China"s Infrastructure Boom Heading For Rapid Slowdown In 2018

There have been signs since October’s Party Congress that China’s infrastructure boom was about to cool off as the leadership seeks to contain debt levels and focus on the quality not the quantity of growth. Subway building is one sector which has seen some high-profile project cancellations. In mid-November 2017, Caixin reported that China’s top economic planning authority, the National Development and Reform Commission, was “raising the bar for subway proposals” – increasing scrutiny in terms of fiscal conditions, population and GDP. In recent weeks, we’ve seen two large subway projects shelved, one in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia (worth 27 billion Yuan) and another in Baotou, another Inner Mongolian city (worth 30 billion Yuan). As Caixin noted.

The cancellation of the Inner Mongolia subway projects is having a ripple effect in other cities. Several city governments, including those of Xianyang in Shaanxi province and Wuhan in Hubei province, said in statements that their subway plan are unlikely to win immediate approval under the central government’s crackdown on financial risks related to borrowing for such projects.

The crackdown on local government debt, a key source of infrastructure financing, will have a knock-on effect on Chinese GDP growth. A difficulty for China’s central planners is that the infrastructure share of Chinese fixed asset investment has been on a rising trend, surpassing 20% during 2017 versus just over 15% in early 2014. While we’ve been expecting China’s infrastructure spend to slow next year, we are surprised by the rate of slowdown estimated by Bloomberg, which surveyed a large number of forecasters.

China’s frenzied construction of roads, bridges and subways is set for a major slowdown, adding a headwind to economic growth in 2018. The nation’s fixed-asset investment in infrastructure will grow 12 percent next year, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey, down from almost 20 percent in the first ten months this year. All 18 economists in the survey anticipated a moderation, adding to reports by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG predicting a similar trend.

The cooling construction fever is taking shape as authorities renew a pledge to focus on debt management following the Communist Party Congress in October. In a rare move, China has suspended subway projects in some cities, and scrutiny has also toughened on public-private partnerships -- until now a widespread way to fund projects. The easing could even threaten global capital expenditure growth, as China represents one-fifth of the world’s total investment, according to estimates by Oxford Economics.

Infrastructure investment "grew much faster than other investments in the past five years," Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. "Policy makers might be able to accept slower growth for infrastructure spending from next year, as the growth in the past five years is unsustainable."

Slowdown or not, the scale of spending on Chinese infrastructure remains vast, about $1.7 trillion during January-October 2017. The pick-up in spending during the last two years followed efforts by the authorities to promote PPP (public-private partnerships) to finance infrastructure projects as one way to limit the growth in local government debt. As is the case with many things related to investment in China, the policy was quickly subject to abuse. In the majority of cases, the “private” partner in PPP projects turned out to be a state-owned firm, which merely added to the state’s debt burden via a different route. Eight local governments have been reprimanded by the finance ministry and the National Audit Office for “disguised borrowing”. We can only imagine the degree of abuse when local governments guaranteed returns on PPP-funded projects. According to Bloomberg.

The Ministry of Finance last month banned local governments from guaranteeing returns for private investors in PPP projects or backing a project’s debt. The national watchdog for state-owned enterprises also published rules to regulate state companies’ participation -- a potential blow to a major source of funding.

"A change in central government’s attitude towards PPP does not bode well for infrastructure in 2018," according to Yao Wei, chief China economist at Societe Generale SA in Paris. "A slowdown from the rapid pace this year looks inevitable."

The challenges for Xi Jinping and his top bureaucrats are mounting, as 2018 looks like it will see the convergence of a host of major reforms of which slower infrastructure spending and altering PPP funding arrangements are a small part. Other major ones include cooling the property market, reducing overcapacity in heavy industry, pollution control, continuing the crackdown on corruption, deleveraging and reforming the out-of-control shadow banking sector.

The China bulls will undoubtedly downplay the scale of these challenges, expecting little deceleration in Chinese growth, helped by a near seamless transition from investment to consumer-led growth. We will be amazed very impressed if Xi can pull it off.
 

 

We Give Up! Government Spending And Deficits Soar Pretty Much Everywhere

Posted with permission and written by John Rubino, Dollar Collapse

 

 

A recurring pattern of the past few decades involves governments promising to limit their borrowing, only to discover that hardly anyone cares. So target dates slip, bonds are issued, and the debts keep

rising.

 

This time around the timing is especially notable, since eight years of global growth ought to be producing tax revenues sufficient to at least moderate the tide of red ink. But apparently not.

 

In Japan, for instance, government debt is now 250% of GDP, a figure which economists from, say, the 1990s, would have thought impossible.

