Tag Archives: Giovanni Tria

September 24, 2018 · 14:08

Witchcraft and/or Calculus

Well as Monday mornings go, this will be a day to try and make you giggle (actually not really). I have always been an advocate for science and common sense. I believe that there is great wisdom in applying science in most occassions, it is the easy path in defining truths. Yet, we cannot explain it all with science. We are all limited, it is a basic truth, it is what drives us forward. It also takes a while to get there scientifically, so from the Penydarren in 1804 to the Virgin Hyperloop in 2021 was not an easy trip. A little over two centuries and we have gone from 10 tonnes at 2.4 mph to 50 tonnes at 260 mph, we can see that there has been forward momentum. We all move forward, not all at the same speed, yet when we consider that I predicted on September 4th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/09/04/democracy-is-dead/) after Reuters gave me the quote “Italian bond yields edged lower on Monday after Fitch left its credit rating unchanged at BBB, revising only its outlook to negative, though mixed news flow from senior ministers and manufacturing PMI data due later this morning could mean the rally is short-lived, analysts said“, to which I gave my personal view of “we need to focus on ‘manufacturing PMI data due later this morning‘ which gives me that the rating was done ‘just in time‘ to avoid having to lower it, which implies to me that it was not a reprieve, merely the application of time management to force an upped rating“.

So as we move forward less than 3 weeks, we now see (Source: Forbes 2 days ago): “It is no surprise that Fitch has changed the outlook for Italy’s BBB credit rating to negative from stable“. It is not only ‘not a surprise’; it was clear three weeks ago that this was going to happen. The system was as I personally see it rigged, to give a false optimistic rating to a nation that did not deserve it. The question becomes: ‘Are we abandoning science for witchcraft? If that is true, then I would like to move the motion to make Rachel Riley the high priestess of all economic witches and warlocks on the planet!‘ You see if they abandon common sense, can that unruly mob get managed by someone intelligent and when we are on that setting, it better be a good looking one, so the number of optional choices dwindles down to …. one? And Rachel is her name!

What’s behind this?

You see, we have seen on how S&P played us in 2008 on a few sides and it took until 2015 until a ‘deal’ was struck and they got off with a $1.5 billion fine, so when I am stating that they got off whilst they were getting off, I might be more accurate than I am comfortable with. Moody’s got their load handed to them with a mere $864 million penalty. so whilst some sources (source: Huffington Post) give us that the The 2008 financial crisis cost the U.S. economy more than $22 trillion, we seem to forget the impact outside of it, the impact on Europe and how the overall quality of life returned to WW2 conditions (slight exaggeration),  and even as we see reported that the economy in in restoration, we all seem to forget that the quality of life compared to 20 years ago is still less then what is was in 1998 and in that setting we see Fitch play a managed setting of overly soft on some economies and delaying the downgrades by (what I personally see as) jumping the gun by hours, delaying the downgrade, so basically knowingly assisting in the selling of deflated bonds, that is how I personally see it.

So as we look back at the quote and we consider my view three weeks ago with: “This was done to stretch the game, not truly act on the reported value, if that was done the setting of ‘BBB’ could not have been maintained, it should have been dropped to ‘BBB-‘ (my speculated view). So whilst we think we are being told the truth, in my personal opinion, we are sold a bag of goods, because that is how the game is players and we are all being duped, just like in 2008” and we see again: “Fitch has changed the outlook for Italy’s BBB credit rating to negative from stable“, whilst I do not even have an economic degree, can we agree that if it was this obvious, we need to start doing something about Fitch and these like-minded credit rating parties?

In all this the bad news is nowhere near done. the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/f9fb99d0-bf23-11e8-95b1-d36dfef1b89a) gave us a mere 7 hours ago: “Italy’s technocratic finance minister Giovanni Tria is coming under renewed pressure to increase the country’s budget deficit to accommodate the expensive election promises of Rome’s populist coalition government“, we can understand that it happens. We get it that promises need to be kept and some spending can never be avoided. Yet at 132% of GDP, with a National debt of €2.3 trillion, one would consider that caution would not be the worst idea. In this, sources are treating us to: “a guaranteed universal income of €780 month for all unemployed Italians“, which in light of the cost of living is a decent idea, yet the fact that around 10.7% of the Italians are without a job, the pressure on government spending goes up and up and that means that the deficit increases and with the interests and budget issues in play, the setting of ‘BBB-‘ might have been a little overoptimistic in the end and the news is not getting better any day soon in Italy. Even as we see that the jobless rate is at a low point (lowest since 2012), poverty was up to 14%, so that number will go down, yet at the cost of the Italian governmental coffers. I get it, it is good if they can find any way to get poverty down, yet they need more, they need an actual economy and the EU is playing around in all the ponds, but they are not getting anything done here and the 3 trillion euro spending bill still needs to be paid for one way or another, so there is are long term pressures to deal with from that side as well.

