forced currency €: No salvation, but a horror without end
by Dr. Bruno Bandulet
When the members of the German Bundestag last May agreed to the so-called Euro-rescue without knowing the details and without the final costs, they gave themselves more to the illusion that the mere presentation of the instruments would be pointless to use them. Time has shown that the crisis of the single currency at that time was by no means settled. She had just begun.
Before we turn to the question of whether and how to survive the euro in the coming years will be necessary to establish that we are dealing with since the spring of 2010 with another € - not a replacement for the original European D-Mark reserve currency, but with a European emergency money, at best, with a reincarnation of the French franc.
In a significant estimates of the governments, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank staged coup, the three pillars on which to rest a stable euro, demolished. Thus, the Maastricht Treaty agreed business base fell. European law has been broken with impunity.
three principles on which the euro was based
The idea of a strong euro is known based on three principles. First, the fact that clear limits were met for the debt, namely 3% of gross domestic product with the annual budget deficit and 60% relative to the total accumulated national debt. (In compliance with this debt criteria of the Euro might have worked, but they were in 1999 not for its introduction as book money taken seriously.) Second, contained and the contract contains the so-called no-bailout clause that no Euro-Land for the debts of another liable. And thirdly, the European Central Bank fully independent of political influence. It was and is its forbidden to buy up government bonds and thus bring new money into circulation, ie "print". All three principles have been sacrificed to political expediency. Had the government stayed true to the contract, then the euro-zone would likely have broken up last spring.
The Legend of the 750-billion rescue
Since then, we try to keep the forced currency with the help of a big bluff on water and to gain time. The bluff is easily seen through, if we look at the design of the rescue package agreed in May in more detail: •
can up to 60 billion euros the EU to contribute themselves. The sum is part of the EU budget and is therefore supported by all 27 EU states - not only by the governments of the euro zone. Title: European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM).
• In addition, the Luxembourg financial quarter, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), headed by German Klaus Regling founded. The EFSF is a limited company with the 16 euro countries as shareholders. It is entitled to receive money on the capital market and the means then pass on (to return) any bankruptcy candidates. She has not yet done, Ireland is the first case. Otherwise believe than the public, the Treaty on EFSF is unlimited. The term ends no 2013th • Approved the
EFSF were first EUR 440 billion. Since respect the special purpose vehicle of the Lord Regling but it needs to get from the top AAA credit rating agencies, and since among the guarantors and the weak currency countries are (Actually a joke), must be guaranteed the bonds issued to 120% and also must have a cash reserve to be provided. Therefore be considerably less than the 440 billion to provide. On the current state only 255 billion! And if as Ireland or Portugal or Spain fail as a guarantor, then increases of the (still) stable countries attributable fraction. Because of this, the Bundestag, in May could not know how much he charged ultimately the taxpayer. If Italy and worse, Germany has to guarantee about 226 billion euros - almost twice as much as the government believe the members of parliament made in May.
• Also on board is also The International Monetary Fund. He had pledged up to 250 billion €. Since the United States in the IMF have a blocking minority, they have for the first time a say in affairs of the European Monetary Union - an embarrassing result, given that the Europeans wanted the euro to the dollar and thus offer the American financial hegemony Paroli. Problem: As the IMF has promised to plan down to the Union's loan half (hence the original cost estimate 500 + 250 billion) because of the EU but now are only 315 billion (60 + 255), and the IMF contribution shrinks to Euro-stabilization. Namely 157.5 billion. Thus a total of 750 billion to available but only 472.5 billion. That they may only go for two or three years, can work out any yourself. Portugal would have to cope with likely also Spain, Italy anymore.
• Regardless of EFSF EFSM and were shortly before the Greek government promised in order to avoid bankruptcy loans that flow now and about 5% interest rate must be. A further 9 billion for Athens will grant the finance ministers of the euro-zone soon. then transferred in early January. Sacrifices for Greece's sovereignty and submits to an EU economic dictatorship - a parallel to the Weimar Republic, whose empire Bank sat the representatives of the victorious powers to see the Germans on the fingers. As Greece is to repay the loans ever, no one has explained to us.