 

 

Over the past decade the country’s leaders have proposed a series of plans for balancing the budget, and actually did manage to shrink debt/GDP slightly in 2016. But now they seem to have given up, and are looking for excuses to keep spending:

 

Japan plans extra budget of $24-26 billion for fiscal 2017

(Hellenic Shipping News) – Japan’s government is set to compile an extra budget worth around 2.7-2.9 trillion yen ($24-26 billion) for the fiscal year to March 2018, with additional bond issuance of around 1 trillion yen to help fund the spending, government sources told Reuters.

Following October’s big election win, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet has made plans to beef up childcare support, boost productivity at small and medium-sized companies, and strengthen competitiveness of the farm, fishery and forestry industries.

In the UK, a balanced budget has been pushed back from 2025 to 2031:

 

Britain in the red until 2031: Bid to balance the books pushed back yet again

(Daily Mail) – Philip Hammond’s ambition to get Britain’s finances back into the black receded further last night – as the Treasury watchdog said he would struggle to eliminate the deficit before 2031.

The Chancellor had promised to balance the books by 2025. The target has been pushed back twice already, after George Osborne’s pledge in his 2010 Budget to balance the books ‘within five years’, before he revised the figure to 2020.

In its assessment to accompany the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility said it was now ‘unlikely’ that the Chancellor would balance the books by 2025 as he had hoped.

It said the Government was on course to wipe out the deficit in 2030-31, 30 years after the country was last in surplus.

That would be the longest period of consecutive deficits on record – eclipsing the 25-year borrowing binge between 1793 and 1817 that included the Napoleonic Wars.

 

In the US, “tax reform” – the alteration of the tax code to make it simpler and more fair – has morphed into tax cutting, which is of course a lot easier:

 

Donald Trump is going to build a big, beautiful deficit and rely on China to help pay for it

(Washinton Post) – Assuming they pass, Republican tax plans are forecast to increase the federal debt by about $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion over the coming decade, though scoring and specifics vary. This is the same debt that, campaigning in Ohio, Trump called “a weight around the future of every young person in this country.”

But now that it’s time to pass a tax plan that nonpartisan observers agree will require deficit spending, Republicans are on board with growing the federal debt. Large-scale borrowing will help make up the gap in lower tax revenue while avoiding some painful cuts to government programs.

To cover that shortfall, Trump’s government and its successors will be issuing additional Treasury bonds for decades to come, with Eric Toder, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, posting that one version of the bill would grow the debt as a share of the economy by 10.1 percentage points by 2037. About half of those bonds will end up being

held abroad, according to Joseph Gagnon, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Treasury data compiled by the St. Louis Fed shows that foreign central banks, investors and corporations already own $6.17 trillion in Treasury bonds in the second quarter, compared with $5.73 trillion for private domestic investors. More than a third of those international investors are based in two countries: China and Japan.

China, meanwhile, is taking a different path. Instead of financing big government deficits by issuing bonds, Beijing borrows relatively little but encourages its businesses, local governments and “state-owned companies” to borrow like crazy. So its total debt is soaring:

 

China’s debt grew in September at fastest pace in four years

(Asia Times) – A Reuters analysis of more than 2,000 China-listed firms showed total debt at the end of September jumping by 23% from a year ago, according to a report Sunday.

The increase, which comes amid an ongoing deleveraging campaign, represented the fastest pace of growth since 2013.

The analysis shows the degree to which de-risking and deleveraging efforts have been concentrated within financial sector so far, with real estate and industrial sectors leading the way in debt growth.

According to the report, debt servicing costs have accounted for close to a quarter of state-owned companies’ revenue. That ratio rose to 27% in the second quarter before falling to just below 25% in the third quarter on increased revenue.

To put the above in visual terms, here’s an infographic from Howmuch.com that shows per-capita government debt for the world’s major countries. Note that a Japanese family of five’s share of its government’s debt is close to $450,000 while in the US a similar family owes $300,000. That’s in addition to their mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc.

 

 

Obviously debts of this magnitude can’t and therefore won’t be repaid. Which means the coming decade will be defined by how — and how quickly — we end up defaulting.