In opposition

When we look in one way, we need to look in another direction as well. So as we accept the orchestration side, we need to disprove it as well (good luck with that). Yet I did look in other directions, I needed as much data as needed, and when we consider my part to downgrade on September 4th and Fitch to keep it stable (at that point) that whilst Bloomberg gave us on September 6th ‘Italian Banks’ Outlook Cut by Fitch Amid Political Concerns‘ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-05/italy-banks-ratings-outlook-cut-by-fitch-amid-political-concerns) with the quote: “UniCredit SpA and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA were among five Italian banks that Fitch Ratings said could have their credit ratings cut along with that of the state, should the nation’s populist government relax its predecessor’s fiscal discipline“. This is merely one of the quotes and it was clearly stated as a warning which is fair, yet we also see there: “Last week, Fitch said there was an increased chance that Italy’s government will reverse some previous structural reforms, negatively impacting the country’s credit fundamentals. It also said the relatively high degree of political uncertainty compounds the risk“, so not only was there already the prospect of negativity before the government non-reforms. There was in addition the political uncertainty. So there were already two markers staging the negative twist before the setting to ‘stable’ and the non-change was (as I personally see it) falsely given. There is also the part (which was after the stable setting) the quote “While the banks’ shares were little changed, Wednesday, they have underperformed the national stock benchmark this year, with UniCredit and Intesa both down about 15 percent. While UniCredit is more geographically diversified than the other four banks, its risk profile remains highly correlated with that of Italy“. It is another negative impact, yet the downgrade would not impact Italy for another three weeks, is that not a little too strange for comfort?

I would in addition mention the quote: “Fitch said it believes that a disorderly Brexit (UK exiting from European Union) could significantly disrupt Jaguar Land Rover’s supply chain and affect the company’s earnings and cash generation. It affirmed the long-term issuer default rating of Tata Motors’ at ‘BB+’“, so it had no issues changing the forecast ahead of schedule here, whilst Italy was given an additional 3 weeks of easy does it options. And there are no questions here?

We can accept that there are timelines and that things are done at specific moments. No one will deny that, yet knowingly (according to all the sources) to set the stage whilst the stage was unrealistic is an issue and it seems that there is a need to consider that the Three rating agencies are American companies. In all this, when we consider the past US behaviour, and the fact that there is no call to get at least one rating company added that is either UK or European based is a matter for discussion as well.

From ratings to fashion

Yet it is not all about the rating company. To see the stage I need to take one leap to the far left (or far right depending on what side you are facing). The view was encouraged when we look at the Times 2 days ago. Especially with my lack of insight, is good to take that setting to the forefront. The times started with ‘Brokers can’t wait for Burberry’s success‘ (which could be read in more than one way), yet the text gives us clearly “Burberry left visitors to London Fashion Week in no doubt of the scale of its self-confidence: “Kingdom” was the grandiose title granted to the highly anticipated debut collection of Riccardo Tisci, its new creative director“, with the added “Analysts renewed their attack on the £8.2 billion company yesterday after executives indicated that it could take three seasons for changes to provide sales with a significant boost. Credit Suisse downgraded Burberry from “outperform” to “neutral,” citing a lack of potentially stock-boosting factors on the horizon.”

