"How can I know what I think until I read what I write?" – Henry James


There are a few lone voices willing to utter heresy. I am an avid follower of Ilusion Monetaria, a blog by ex-Bank of Spain economist (and monetarist) Miguel Navascues here.
Dr Navascues calls a spade a spade. He exhorts Spain to break free of EMU oppression immediately. (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard)

lunes, 24 de junio de 2013

Ridículo

Wolfgang Münchau me informa (no me había enterado) de que la semana pasada la UE había acordado dedicar 60 mm del EMS al recaste de bancos de la zona. Si hace falta más dinero, lo han de poner los gobiernos.

Es absolutamente ridículo. Münchau hace un cálculo por la cuenta de la vieja de cuánto de los activos bancarios de la Zona están en precario. Es un cálculo fácil, aunque muy aproximado, con un error arriba y abajo del volumen de la economía italiana. Pero la verdad es que no vamos a tener otro. Nunca va a haber un reconocimiento oficial sincero del estado de los bancos, ni por parte de los gobiernos, ni de las autoridades de la putrefacta UE.

Los activos bancarios totales de la zona euro son de 26,7 billones de euros. A continuación WM estima qué parte de esa cantidad es dudoso, o de imposible cobro.

The reason I believe the amount of hidden losses in bank balance sheets is ultimately quite large is the sheer number and scale of the accumulated crises during which European banks managed to lose money in recent years: the US subprime crisis, a eurozone housing bubble, the Greek debt restructuring, the Cypriot bank failures and the short and sharp 2009 recession followed by the Great Recession of 2011-13, with no end in sight for southern Europe.

... What makes me specifically doubtful about the ECB’s exercise is that I cannot see the central bank conceivably coming up with a number that is larger than the available capital.
So instead of waiting for these estimates, here is a quick and dirty, back-of-the-envelope calculation. It has an error margin approximately the size of the Italian economy, but it nevertheless produces an order of magnitude in which to think about this problem.

The total balance sheet of the monetary and financial sector in the eurozone stood at €26.7tn in April this year. How much of this is underwater? In Ireland, the 10 largest banks accounted for losses of 10 per cent of total banking assets in that country. The total loss will be higher. In Greece, the losses have been 24 per cent of total assets. The central bank of Slovenia recently estimated that losses stood at 18.3 per cent. In Spain and Portugal, the recognised losses are already more than 10 per cent, but the numbers will almost certainly be higher. Non-performing loans are also rising rapidly in Italy.

Germany is an interesting case. The German banking system appears healthy at first sight. It certainly fulfils its function of providing the private sector with credit at low interest rates. But I still find it hard to believe that the German banking system as a whole is solvent.

The country has been running large current account surpluses for a decade, currently at about 6 per cent of gross domestic product. This means German banks must have been building up huge stocks of foreign securities – a large yet unknown proportion of which are likely to default, especially if the main crisis resolution tool turns out to be a bail-in of investors.

On their own, the bad banks constitute about 5 per cent of eurozone banking assets. If you add another 5 per cent from hidden losses, the losses still being generated by the double-dip recession, and future losses through the bail-in of investors, you arrive at €2.6tn. Not all of these losses will have to be made good through a recapitalisation. Some banks may have some capital reserves. Other banks may be closed. But that just distributes the losses from one end of the banking sector to another.

Como ven, coincide en casi todos los países un reconocimiento oficial de créditos dudosos del 10% (España, 11%, 24% en Grecia). Lo cual no es arriesgado suponer que no incluye la cantidad de créditos renovables incesantemente para disimular el estado real de la cosa. Es comprensible: las acciones de los banco es están a la mitad de su valor desde que empezó la crisis... Quieren, como sea, que no bajen más.
Un 10% de 26,7 billones es 2,67 billones de €. Ahora, dice Münchau, supongamos que el posible error cometido es del tamaño del PIB de Italia. Restemos el PIB de Italia, y quedan ¡1 billón de euros! Es decir, un millón de millón de euros. La coberturaGarantizada Del EMS es, por lo tanto,
60.000 millones/ 1.000.000 millones = 6% del capital bancario malo.
No están tomando el pelo y no nos enteramos. Rezamos a la Virgen de Lourdes para "que Virgencita, me quede como estoy", pero nuestra silla de ruedas ya corre embalada hacia el precipicio.

2 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

Dada la situación recomendadría plegarias complementarias a San Carlos Borromeo

www.MiguelNavascues.com dijo...

Dada la situación no sé que pensar, con todos tapando las vergüenzas de la Infanta, porque se podría hundir el tinglado y quedarse ellos con el culo al aire.