 

 

 

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

 

We Give Up! Government Spending And Deficits Soar Pretty Much Everywhere

Posted with permission and written by John Rubino, Dollar Collapse

 

 

 

Check out these other articles by our contributors:

Stewart Dougherty -  The War on Gold Intensifies: It Betrays the Elitists’ Panic and Augurs Their Coming Defeat (Part 1)

Stewart Dougherty - The War on Gold Intensifies: It Betrays the Elitists’ Panic and Augurs Their Coming Defeat (Part 2)

Steve St. Angelo - THE BLIND CONSPIRACY: The Gold Market Is Heading Towards A Big Fundamental Change

Eric Sprott and Craig Hemke - Eric Sprott Talks Global Demand for Metals, Impact in 2018 (Weekly Wrap-Up, December 1, 2017)

Russia Plans First-Ever Sale Of Yuan Bonds

As Russia braces for further sanctions from Washington D.C. over their alleged role in "meddling" in the 2016 U.S. election, they are reportedly prepping a $1 billion yuan-denominated bond issuance in an effort to preemptively diversify financing risks away from the West.  According to Bloomberg, the sale will total 6 billion yuan and could come as early as next week.

Russia hired Bank of China Ltd., Gazprombank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. to arrange investor meetings for the sale of 6 billion yuan ($907 million) in five-year notes, according to people familiar with the plans. The issuance is slated for the end of this year or beginning of 2018, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the deal isn’t yet public.

 

The sale has been under discussion since U.S. and European sanctions in 2014 over the takeover of Crimea blocked many state-owned Russian companies’ access to Western capital markets. A report due next quarter from the U.S. Treasury on the potential consequences of extending penalties to include Russian sovereign debt has increased pressure on the Finance Ministry to seek out alternative means of borrowing.

 

“It would be wise of Russia to tap the yuan market now,” said Vladimir Miklashevsky, a senior economist at Danske Bank A/S in Helsinki. “China remains Russia’s biggest trade partner, China’s enormous financial system has lots of buying potential, too.”

While Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina has said there will be “no serious consequences” from U.S. sanctions on new domestic government debt, economists in a Bloomberg survey estimated the move could add 50 basis points to 150 basis points to borrowing costs.

The Yuan-denominated bonds, known as dim-sum bonds, would be listed on the Moscow Exchange and available for investors to purchase via the Moscow branch of ICBC.

Of course, in addition to advancing Russian diversification interests, a successful sale of yuan-denominated Russian debt would also advance China"s interests in the internationalization of the yuan. 

If Russia goes through with the sale, it would be the first sovereign issuance of a yuan-denominated bonds outside of China since 2016, according to Dealogic, with prior issuances in Hungary, Mongolia, the U.K. and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

China"s Corporate Debt Unexpectedly Rises At Fastest Pace In Four Years, As A New Risk Emerges

Have you heard the one about the priest, the rabbi and China"s deleveraging? We forget how it goes, but it"s pretty damn funny, especially the last part after a Reuters report that following China"s repeated vows by Beijing it would reduce the country"s unprecedented sovereign, municipal, corporate and household leverage, China"s debt is not only rising, but growing at the fastest pace in four years.

It"s especially funny because for years China’s top officials have - well - lied, touting their ambitious policy priority to wean the world’s second-largest economy off high levels of debt, but there is not much to show for it. On the contrary, the debt pile at Chinese firms has been climbing in that time, with levels at the end of September growing at the fastest pace in four years.

As shown in the chart below, a Reuters analysis of 2,146 China listed firms showed their total debt at the end of September jumped 23% from a year ago, the highest pace of growth since 2013. The analysis covered three-fifths of the country’s listed firms, but excluded financials, which have seen the brunt of government de-risking and deleveraging efforts so far.

The analysis revealed that debt in the real estate sector increased the most over last five years, followed by industrials, with the share of industrials in China"s total corporate debtload going up by 3% psince the end of 2012, while relative real estate debt rose by 7%.

In September, as shown here before, state-owned enterprises also reported a much faster pace of growth in their debt, as the government quietly backstopped quasi-private companies. In addition, last month we reported that as part of China"s latest bailout of the financial sysmte, Beijing was set to buy 24% of all residential real estate offered for sale in 2017. Both mean debt would surge, and sure enough, total debt at 75 of the CSI Central SOE 100 index companies  increased by more than 27 percent from a year ago, the biggest increase in many years.

* * *

However, in addition to rising debt, there is another, even more pressing risk: rising rates. According to Reuters, debt servicing costs - i.e., interest expense - now accounts for a fourth of state-owned firms’ revenues in the last few quarters. The ratio rose to around 27% in the second quarter - the highest in at least five years - before declining slightly to 24.47% in the third quarter due to a jump in revenues. Needless to say, with China"s 10Y government bond yield  and corporate spreads blowing out to 3 year wides, traders will be especially focused on what happens to Chinese interest expense in the coming months.

* * *

There is some good news: an analysis of corporate debt showed that borrowing through the issue of bonds has fallen, however, possibly as the regulatory clampdown has pushed up financing costs.   Additionally, as noted last week, October’s data on aggregate social financing of corporate bonds showed aggregate financing of corporate bonds stood at 18.34 trillion yuan ($2.77 trillion) at the end of October after increasing 4.4% from a year ago, the lowest growth rate in two years.