Now, I am not debating the reality of the setting. Yet when we look at a place like Statista (at https://www.statista.com/statistics/263885/burberrys-worldwide-revenue/), we see that even as they are not reaching new heights, we see that they are still doing decently well (if one calls £2.73 billion revenue decent) and the year is not over yet. So yes, we do accept that revenue and profit are two very different types of cake and one must eat ones cake, doesn’t one? That was given to us by the independent last year in November, when they gave us: “adjusted operating profit soared 28 per cent to £185m from £144m a year earlier“, we do not know the profits for this year as the year is not done yet. Even if the profits are optionally lessened, it comes from a 28% high, as we see that, what exactly drives the attack on Burberry and how does it relate to the earlier non fashionable one (even though they have Ferrari, Maserati and of course the Ducati), they also have some fashionable brands and they might not be of the Burberry level, the ladies will still love the Italian stuff. When we consider ‘Analysts renewed their attack‘, it is my personal belief that there is a group of insiders in these places who seem to be pushing the planchette of the Ouija board on where they need it to be (optionally not in line where it realistically could be), which is clearly a foundation of orchestration. The problem is not merely on how it is done, the entire financial setting is one of close to zero transparency as analysts ‘hide’ behind their formula’s (read: magic spells) and refuse to give out the incantation that they are using. Now, that is partially fair enough, most magicians do not reveal their tricks, they did do that in ‘Deception‘, which is optionally why it got cancelled after one season. I touched on the subject before and it remains active because a lot of ratings do not seem to make sense, especially when you see the actions and the fact that in May Burberry did beat their forecast with 2%, and still they are under attack? The interesting part is that the media who should ask a lot more questions are not doing that, not even reporting on it and whilst we accept the Guardian giving us two months ago that sales were waning ever so slightly, we were also given “Instead, they have been shopping in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and mainland China, boosting Burberry’s sales in Asia Pacific by a mid-single-digit percentage“, as well as “Sales in the Americas grew by a high single-digit percentage as the improving US economy encouraged more consumers to buy Burberry products“. In this we could accept that analysts might decide to warn caution, the message of ‘attack’ seems too unwarranted at present, especially when it is preceding Christmas and optionally the impact of thanksgiving sales in the US. Yet is all this, we see to pussy foot around the clear dangers that the Italian markets are giving us?

In this, we need to consider that if it is all around science we need to see a lot more clarity and if they want to sell the magic like we saw last week, we might (or not) accept to some degree the dangers that Mark Carney points out. the Business Insider gave us: “Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has privately warned the UK government that a “no deal” Brexit could bring about a housing market crash and a surge in the UK’s unemployment rate, according to several reports“, this makes perfect sense. Even as I have not seen the data, there are companies overreacting and threatening that they would vacate the UK. Some will do that, it is unavoidable. There was always the premise that this would also stop new hires and there would be fewer jobs for a little while. That too makes sense. Now consider that commercial building in London is through the roof and even now we see that things are not great. They have not been great since January 2018 when the Guardian gave us: “Developers have 420 towers in pipeline despite up to 15,000 high-end flats still on the market“, so in all this there is a larger danger and we were given this in April this year with “number of empty homes in London now above 20,000”, all houses well above £1 million that for the most no one can afford. So as houses remain empty, what do you think happens to the commercial places being build? We focus on the Battersea Powerhouse and Apple new stomping grounds, whilst we need to realise that 99% of all businesses are SME’s totalling at 5.7 million of them. Where do you think they will go when houses remain empty? I am not sure that Mark Carney is wrong, he might be a little too negative, but it depends on that data he has (and the question that he was required to answer), which is going to be loads better than the data I have seen. So when we get back to the setting of politics, if given the choice by the optional ‘troll like’ person Jacob Rees-Mogg stating “Bank of England governor Mark Carney is a “wailing banshee” whose warnings about Brexit cannot be taken seriously” versus the ‘goddess’ Rachel Riley who might be known for her ‘Would you like a vowel or a consonant?‘, is no less of a math goddess, implying that the math will add up correctly is she ever replaces Mark Carney, whilst the math quality is already in doubt ahead of schedule in the peculiar case of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It is important that we take a much deeper look at the math and even as I have great confidence in Mark Carney’s ability to do the math, we also need to consider that he has a job, a job to properly inform the government, especially when the worst case scenarios can be as dire as they would optionally be for the short term. So whilst we see the mention of “Mark Carney is a “wailing banshee” whose warnings about Brexit cannot be taken seriously“, we also see that at present 20,000 houses are not sold and some have been on the market for well over 6 months. I would suggest that JRM gives us his math and back those numbers up on a public place for everyone to scrutinise (hopefully by Rachel Riley).

