Al borde del Caos. Ñaca que ñaca

Como supongo que habrán oído o leído, Italia se despendola. Su bono a diez años ha llegado a 7,28 7,5% (5,57 5,79% de prima) España ha sobrepasado el 5,84% (4,14%).
Dirán que es culpa de Berlusconi, ese levanta-faldas obsesivo, o algo peor. Pero lo cierto es que Italia lleva con ese nivel de deuda desde hace décadas. ¿Que no tendría que haber entrado en el euro? puede, pero entonces, quién podría haber entrado? Alemania & Alemania, porque incluso Francia está empezando a flaquear.
Italia está en una vorágine vendedora que los propios mandatarios han propiciado con su nefasta gestión de la crisis y su insistencia en capitalizar los bancos de golpe y sin decir de dónde salía ese capital: eso ha llevado a "desactivar" activos, venderlos, y ha desatado una carrera a ver qué bancos se desprendían antes del los bonos italianos, lo que no ha dejado de contagiar a otros inversores y otros mercados. Berlusconi sólo ha ha puesto la guinda a una situación explosiva.

Mientras, esos famosos economistas españoles de CECEA, siguen ñaca que ñaca con su mercado de trabajo, que tiene la culpa de todo. Han tenido un pugilato con otro economista, Martínez Noval, donde se dirimen acuciantes cuestiones y con el que hacen sangre, incluso bautizan con su nombre una pijadiña. ¿Qué machotes! Del euro, nada. Silencio de los corderos. Debe ser que a estos corderos les han lobotomizado en la Isla-del-doctor-Malô. Debe ser, no: ES. El 99% de los que he conocido han sido lobotomizados del parietal de la intuición, y no tienen más que modelos de economía real, que es con lo que se consigue ser hombre o mujer de provecho.
Interesante la próxima cumbre convocada con toda urgencia -supongo.

Algunas opiniones de penúltima hora, mientras las bolsas caen a plomo.

Mohamed El Arian en "Only the ECB can save Italy now, but it can’t act alone" FT:

In the last few days several banks have rushed to announce that they have been actively reducing their holdings of Italian debt – as a means of reducing market concerns about their own well-being. This phenomenon is similar to the 1980s phase of “macho provisioning” that saw banks trying to outdo each other in telling the world that they were fully protected against their past loans to Latin America. The result today is to encourage and push other Italian creditors to also sell, adding to the market pressures. In too many cases, the damage to the demand for Italian bonds is much more than transitory.

Third, a series of technical changes are disrupting the Italian bond market, adding to its instability. They range from Tuesday night’s increase in margin requirements imposed by a major clearing house, to the decrease in availability of hedging instruments in the derivative markets.

Finally, the European Central Bank has appeared more hesitant in recent days to purchase Italian bonds. Whether it is an issue of willingness or ability, the result has been to add to the mounting market instabilities.

There is only one institution that has an immediately-available balance sheet that could stabilise the situation in the next few days and weeks – the ECB. But before we all join the chorus urging the bank to do more, we should recognise that it, alone, cannot deliver good outcomes.

To act as a durable circuit breaker, the ECB needs others to help on four critical issues: a bold and lasting separation in how we deal with Europe’s insolvent nations and its illiquid ones; a regional programme to enhance growth and employment; immediate actions to counter the fragility of the banking system; and bold political decisions to strengthen the institutional underpinning of the eurozone, either as it is configured today or via a smaller and less imperfect one.

Ya he dicho que me temo que es tarde para poner freno a la avalancha. Pero la verdad verdadera es que es la última baza. No hay más:

Alenxader Friedman, en " It’s time for you to fire the silver bullet, Mr Draghi" FT

The Great Depression produced many lessons, but none was more important than recognition of the importance of a lender of last resort. What stopped the vicious market panic that signified the lows of the US 2008 financial crisis? It was arguably a television interview with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in which he declared that the Fed was the world’s lender of last resort. When asked if he had been “printing money”, Mr Bernanke said: “Well, effectively ... and we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low.”

Unfortunately, in the European sovereign crisis of 2011, Europe’s central bank has been more timid in the face of arguably greater threats. The ECB has been reluctant to act due to Europe’s own history and a fear of the political consequences for the future. The ECB remains steeped in the Bundesbank tradition of rigid inflation targeting, which has developed as a result of Germany’s own history lessons from the hyperinflation of the 1920s. The ECB has executed this mandate with aplomb.