China Broad Credit Growth (TSF + Local Government Bond Issuance)

Who plugged the gap? Ah yes, the infamous shadow banking sector. Per Reuters:

The gap in funding needs appeared to have been filled by off-balance sheet financing in China’s murky and opaque shadow banking sector. Cumulative total social financing, which also includes shadow banking, stood at 172.2 trillion yuan at the end of October, though the exact size of shadow banking is unknown. Total social financing for the month of October 2017 was 1.04 trillion yuan.

Then again, as some have suggested, perhaps China was just waiting for last month"s comunist congress to pass before finally committing itself to this much hyped deleveraging. As Reuters reports, China’s deleveraging push indeed appears to have intensified after the 19th Communist Party Congress in late October. In its latest salvo on the shadow banking sector, (described in in "A "New Era" In Chinese Regulation Means Turmoil For $15 Trillion In China"s "Shadows") the central bank on Nov. 17 issued sweeping guidelines to tighten rules on asset management business, which the central bank estimates is a $9 trillion market. Just a few days later, fears of the deleveraging push resulted in the biggest Chinese stock market crash in 17 months.

 

And while China’s government debt remains optically contained, at 46.9% of GDP as per latest figures from the Bank for International Settlements, top policymakers have recently raised concerns about a sharp build-up in household debt. Outstanding household consumer debt surged close to 30% since the middle of last year and reached 30.2 trillion yuan as of October.  Meanwhile, outstanding yuan-denominated property loans amount to 31.1 trillion yuan and individual mortgage loans add another 21.1 trillion yuan as of the third quarter of 2017.

There are two parting questions one should consider: the first is whether China has any hope of ever deleveraging without unleashing a depression. With total debt/GDP at 329% as of May 2017 according to the Mercator Institute, we doubt it.

 

The second is linked to the first: with China contributing an unprecedented 33% of global debt growth in the past decade, any slowdown in debt creation is sure to send an economic shockwave across the globe.

 

And one bonus question: when the IMF published the following chart in its latest Financial Stability Report, how long did it say China has left before it implodes?

 

Why America"s Retail Apocalypse Could Accelerate Even More In 2018

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Is the retail apocalypse in the United States about to go to a whole new level? 

That is a frightening thing to consider, because the truth is that things are already quite bad.  We have already shattered the all-time record for store closings in a single year and we still have the rest of November and December to go. 

Unfortunately, it truly does appear that things will get even worse in 2018, because a tremendous amount of high-yield retail debt is coming due next year. 

In fact, Bloomberg is reporting that the amount of high-yield retail debt that will mature next year is approximately 19 times larger than the amount that matured this year…

Just $100 million of high-yield retail borrowings were set to mature this year, but that will increase to $1.9 billion in 2018, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. And from 2019 to 2025, it will balloon to an annual average of almost $5 billion. The amount of retail debt considered risky is also rising. Over the past year, high-yield bonds outstanding gained 20 percent, to $35 billion, and the industry’s leveraged loans are up 15 percent, to $152 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

 

Even worse, this will hit as a record $1 trillion in high-yield debt for all industries comes due over the next five years, according to Moody’s.

Can you say “debt bomb”?

For those of you that are not familiar with these concepts, high-yield debt is considered to be the riskiest form of debt.  Retailers all over the nation went on a tremendous debt binge for years, and many of those loans never should have been made.  Now that debt is going to start to come due, and many of these retailers simply will not be able to pay.

So how does that concern the rest of us?

Well, just like with the subprime mortgage meltdown, the “spillover” could potentially be enormous.  Here is more from Bloomberg…

The debt coming due, along with America’s over-stored suburbs and the continued gains of online shopping, has all the makings of a disaster. The spillover will likely flow far and wide across the U.S. economy. There will be displaced low-income workers, shrinking local tax bases and investor losses on stocks, bonds and real estate. If today is considered a retail apocalypse, then what’s coming next could truly be scary.

I have written extensively about Sears and other troubled retailers that definitely appear to be headed for zero.  But one major retailer that is flying below the radar a little bit that you should keep an eye on is Target.  For over a year, conservatives have been boycotting the retailer, and this boycott is really starting to take a toll…

Target has been desperately grasping at ideas to recover lost business, including remodeling existing stores and opening smaller stores, lowering prices, hiring more holiday staff and introducing a new home line from Chip and Joanna Gaines. But Target stock remains relatively stagnant, opening at 61.50 today—certainly nowhere near the mid-80s of April 2016, when the AFA boycott began.