The issues matter and they connect to each other, the scrutinisers seem to preload the stage in ‘their’ favour, which is understandable, yet the cold calculation formula has kept from us, so we cannot see which factors have been set on a sandwich that had been buttered too heavily; we all have a right to know those facts, do we not? In the end we accept that it is not merely about apples versus oranges and it is not about the amount of fruit we have, it is about the different scales and the setting of a stage where transparency seems to be always missing and that approach is never scrutinised giving us a growing lack of confidence as well as a level of growing mistrust in those ‘reporting’ the result; an issue that has been clearly noticed by many, and was addressed for the most by no one at all.

If you want to try magic with a money charm using green yarn and pine oil whilst chanting:

Knot of one, the spell’s begun
Knot of two, I make it true
Knot of three, prosperity
Knot of four, bring me more
Knot of five, the spell’s alive

If that does not work, try calculus and focus on spending less then you earn. Try 6 weeks of one and half a dozen weeks of the other and see which of the two gave you better results.

Have a great Monday!

 

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September 4, 2018 · 11:57

Democracy is dead

If there is one thing that the UK situation showed is the mere fact that not only is democracy dead, the question becomes has it even existed in the last 10 years? The fact that bullying and harassment are now the core uses of the media in facilitation towards power players (not even the political players) is at the heart of it all.

What started as an actual discussion became a trodden lane of smear campaigns and misstated innuendo. In the end a golden cage is still a prison, no matter how you slice it and even as the UK is all over the place, I do hope that they realise that they are about to become part of an additional 3 trillion in debt. The part that the media has refused to look into for the longest of times, the mindless spending by Mario Draghi and now a mere two hours ago we are confronted with “some economists argue that rapid technological development keeps a lid on prices, forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower fighting an economic paradigm shift, and leaving them with few tools for the next downturn“.

How does that relate?

Part of an issue I mentioned yesterday was (source: CNN) “Europe’s third biggest economy has suffered years of anaemic growth, high unemployment and budget deficits, while neighbours such as Germany and the U.K. have enjoyed a stronger recovery from the global financial crisis” at present the forecast is that the economy will rise by 0.2% less, giving a setting that is close to stagnant. In addition, even with the news from yesterday, we also now see: “Italian Economy Minister Giovanni Tria is pushing the parties in the governing coalition to keep next year’s budget deficit below 2 percent of output, sources close to the dossier said on Monday, lower than the party leaders have indicated so far“, as well as the part I mentioned last week as the article (at https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-view-friday/daily-briefing-italian-debt-yields-get-stretched-idUKKCN1LG0T2) was giving me “Fitch is due to provide the latest evaluation of Italy’s creditworthiness with national debt standing at 130 percent of GDP. The Italian-German bond yield spread is already at its highest since 2013 – a downgrade will widen it further and make Italy’s borrowing even more expensive“, there was an overall loss of faith, yet we are now treated to ““The actual rating wasn’t lowered, and anyone who follows Italy closely will know that a lowered outlook for the future should be taken with a grain of salt because so much of the political situation can change so quickly,” Alessandro Polli, an economic statistics researcher with Rome’s La Sapienza University” and when we add Bloomberg (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-03/italian-bonds-get-a-respite-as-fitch-affirms-credit-rating) with: “Basically the politician with the greatest clout is saying Italy will remain within the 3 percent deficit band“, which is not only 1% deficit more, it is also an initial indication (indication mind you) that the 2% deficit marker is now more and more likely not the be a feasible one. But in all this, it would all rely on Germany and now we see the play, the EU and ECB are desperate to thwart UK democracy, because without it there is no euro, no Eurozone and no options remain and big business is willing to betray 65 million people to keep their cushy 7-8 figure income jobs, they are willing to do that at the drop of a hat, any hat.

The political players let the media be the facilitator for big business, first the banks, then tech companies and now the car industry. One by one fear mongering until the people got too scared and according to the Independent, 2.6 million people jumped ship and decided the swim to remain. So the new UK lyrics become ‘Ruled Brittannia, Brittania is the bitch! We shall never never ever trust in Fitch‘.

