Saturday, February 13, 2010

at 500% net liability to GDP - G7 collapse inevitable

Zerohedge | For Greece, with on and off balance sheet liabilities at over 800%, it's game over. For the Eurozone, with the same ratio at about 500%, it is also game over. For the US, at 500%+, it is, you guessed it (sorry Joseph Stiglitz), game over, but since we have the printers, it will simply take a little longer. Please don't read this if you want to keep believing there is any hope left for the (developed) world.

As noted earlier on Zero Hedge, in Europe the population is a little less brainwashed by the moronic happenings on prime time TV, so while in America the destruction of the economic system, as trillions are transferred to the kleptocracy which knows fully well the end game is nigh, results in some sighs of desperation at best, in Europe the outcome will be somewhat more violent.

And in case you were wondering why all European leaders are powerless to provide a bailout proposal that actually has a snowball's chance in hell of doing something/anything to help Greece, read on. Alternatively, if you want to find out why any plan suggested on Monday will be thoroughly useless and once digested by the market will cause another major crash, read on as well.
The pressure to tighten fiscal policy from current nose-bleed levels of deficits is not just an issue for crisis hit Greece. It is an issue for virtually all economies. It is a particular issue for the US and UK with structural (cyclically adjusted) general government deficits of almost 10% of GDP (according to the OECD)! There is a ferocious debate ongoing between those who believe there needs to be a rapid reduction in these deficits to avoid some combination of insolvency/default/rapid inflation and those who believe that there should be even more fiscal stimulus. The debate is loud and opinions are tending to be polarised.

My own view on this is that obviously we should never have got into this wholly avoidable mess in the first place. But having got here, there really is no way out that does not trigger a major market-moving upheaval. Ultimately economic prosperity over the past decade has been a sham: a totally unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on a mountain of private sector debt.GDP has simply been brought forward from the future and now it's payback time. The trouble is that, as the private sector debt unwinds, there is no political appetite to allow GDP to decline to its "correct" level as this would involve a depression. So burgeoning public sector deficits and Quantitative Easing are required to maintain the fig-leaf of continued prosperity.
And here is the topic that will dominate over all pundit round table discussions in the next weeks: the entire world is insolvent, although some are more insolvent than others. Greek total net liabilities (on and off balance sheet) to GDP are 800%! EU: at 470%, the US, at over 500%. There is no way out but default.

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