In the past, retailers could always count on the middle class to bail them out, but the middle class is steadily shrinking these days.  In fact, at this point one out of every five U.S. households has a net worth of zero or less.

And we must also keep in mind that we do not actually deserve the debt-fueled standard of living that we are currently enjoying.  We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and the only way we are able to do that is by going into unprecedented amounts of debt.  The following comes from Egon von Greyerz…

Total US debt in 1913 was $39 billion. Today it is $70 trillion, up 1,800X. But that only tells part of the story. There were virtually no unfunded liabilities in 1913. Today they are $130 trillion. So adding the $70 trillion debt to the unfunded liabilities gives a total liability of $200 trillion.

 

In 1913 US debt to GDP was 150%. Today, including unfunded liabilities, the figure becomes almost 1,000%. This is the burden that ordinary Americans are responsible for, a burden that will break the US people and the US economy as well as the dollar.

The only possible way that the game can go on is to continue to grow our debt much faster than the overall economy is growing.

Of course that is completely unsustainable, and when this debt bubble finally bursts everything is going to collapse.

We don’t know exactly when the next great financial crisis is coming, but we do know that conditions are absolutely perfect for one to erupt.  According to John Hussman, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see stock prices fall more than 60 percent from current levels…

At the root of Hussman’s pessimistic market view are stock valuations that look historically stretched by a handful of measures. According to his preferred valuation metric — the ratio of non-financial market cap to corporate gross value-added (Market Cap/GVA) — stocks are more expensive than they were in 1929 and 2000, periods that immediately preceded major market selloffs.

 

“US equity market valuations at the most offensive levels in history,” he wrote in his November monthly note. “We expect that more extreme valuations will only be met by more severe losses.”

 

Those losses won’t just include the 63% plunge referenced above — it’ll also be accompanied by a longer 10 to 12 year period over which the S&P 500 will fall, says Hussman.

A financial system that is based on a pyramid of debt will never be sustainable. 

As I discuss in my new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, the design of our current debt-based system is fundamentally flawed, and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and our current system is designed to create as much debt as possible.  When it inevitably fails, we need to be ready to offer an alternative, because patching together our current system and trying to re-inflate the bubble is not a real solution.

*  *  *

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

How The Fed Destroyed The Functioning American Democracy And Bankrupted The Nation

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

I hope this article brings forward important questions about the Federal Reserves role in the US and I openly admit this is by no means a comprehensive article...it simply attempts to begin a broader dialogue about the financial and economic impacts of allowing the Federal Reserve to direct America"s economy.

Against the adamant wishes of the constitutions framers, in 1913 the Federal Reserve System was Congressionally created.  According to the Fed"s website, "it was created to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system."  Although parts of the Federal Reserve System share some characteristics with private-sector entities, the Federal Reserve was supposedly established to serve the public interest.

A quick overview; monetary policy is the Federal Reserves actions, as a central bank, to achieve three goals specified by Congress: maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the United States.  The Federal Reserve conducts the nation"s monetary policy by managing the level of short-term interest rates and influencing the availability and cost of credit in the economy.  Monetary policy directly affects interest rates; it indirectly affects stock prices, wealth, and currency exchange rates.  Through these channels, monetary policy influences spending, investment, production, employment, and inflation in the United States.

I suggest what truly happened in 1913 was that Congress willingly abdicated a portion of its responsibilities, and through the Federal Reserve, began a process that would undermine the functioning American democracy.  How, you ask?  The Fed, believing the free-market to be "imperfect" (aka; wrong) believed it should control and set interest rates, determine full employment, determine asset prices; not the "free market".  And here"s what happened:

• From 1913 to 1971, an increase of  $400 billion in federal debt cost $35 billion in additional annual interest payments.


• From 1971 to 1981, an increase of $600 billion in federal debt cost $108 billion in additional annual interest payments.


• From 1981 to 1997, an increase of $4.4 trillion cost $224 billion in additional annual interest payments.


• From 1997 to 2017, an increase of $15.2 trillion cost "just" $132 billion in additional annual interest payments.

Stop and read through those bullet points again... and one more time.  In case that hasn"t sunk in, now check the chart below...

What was the impact of all that debt on economic growth?  The yellow line in the chart below shows the annual net impact of economic growth (in part, spurred by the spending of that new debt)...gauged by GDP (blue columns) minus the annual rise in federal government debt (red columns).  When viewing the chart, the problem should be fairly apparent.  GDP, subtracting the annual federal debt fueled spending, shows the US economy is collapsing except for counting the massive debt spending as "economic growth".

Same as above, but a close-up from 1981 to present.  Not pretty.