We get that to the setting of ‘Fitch ratings review gives reprieve to Italian govt bond yields‘ (source: Reuters). It is seen with: “Italian bond yields edged lower on Monday after Fitch left its credit rating unchanged at BBB, revising only its outlook to negative, though mixed news flow from senior ministers and manufacturing PMI data due later this morning could mean the rally is short-lived, analysts said” where we need to focus on ‘manufacturing PMI data due later this morning‘ which gives me that the rating was done ‘just in time‘ to avoid having to lower it, which implies to me that it was not a reprieve, merely the application of time management to force an upped rating. In that regards, when we see that and the UK realise that the EU barge cannot be stable, not with only one solid anchor, we get to see the equation where the UK becomes the force anchor to keep the EU dinghy from sinking on the spot. So as the industry will see ‘assurances’ of their value protection from the ECB. You see when we look at Section 9.4.5 of Part II of the AnaCredit Reporting Manual (this is about to become a massive leap of speculation on my side), we get to see:

“If the appraisal aims to estimate the spot value taking into consideration market conditions, then “market value” is reported; on the other hand if the appraisal aims to estimate the market value ignoring cyclical factors, then “long-term sustainable value” is reported”

Now consider that the UK is in Brexit and the Italian economy is rated down, when we now consider “APP holdings, Purchases of marketable debt instruments increase the Euro system holdings of such instruments and inject liquidity into the banking system“, we would see that under those conditions the entire ‘expanded asset purchase programme‘ would have to stop as per immediately and that is what the members of the ECB do not want to do, no matter how useless their exercise is and still seems to be regarded as (by critical outside minds). As I personally see it, the reported net acquisition of €24 billion a month, will need to stop before the current held holdings of €2.51 trillion might end up being regarded as dumped value, the setting of a ‘bad mortgage’ write-off. And do you think that this bad ‘mortgage’ is suddenly whisked away? Nope the outstanding amount becomes a taxpayer’s debt to deal with and without the UK the other players get a nightmare amount to deal with and that is what none of the 27 members want.

Now in all this I will be accused of comparing apples to oranges and that would be correct, yet what those people are (intentionally) forget to mention of illuminate that the ECB is a fruit vendor in all this. They are not the apple sales person or the banana (republic) sales vendor. In all this the ECB does not get to compartmentalise any of it. They bought 3,000,000,000 barrels of fruit at €1,000 each, so when some of these barrels contains rotten fruit, it becomes their loss, not the salesperson who they bought it from and as the barrels were unattended for the longest of times, more barrels and larger portions of every barrel become infected increasing loss over time to amounts too large to even contemplate. So, when the Italian shipper and the French shipper state: You bought it, it’s yours now; they will have no defence. In this it is the British supermarket that they need to buy some of these worthless goods or they go belly up and that is what they deserved in all this.

They should have sold the stock a year ago and stop purchasing those barrels of fruit and they are still buying junk fruit. And when we were treated to the earlier mentioned ‘manufacturing PMI data‘, when we see that it was reported down from 51.50 to 50.10, in the setting where highest was 59.00 and lowest was 48.00. So when we see the Trading Economics report and when we focus on that part and see the statement: “The reading pointed to the weakest pace of expansion in the manufacturing sector since a contraction in August 2016, as new orders fell for the first time in two years and output posted the first decline in over three years. In addition, employment growth was the weakest recorded in nearly two years and expectations slumped to the lowest since May 2013 amid concerns over future global trading conditions, particularly in relation to the US” is there any doubt on orchestration? This was done to stretch the game, not truly act on the reported value, if that was done the setting of ‘BBB’ could not have been maintained, it should have been dropped to ‘BBB-‘ (my speculated view). So whilst we think we are being told the truth, in my personal opinion, we are sold a bag of goods, because that is how the game is players and we are all being duped, just like in 2008, I would have thought that those players had learned their lesson, but apparently they did not and I truly believe that the UK needs to get out before that tidal wave hits them. When it does and they were still in that boat, they get to lose it, to drown just like the other players. So if all else fails, I hope that those players grow a set of gills, because they will need them and right quick at that point.

