and dangerous. The nation state, she insisted, should remain at the heart of the international system, and a federated Europe would threaten its sway.

Moreover, Thatcher had misgivings about the Continent as a source of moral inspiration. "During my lifetime," she reminisced, "most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one form or another, from mainland Europe, and the solutions — from outside it."

That insight alone is priceless, but it still pales compared with what she wrote more than a decade ago, when the euro was still a toddler, and the economies of Greece, Spain and Cyprus seemed as distant from calamity as they now are from salvation. "The European single currency," wrote Thatcher in 2002, "is bound to fail — economically, politically, and indeed socially."

Thatcher's reasoning for this was not ideological. It was monetarist. There can be no such thing as a united currency without a united budget, she argued, at a time when it was impolite to suggest that the euro's newlyweds would soon accuse each other of theft, deceit, laziness, imperialism and oppression.
Economics of a Housewife vs. Career Socialist Politician

"I am not prepared to accept the economics of a housewife," said Jacques Chirac, a future French president in 1987. He should have. Look at France now.

Margaret Thatcher's Last Shot at the Socialists



I have linked to the above video before, and it's certainly worth a replay now.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com 

Michael Pettis Interview with Lauren Lyster: Decade of Slower Growth for China

Posted: 08 Apr 2013 11:39 PM PDT

Here is an interview of Michael Pettis by Lauren Lyster from the Wine Country Conference. Pettis says China faces a decade of slower growth.
"I don't think it's either averting a disaster or heading for one," Pettis says. "What I think we're going to have is a decade or more of much, much lower growth."

According to Peter Schiff, CEO of Europacific Capital, there is "more capitalism in communist China than there is in America."...

"It's definitely not more capitalist than the U.S.," Pettis says of China. "It's quite tough to run a small business or any kind of business for a variety of reasons. The big saving grace of my club and CD label is that we don't ever expect to be profitable. It's easy to be successful if you don't have to earn anything."

Pollution in China is another concern we routinely hear about in Western media. A study from the Health Effects Institute, funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency, found that Chinese pollution caused 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010, while the Financial Times reports "airpocalypse" has sent expats fleeing.

Pettis says getting rid of pollution is a political question that will require a significant portion of the urban middle class getting upset about it. He says in the last year, for the first time in the 11 years he's been living in China, he's seeing this type of substantial opposition in Beijing and Shanghai. Still, he notes, it's likely to take many, many years to address the issue.
Click on the link at the top to see the complete video interview with Lauren Lyster. His session presentation was quite good. I will post that presentation when available.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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