Consider since 1981, the Federal Reserve set FFR % (Federal Funds rate %) is down 94% and the associated impacts on the 10yr Treasury (down 82%) and the 30yr Mortgage rate (down 77%).  Four decades of cheapening the cost of servicing debt has incentivized and promoted ever greater use of debt.

Again, according to the Fed"s website, "it was created to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system."  However, the chart below shows the Federal Reserve policies impact on the 10yr Treasury, stocks (Wilshire 5000 representing all publicly traded US stocks), and housing to be anything but "safer" or "stable".

Previously, I have made it clear the asset appreciation the Fed is providing is helping a select few at the expense of the many, HERE.

But a functioning democratic republic is premised on a simple agreement that We (the people) will freely choose our leaders who will (among other things) compromise on how taxation is to be levied, how much tax is to be collected, and how that taxation is to be spent.  The intervention of the Federal Reserve into that equation, controlling interest rates, outright purchasing assets, and plainly goosing asset prices has introduced a cancer into the nation which has now metastasized.

In time, Congress (& the electorate) would realize they no longer had to compromise between infinite wants and finite means.  The Federal Reserves nearly four decades of interest rate reductions and a decade of asset purchases motivated the election of candidates promising ever greater government absent the higher taxation to pay for it.  Surging asset prices created fast rising tax revenue.  Those espousing "fiscal conservatism" or living within our means (among R"s and/or D"s) were simply unelectable.

This Congressionally created mess has culminated in the accumulation of national debt beyond our means to ever repay.  As the chart below highlights, the Federal Reserve set interest rate (Fed. Funds Rate=blue line) peaked in 1981 and was continually reduced until it reached zero in 2009.  The impact of lower interest rates to promote ever greater national debt creation was stupendous, rising from under $1 trillion in 1981 to nearing $21 trillion presently.  However, thanks to the seemingly perpetually lower Federal Reserve provided rates, America"s interest rate continually declined inversely to America"s credit worthiness or ability to repay the debt.

The impact of the declining rates meant America would not be burdened with significantly rising interest payments or the much feared bond "Armageddon" (chart below).  All the upside of spending now with none of the downside of ever paying it back or even simply paying more in interest.  Politicians were able to tell their constituencies they could have it all...and anyone suggesting otherwise was plainly not in contention.  Federal debt soared and soared but interest payable in dollars on that debt only gently nudged upward.

• In 1971, the US paid $36 billion in interest on $400 billion in federal debt...a 9% APR.


• In 1981, the US paid $142 billion on just under $1 trillion in debt...a 14% APR.


• In 1997, the US paid $368 billion on $5.4 trillion in debt or 7% APR...and despite debt nearly doubling by 2007, annual interest payments in "07 were $30 billion less than a decade earlier.


• By 2017, the US will pay out about $500 billion on nearly $21 trillion in debt...just a 2% APR.

The Federal Reserve began cutting its benchmark interest rates in 1981 from peak rates.  Few understood that the Fed would cut rates continually over the next three decades.  But by 2008, lower rates were not enough.  The Federal Reserve determined to conjure money into existence and purchase $4.5 trillion in mid and long duration assets.  Previous to this, the Fed has essentially held zero assets beyond short duration assets in it"s role to effect monetary policy.  The change to hold longer duration assets was a new and different self appointed mandate to maintain and increase asset prices.

But why the declining interest rates and asset purchases in the first place?

The Federal Reserve interest rates have very simply primarily followed the population cycle and only secondarily the business cycle.  What the chart below highlights is annual 25-54yr/old population growth (blue columns) versus annual change in 25-54yr/old employees (black line), set against the Federal Funds Rate (yellow line).  The FFR has followed the core 25-54yr/old population growth...and the rising, then decelerating, now declining demand that represented means lower or negative rates are likely just on the horizon.

Below, a close-up of the above chart from 2000 to present.

Running out of employees???  Each time the 25-54yr/old population segment has exceeded 80% employment, economic dislocation has been dead ahead.  We have just exceeded 78% but given the declining 25-54yr/old population versus rising employment...and the US is likely to again exceed 80% in 2018.

Given the FFR follows population growth, consider that the even broader 20-65yr/old population will essentially see population growth grind to a halt over the next two decades.  This is no prediction or estimate, this population has already been born and the only variable is the level of immigration...which is falling fast due to declining illegal immigration meaning the lower Census estimate is more likely than the middle estimate.

So where will America"s population growth take place?  The 65+yr/old population is set to surge.

But population growth will be shifting to the most elderly of the elderly...the 75+yr/old population.  I outlined the problems with this previously HERE.