All this wheeling and dealing gives me the impression that the people are merely offer the choice between poor and destitute, I wonder if any of them can tell the difference from this point onwards. Oh, and if you think that I am kidding there, consider Greece that is under all that oversight. And only 12 hours ago, the Greeks decided to strand all the tourists on a strike. so as we see “Members of the union are reportedly seeking a 5 per cent increase for ferry crews, a request which they claim is long overdue as pay has remained static for eight years“, which now has two impacts. The first is that “affect around 180,000 people who have booked travel to and from some of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations“, who will optionally infect another 600,000 tourists not to consider Greece in 2019. In addition the fact that those people are demanding an additional 5%, because ‘pay has remained static for eight years‘, then those Greeks better wake up, because static incomes will be the cornerstone of their life for perhaps another 15 years. that is the long term effect of austerity, that is the impact of that massive a debt, so tax breaks are basically a thing of the past for them and the UK is still steering to a similar setting, that €3 trillion will make of that very clearly and it will over time affect all 27 member states to some degree, likely to Germany the most. In this, the Politician and environmentalist Nikos Chrysogelos has even more to deal with. the man is correct on all counts, yet until the Greeks are willing to strangle these dangers by installing Singaporean like methods (like a €500 fine for any environmental transgression) the tourists (and to some degree the people) will not change and the Greek islands will transform into an open sewer soon enough.

These are all issues that will impact the citizens of other member nations in some form or another; the impact of long term austerity and short term thinking. It will be about “some sustainable model of tourism” soon enough, but that also implies one thing. It implies that people will still be able to afford a vacation, because that group is actually shrinking and the economic upset that Europeans are currently facing makes that issue a non-option to at least some degree. That evidence was seen earlier with ‘forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower‘, so when that stagnation shifts to downturn the economic hurt will be on all over Western Europe and the ECB will have 1-2 options reserved for themselves and their ‘friends’; and the people in Europe? Well, who cared about them anyway?

So in all it is not merely the economy for the now in all this. The setting is also the backwash from the consequences we see in Saudi Arabia. Canada, Sweden and Germany are all losing business in Saudi Arabia. Let’s be honest, we see that Iran is their enemy; we see that there is more and more evidence that Iran is facilitating missiles for Yemen, who are then fired on Riyadh. All this whilst the EC nations are bending over backwards to keep a nuclear deal alive that is quite honestly not worth the paper it was printed on and they expect to rake in billions in Saudi Arabia as well, whilst criticising Saudi Arabia at almost every turn. So as I am contemplated (read fantasising) on “an $11 billion arms deal between Saudi Arabia and Canada may be scrapped“; and how I could optionally sell that deal to a few alternative players (for a 1% commission). Whilst at the same time we see the quote “To German news outlet Der Spiegel, an unidentified businessman said, “For Germans, the doors in Riyadh have suddenly been closed” here I see a few non-European options as well (the 1% commission still applies) and when I see “Saudi Arabia is Sweden’s fourth largest recipient of arms outside the EU with sale totals in 2014 reaching approximately $39 million“, I see an opportunity to consider talks to get that shifted to perhaps a ‘Northrop Grumman X-47A Pegasus‘ consideration and perhaps even more, once the abilities are confirmed. Of course for all the extra work I will be taking an additional 1% on top of the 1%, so in all this, the European Hypocrisy works well for me, providing that Wesley G. Bush is still taking my calls, or I will have to postpone that deal and start wining and dining Kathy Warden (at her expense, it is an emancipated world after all) and she might be hungry for the setting of an additional 200 million, especially as the doors to Sweden and Germany are closed. All economic settings that are clear to all and clearly visible to all, so in all that, how are we not seeing that there is an increasing realisation that economic stagnation is closer to mere millimetres away from an actual economic downturn.

All elements that will hit the UK one way or another, because if it took this little to get the economy down with the smallest of efforts on two EU nations by up to 1%, how unstable do you think that the EU economy was in the first place? You see, the ECB ‘forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower‘ is one without firepower and options, making it merely a logistic system administrating €3 trillion of debt. So how desperate do they need the UK and how dim sum is the view that being a ‘remain’ member will make their lives easier? When everyone around you says: ‘Stay with us, or else‘, how much does who need who in the end?

Consider the truth there, if it was such a bad deal for the UK and a good one for Europe, do you think that the bullying and harassment would have been this severe? Until the EU and the ECB stops facilitating for the large corporations, you need to realise that those ‘facilitating’ are merely ‘tools’ trying to get a ticket on the next gravy train and those rides always cost the taxpayer and most often way more than acceptable.