The government deficits are only part of the problem
Given the debts that were before 1999 and piled up since then in the euro zone, the 472.5 billion in an emergency but a drop in the ocean, the end of 2009, Ireland was at 104, 6 billion euros in debt, Greece with 273.4 billion, 559.6 billion with Spain, Portugal with 125.9 billion and Italy with 1760.7 billion - rising trend everywhere. Not change the pledges anything. By 28 November decided rescue package Ireland at 85 billion (Irish contribution of 17.5 billion), the Irish national debt will double rapidly. Explosives, the public debt of Spain: The maturing debts and current deficits added together, the figure for 2011 estimated funding requirements of just under 200 billion (about 18% of GDP) and for 2012 of just under 150 billion. Spain in 2011 required significantly more money than Greece, Ireland and Portugal put together! With each emergency credit continues to increase the level of debt, and its operation is more difficult not easier. Thus, the bankruptcy is more expensive, the longer it is delayed. And the above figures refer only on the national debt, not the debt of the private sector, including banks, representing countries such as Ireland or Spain, the bigger problem. The national debt is but one aspect of the gloomy picture. The euro-zone lies far not only in a sovereign debt crisis, but also in a private debt and banking crisis (in the case of Ireland and Spain) in a housing crisis, the United States exceeds that of their explosive nature still. And will always lied, deceived and beautifully spoken. Already the European bank stress test in the summer was dubious and incomplete. It was intended to calm the markets, which has for a short time then it works. Even the ailing Irish Banks have passed the stress test! As in Ireland a "bad bank" was established, the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA), the Irish banks bought from bad real estate loans claimed that they had borrowed on average 77% of the project totals. Now it turns out that there were around 100%. Investors in turn were more suspicious than the Nama. They pull their money out of months of the Irish banks, and so they drove the crisis to a head. It threatened a very old-fashioned run on the banks and thus the collapse of the financial system.
The debt reduction as a "mission impossible"
What kind of a currency that must be saved permanently! And how? Remain substantially the following ways: rigorous cost-cutting measures are already underway in Ireland and the European South. The intention is not to reduce the debt, but to let him grow more slowly than he would grow without the interventions in the social system and without tax increases. Even so, the effect is deflationary and depressed. After all, the following reasoning is correct: for example, Greece would normally depreciate by 30% in order to be competitive again. Since this is the abolition of the drachma is no longer possible, should - in order to achieve the same effect - falling prices and wages by 30%. Only thus creating a vicious circle: the cost-cutting measures allow the economy to shrink much further in order to fall in tax revenues, and the government deficit is growing instead of diminishing. In response, the government would save even more, but that they can only to a certain degree, to break up social unrest and create a revolutionary situation. Under these circumstances, a reduction of the debt a "mission impossible", the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote on 22 November. Nothing to add. At best, the observation that increase in the European periphery, the anti-German resentment already. The Germans are seen as a disciplinarian, who condemned the debt countries to years of depression and misery. The fatal the euro is that it has raised social tensions which now threaten to escalate to interstate conflict. The early warning of euro opponents, he would divide the EU rather than welding together has proven to be correct.
The cost of a transfer union are out of control
The second solution, favored by the EU Commission in Brussels, consists of an accelerated expansion of the Euro-zone (or the EU) to a transfer union with a financial compensation, which between the German states is similar. Such a leveling of the European standard of living equivalent to the very logic of Europeanism, the logic of centralization and uniformity. Then the still solvent taxpayer in the core area bleed just to the periphery to retain the €. The cost could be huge. "If it should be reflected in the debt crisis of the transfers," said Holger Steltzner 30 ". There is no limit or control more» October in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
is not quite sure whether the Federal Constitutional Court would play there - nor how far to go, the Merkel government dares. For a real transfer union implies the ruin of the German government finances, and hence the future of pensions. At some point, would rebel, the German Michel. And yet to him the taxpayers in the Netherlands, in Finland, Austria and France. Especially France, the second-largest guarantor of € parachutes tend usually not to pay the bills of others. Conclusion: In order Insolvenzverschleppung and denial of reality is currently a mix of austerity (in Ireland and Southern Europe) and practiced in hard-repayable loans.
Italy would be the absolute emergency
The third solution consists in the fact that some € members resign voluntarily, with their new currency to devalue and to slash its debt as part of a bankruptcy. Exactly the fear the financial markets, hence the sale of Greek and Irish government bonds, which mirrored the rise in interest rates unaffordable level.
is certainly true that with a withdrawal of the bankruptcy of the candidates would get € Once air. But what if wiggling Belgium and Italy? The Berlusconi government is virtually impossible to act, the urgently needed structural reforms have not addressed, and public deficits must be financed increasingly from abroad because the domestic savings is insufficient. In the 90 years before the euro was adopted, Italy was already before the bankruptcy. Italy and its debts are now certainly too large to be "saved." One can only hope that the financial markets as possible long look away and ignore the gradual worsening situation in Italy for a while.
"An insidious process," writes the NZZ
The most elegant, even if present would be an improbable escape from Germany leaving the monetary union. Then the new German mark would immediately add value, and the rest of the zone would get exactly what he needs: a devaluation and the restoration of its competitiveness. But as reluctant to act without principle, Berlin Paris, France would follow suit. The result would be the splitting of the Euro-zone in a hard-and soft-currency block and thus in a north and a south-€. The German Exports would suffer temporarily, the German domestic economy would be strengthened, the high external value of the new currency would yield a sort of social dividend. A walk would not, of course. The splitting of the euro would shock the markets and the global currency markets hard. Understandable, then, that governments fear such an option. Moreover, the question whether France would be more likely to match or North to South €. There is no panacea, it does not, only the choice between different evils.
remains Either way, the situation for the foreseeable future is extremely dangerous and unpredictable. A 'depressing experiment, "called Beat Gygi the European Monetary Union in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung "of 20 November - and the euro "untested construct." Not even with a kind of fiscal Union could correct the flaws of the monetary union. "Probably, one should remember that the countries of the former rather \u0026lt;D-Mark-Blocks> could form a useful euro area," wrote Gygi. As it stood since the weaker countries from a long ordeal, "the force will cost much." Conclusion: "The Insidious in the whole process is that it gradually is going on and that the centralization always apparent success brings."