Back to the Federal Reserve, consider the impact on debt creation prior and post the creation of the Federal Reserve:

• 1790-1913: Debt to GDP Averaged 14%


• 1913-2017: Debt to GDP Averaged 53%
  
  • 1913-1981: 46% Average
  
  
  • 1981-2000: 52% Average
  
  
  • 2000-2017: 79% Average
  
  

As the chart below highlights, since the creation of the Federal Reserve the growth of debt (relative to growth of economic activity) has gone to levels never dreamed of by the founding fathers.  In particular, the systemic surges in debt since 1981 are unlike anything ever seen prior in American history.  Although the peak of debt to GDP seen in WWII may have been higher (changes in GDP calculations mean current GDP levels are likely significantly overstating economic activity), the duration and reliance upon debt was entirely tied to the war.  Upon the end of the war, the economy did not rely on debt for further growth and total debt fell.

Any suggestion that the current situation is like any America has seen previously is simply ludicrous.  Consider that during WWII, debt was used to fight a war and initiate a global rebuild via the Marshall Plan...but by 1948, total federal debt had already been paid down by $19 billion or a seven percent reduction...and total debt would not exceed the 1946 high water mark again until 1957.  During that "46 to "57 stretch, the economy would boom with zero federal debt growth.

• 1941...Fed debt = $58 b (Debt to GDP = 44%)


• 1946...Fed debt = $271 b (Debt to GDP = 119%)
  
  • 1948...Fed debt = $252 b <$19b> (Debt to GDP = 92%)
  
  
  • 1957...Fed debt = $272 b (Debt to GDP = 57%)
  
  

If the current crisis ended in 2011 (recession ended by 2010, by July of  2011 stock markets had recovered their losses), then the use of debt as a temporary stimulus should have ended?!?  Instead, debt and debt to GDP are still rising.

• 2007...Federal debt = $8.9 T (Debt to GDP = 62%)


• 2011...Federal debt = $13.5 T (Debt to GDP = 95%)


• 2017...Federal Debt = $20.5 T (Debt to GDP = 105%)

July of 2011 was the great debt ceiling debate when America determined once and for all, that the federal debt was not actually debt.  America had no intention to ever repay it.  It was simply monetization and since the Federal Reserve was maintaining ZIRP, and all oil importers were forced to buy their oil using US dollars thanks to the Petrodollar agreement...what could go wrong?

*  *  *

But who would continue to buy US debt if the US was addicted to monetization in order to pay its bills?  Apparently, not foreigners.  If we look at foreign Treasury buying, some very notable changes are apparent beginning in July of 2011:

1. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, S. Africa...represented in red in the chart below) ceased net accumulating US debt as of July 2011.


2. Simultaneous to the BRICS cessation, the BLICS (Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Cayman Island, Switzerland...represented in black in the chart below) stepped in to maintain the bid.


3. Since QE ended in late 2014, foreigners have followed the Federal Reserve"s example and nearly forgone buying US Treasury debt.

China was first to opt out and began net selling US Treasuries as of August, 2011 (China in red, chart below).  China has continued to run record trade driven dollar surplus but has net recycled none of that into US debt since July, 2011.  China had averaged 50% of its trade surplus into Treasury debt from 2000 to July of 2011, but from August 2011 onward China stopped cold.

As China (and more generally the BRICS) ceased buying US Treasury debt, a strange collection of financier nations (the BLICS) suddenly became very interested in US Treasury debt.  From the debt ceiling debate to the end of QE, these nations were suddenly very excited to add $700 billion in near record low yielding US debt while China net sold.

The chart below shows total debt issued during periods, from 1950 to present, and who accumulated the increase in outstanding Treasurys.

The Federal Reserve plus foreigners represented nearly 2/3rds of all demand from "08 through "14.  However, since the end of QE, and that 2/3rds of demand gone...rates continue near generational lows???  Who is buying Treasury debt?  According to the US Treasury, since QE ended, it is record domestic demand that is maintaining the Treasury bid.  The same domestic public buying stocks at record highs and buying housing at record highs.

Looking at who owns America"s debt 2007 through 2016, the chart below highlights the four groups that hold nearly 90% of the debt: 

1. The combined Federal Reserve/Government Accounting Series


2. Foreigners


3. Domestic Mutual Funds


4. And the massive rise in Treasury holdings by domestic "Other Investors" who are not domestic insurance companies, not local or state governments, not depository institutions, not pensions, not mutual funds, nor US Saving bonds.

Treasury buying by foreigners and the Federal Reserve has collapsed since QE ended (chart below).  However, the odd surge of domestic "other investors", Intra-Governmental GAS, and domestic mutual funds have nearly been the sole buyer preventing the US from suffering a very painful surge in interest payments on the record quantity of US Treasury debt.