However, as Italian sovereign bond yields reach unsustainable levels above 7 per cent, these rationales are not acceptable because they threaten Italy with a solvency crisis that would fundamentally destabilise the global markets, likely tip the nascent recovery in the US into recession and undermine the emerging market’s growth engine. The ECB needs to provide additional support to prevent this. There are a couple of ways it could do it.

The first, to allow the European financial stability facility access to the ECB’s lending facility, appears to have been rejected outright over the course of the European summit. The second is potentially more controversial, but remains on the table and should be pursued. The ECB should turn its bond-buying programme, the securities market programme, from “limited” to “unlimited”, in effect capping the lofty yields that threaten Italy and Spain. Despite what Mr. Draghi, and Jean-Claude Trichet before him, have said, the ECB is the lender of last resort to sovereign nations, for there is no one else. But again, this needs to be stated.

It is wrong to turn away from the option of an expanded SMP because of fears of inflation. Estimates of the non-inflationary loss absorption capacity of the eurozone are in the region of €3,000bn. Given that the combined size of Italian and Spanish bond markets is about €2,750bn, €3,000bn is as good as unlimited. Furthermore, the mere threat of unlimited support would likely make the actual intervention relatively small, as we saw with the Swiss National Bank’s franc intervention.

Ironically, the current alternative to an expanded SMP will most likely prove to be a powerful deflationary force. The European summit will force banks to raise capital after marking-to-market the depressed value of peripheral bonds on their balance sheets. Partly as a result, banks have already committed to withdraw $1,000bn worth of credit, and the actual contraction could prove to be double this. This sharp credit tightening is already pushing parts of the eurozone back into recession and appears to threaten even the mighty German export machine.

Critics note that a permanent SMP would not address budget imbalances and could engender moral hazard, as governments could pursue irresponsible fiscal policies with confidence the ECB would finance their deficits. However, Europe’s politicians have proved on multiple occasions this year that rushed, half-baked solutions are no way to end this crisis. Yet, leaders are forced into these rushed decisions to attempt to calm markets, as the Cannes summit demonstrated.

Ultimately, the only lasting solution is likely to involve fiscal confederation and eurobond issuance. But this will take time and only a bold stance from the ECB would calm markets for long enough for European politicians to consider and negotiate the necessary treaty changes to make this happen.

Time to use your silver bullet, Mr. Draghi.

Alexander Friedman is chief investment officer of UBS and former chief financial officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Después de la enésima cumbre, estamos peor que hace un año; y peor que  hace 4 años; y peor que antes del euro, sin duda alguna. Lo malo es que, intentar sostenerlo rácanamente, con desidia, lo va a derribar desordenadamente, en un caos del que nadie se va a librar. Hay una larga cadena de responsabilidades acumuladas en 12 años. finalmente,

 "This is the way the euro ends.

This is the way the euro ends.

Not with a bang but with bunga-bunga."

Paul Krugman en http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/this-is-the-way-the-euro-ends-2/ Tras dedicarle ese  "cariñoso saludo" a Berlusconi:

Seriously, with Italian 10-years now well above 7 percent, we’re now in territory where all the vicious circles get into gear — and European leaders seem like deer caught in the headlights. And as Martin Wolf says today, the unthinkable — a euro breakup — has become all too thinkable:

A eurozone built on one-sided deflationary adjustment will fail. That seems certain. If the leaders of the eurozone insist on that policy, they will have to accept the result.

Every even halfway plausible route to euro salvation now depends on a radical change in policy by the European Central Bank. Yet as John Quigginsays in today’s Times, the ECB has instead been part of the problem.

I believe that the ECB rate hike earlier this year will go down in history as a classic example of policy idiocy. We would probably still be in this mess even if the ECB hadn’t raised rates, but the sheer stupidity of obsessing over inflation when the euro was obviously at risk boggles the mind.

I still find it hard to believe that the euro will fail; but it seems equally hard to believe that Europe will do what’s needed to avoid that failure. Irresistible force, meet immovable object — and watch the explosion.