The moment of truth is only postponed
"If the euro fails, it fails Europe," declared Angela Merkel. This is nonsense, because the EU is not the same as Europe and because the euro-zone does not even cover the EU. Especially the most solid EU states are present: the Czech Republic with a debt of 35.4% with 41.6% of GDP or Denmark or Sweden 42.6%, not to mention Norway and Switzerland, are out of zone and the EU feel very comfortable. All of these currencies will survive the € and get away with it - in addition to gold - for German investors in considering the need to reduce the risk of their portfolios.
that our analysis is far too pessimistic, can be read even from a full-page review by Professor Otmar Issing, who on 11 November in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published. As long-time chief economist of the Deutsche Bundesbank and the ECB, Issing is unverdächig to want to speak ill of the euro. He wrote that a transfer needs can be justified either socially or economically, that will be formed against a creeping expansion of the transfer as soon as resistance "within and outside Parliament", that little hope exists, "that the community has really learned from the crisis" ; that the current discussions on the reform of the Stability Pact, "nothing good promise" and that the outbreak of a new Crisis "in the not too distant future" is programmed. The article ends with the warning: "The hour of truth is just postponed."
a black Sunday for Berlin
When, on Sunday 28 November, the finance ministers of the EU and the IMF agreed the 85-billion package for Ireland, decided the same, other measures to save the €. The financial markets reacted skeptically, although the ECB had stepped up its purchases of euro government bonds currently playing. As on 28 November was adopted, amounts to a heavy defeat of the Merkel government.
• Still on 23 November, Angela Merkel, the participation of private creditors on any debt rescheduling required. You will not "paradise" to allow for banks, which remains the risk to 100% of tax payers. Five days later it was decided in Brussels that the creditors may be involved only in 2013 and then only in extreme cases, if a country is insolvent in fact - but not in case of liquidity problems. De facto reserves the EU to define the event of insolvency, as they see fit - that is not possible. No more talk of it, that the banks have been going from 2011 to the risk. •
was buried the hope of German tax payer, that of the theoretically established in May rescue in the amount 750 billion remains. He reportedly was due to expire in June 2013. Now, a permanent crisis mechanism to be introduced, called "European stability mechanism" (ESM). The euro crisis is a permanent condition, Berlin loses control as the main financier of the process. By the way: Have all the euro finance ministers decided on 28 November, yet, the term of the loans to Athens (a total of EUR 110 billion) of three to extend to seven and a half years. Fearing that it bursts, the Euro-debt bubble is inflated more and more. What should make
investors
We must imagine the Euro-drama as a rising and falling, years of crisis, with no end in sight, but it can also suddenly turn into a collapse of the currency of the financial system and the bond markets. Specifically:
• Ireland was forced to request financial assistance, although the government was liquid and was thus no urgent need for financing. Purpose of the exercise was to prevent the spread of the confidence crisis in Portugal and Spain. This will most likely not succeed. should
• The next country Portugal in the firing line - with the risk that Spain still. The government in Lisbon is only funded until the end, after which they must return to the capital market. Portuguese and English government bonds with longer maturities (approximately two years) should be avoided. The countries still enjoy a AAA status with a stable outlook: Germany, France, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The owners of Greek government bonds have to adjust to a moratorium and rescheduling, in which they will lose a part of the capital, perhaps between 30 and 50%.
• At least on the currency front, 2011 will run very volatile. The recovery of the euro in September and October has turned out to be illusory. Now he is back under pressure. The players will wait and see the outcome of the elections in Ireland early in the new year. Yet it offers The U.S. dollar is no convincing alternative to the single currency. He is at best the lesser evil. Currently, the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank of expansive than that of the ECB. If it were not so, the euro would be even weaker. Much depends on whether the second round of monetary expansion (quantitative easing) in the coming year, terminated or renewed. The latter is expected if the U.S. economy does not start. Either way is 2011, the monetary policy of the U.S. central bank, ie play the extent of printing money, not just the dollar, but for the price of gold an important role.
• Rightly European bank stocks are suffering from the euro crisis. Also two Years after the height of the financial crisis, the banking system is not rehabilitated. Bank shares are a risky investment, as long as it is not clear, will be affected when and to what extent the Institute of debt consolidation in the euro zone. The monetary sector thus involves a risk for the more stable European stock markets. That the German stock market is relatively good, also thanks to the below-average weighting in the financial sector. Uncomfortable by the way the situation is the Swiss National Bank. She sits on high euro positions. If the Euro collapses facing severe losses, and the SNB can only hope that thanks to rising gold prices and a corresponding increase in the valuation of their gold reserves to compensate. Over a similar risk compensation have also those investors in the euro area, which have risen a greater treasure.
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