No, this is nothing like WWII or any previous "crisis". 

While America has appointed itself "global policeman" and militarily outspends the rest of the world combined, America is not at war.  Simply put, what we are looking at appears little different than the Madoff style Ponzi...but this time it is a state sponsored financial fraud magnitudes larger.

The Federal Reserve and its systematic declining interest rates to perpetuate unrealistically high rates of growth in the face of rapidly decelerating population growth have fouled the American political system, its democracy, and promoted the system that has now bankrupted the nation.  And it appears that the Federal Reserve is now directing a state level fraud and farce.  If it isn"t time to reconsider the Fed"s role and continued existence now, then when?

 

Greece Plans 30 Billion Euro Debt Swap As It Prepares For The End Of Bailouts

Greece is planning a 30 billion euros debt swap which will convert 20 existing bonds into 5 (or less) new issues in the next few weeks (although the exact timing remains uncertain). The bonds are expected to have similar maturities to the existing notes from 2023-2042.

According to Bloomberg, the Greek government is planning an unprecedented debt swap worth 29.7 billion euros ($34.5 billion) aimed at boosting the liquidity of its paper and easing the sale of new bonds in the future. Under a project that could be launched in mid-November, the government plans to swap 20 bonds issued after a restructuring of Greek debt held by private investors in 2012 with as many as five new fixed-coupon bonds, according to two senior bankers with knowledge of the swap plan. The bank officials requested anonymity as the plan has yet to be made public.

Markets have responded well to the news as Bloomberg reported.

• Greek 10-Year Yield Drops to Lowest Since July on Debt-Swap Plan

• Greek 5-yr bond yield drops by 10bps to 4.345%, its lowest level since the nation issued the new note in July.


• Demand spurred by optimism that the third bailout review will be completed in time; news that government is planning a debt-swap plan is also boosting sentiment

While we struggle to believe that the Greek debt crisis is anywhere near close to being solved, at least the country seems to have been touched by Europe’s recovery.

Furthermore, the European Council announced on 25 September 2017 that Greece’s finances have stabilised and it was closing the excessive debt procedure. It sounded good anyway...

"After many years of severe difficulties, Greece"s finances are in much better shape. Today"s decision is therefore welcome", said Toomas Tõniste, minister for finance of Estonia, which currently holds the Council presidency.

 

"We are now in the last year of the financial support programme, and progress is being made to enable Greece to again raise money on the financial markets at sustainable rates." 

 

From a deficit of 15.1% of GDP reached in 2009, Greece"s fiscal balance has steadily improved, turning into a 0.7% of GDP surplus in 2016. Although a small deficit is projected for 2017, the fiscal outlook is expected to improve again thereafter…In the light of this, the Council found that Greece fulfils the conditions for closing the excessive deficit procedure. Greece will now be subject to the preventive arm of the EU"s fiscal rulebook, the Stability and Growth Pact. Monitoring will continue until August 2018 under its macroeconomic adjustment programme.

Meanwhile, the planned debt swap is a step in the Greek government’s preparations for August 2018 when, excuse our cynicism, Greece will essentially look to borrow more money to buffer its debt mountain. Bloomberg comments. 

“The move aims to address the current illiquidity of the Greek bond market,” according to analysts at Pantelakis Securities SA in Athens.

 

It will also “establish a decent yield curve, thus facilitating the country’s return to public debt markets.”

 

The move comes as Greece prepares for life after the end of its current bailout program in August 2018. The debt swap is a step toward the country’s full return to markets required to avoid a new bailout program. The government plans to tap the bond market in 2018 to raise at least 6 billion euros to create an adequate buffer to honor debt obligations, according to a government official…

 

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said in October that tapping markets soon wouldn’t be aimed at getting fresh money so much as to better manage the country’s debt and make its bonds more attractive. The new bonds, following the swap, are expected to have the same value as the old ones and will have a fixed coupon, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said.

Talking of cynicism, Goldman Sachs role in this transaction remains uncertain.

The challenge for Greece is to be in a sufficiently strong financial position to refinance more than 17 billion euros of debt in 2019 as Bloomberg explains, Greece returned to markets in July for the first time since 2014, raising 3 billion euros through new 5-year bonds. Now, with the swap plan, the government wants to ensure it can tap the market for enough funds to refinance its debt obligations in 2019, which originally amounted to 19 billion euros. The government managed to reduce this number by 1.6 billion euros with the July bond issuance.

While the timing of the debt swap transaction is uncertain, the government is aiming to complete it in time for the return of representatives of the country’s creditors in the last week of this month. No doubt they will be overjoyed by what they find.

There"s just one thing...