 

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June 2, 2018 · 13:43

Cheese Pizza with Oregano

I love Pizza, I hardly ever get it, merely because the people here tend to rely on Domino’s and Pizza Hut and neither tends to be a true pizza (as I personally see it). As I walked through Sydney over the last week, it dawned on me just the massive lack of actual decent Pizza places in Sydney. It is almost like they are no longer in a sustainable environment. People got used to the cheap solutions two chains bring and they call it Pizza. All the people in the neighbourhood accepted it as the real deal and now, we forgot what true awesome Pizza is like. Now, I am a little off the wall here. I love my Cheese Pizza, with the 5 cheeses and loads of Oregano on top. So when I think Pizza, I always think of the Bravo Trattoria Pizza’s at Crow’s Nest, they are my favourite! Yet, is it about pizza, or the place, or what Pizza actually is? You see, it does matter when we consider the Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/personal-finance/italys-debt-barely-sustainable-ubs-chief-economist-20180601-h10uun), we see here what I said weeks ago and last week to some degree. When we see “Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio of 130 per cent is “borderline sustainable”, the UBS top economist says. There is a level of the primary budget surplus which keeps debt stable, and above which you can begin to pay down your obligations, Kapteyn explains. For Italy this figure is a surplus of 1.3 per cent of GDP, versus the actual surplus of 2 per cent. It’s a skinny buffer of around 0.8 percentage points which at current debt levels “doesn’t inspire confidence”, Kapteyn says“. That is merely the tip of the iceberg. The issue is not that it is Italy, it matters more that it is one of the big four. UK, France, Germany and Italy are the large economic suppliers of a 27 nation bloc where they basically represent well over 50% of the EU economy, the fact that they all are in deep debt does not help and the fact that the UK is getting out, or is that ‘was trying to get out‘? So when we see add the issues of the UK and now we see how the Italian issues are growing and France is not far behind. A 27 nation failure due to the inability to set proper budgets, deal with debt levels and add to that a failed economy jump start that is now close to 3 trillion Euro printed with no real prospects to pay for any of it. That revelation is why Italy seems to be vacating the union. The action by President Sergio Mattarella by rejecting the Eurosceptic finance minister and put in his place Giovanni Tria a pro-EU professor. This is perhaps the first setting where we see that voting is no longer an issue for any government, the holier than thou setting of protecting the Euro and the EU against all odds, whilst those in the EU commissions are massively overpaid is setting the foundation of a dangerous mindset. The issue that the AFR is bringing to light is “markets are not pricing in the risk of an Italian exit, they are repricing the risk of a Italian default“. I always rated the Iexit (aka iLeave) setting very low, the two populist parties in charge was not that realistic in 2016 and when Marine Le Pen was ‘surpassed’ by a former investment funds manager we were all wondering what would come next and I thought it would lower the chances of the populists in Italy. And the news is not getting any better. We see that with “The European economy hit a wall over the final months of last year, with growth dropping from a quarterly growth rate of 0.7 per cent to more like 0.4 per cent. Economists are unclear of the reasons for the slowdown, but broadly believed the European economy would quickly rebound“, the issue I personally see is ‘broadly believed the European economy would quickly rebound‘, not the slowdown. You see there is no evidence that there is an actual quick rebound. There is every chance that there will be a rebound, but it will not be quick. The fact that these so called experts are all thumbs when it comes to their forecasting and with 0.3% unaccounted for, we can see that they are in the dark or playing the bad news cycle. I personally believe it to be the second one. And the Italian issues are increasing. Not merely the debt settings, it is a changed political landscape. Even as Paolo Savona was replaced by Giovanni Tria, there is still “Mr Di Maio will be vice-premier and minister for labour and economic development, including trade policy. Matteo Salvini, head of the League, will also be vice-premier and interior minister in charge of immigration“. This we got from the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/79cf905c-64a8-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56). This duo is going to be a lot more important than even I initially thought. They now have a handle on labour economic development and immigration will see larger changes. There is no way to predict whether that is good or bad. If we listen to people like George Soros we are instantly rejecting liberalism, because it is easy to be a liberalist when you are a multi billionaire, yet he had no issues to short sell US$10 billion worth of Pound sterling, earning a billion in the process during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. He did nothing wrong, he played the system when he could and make a billion. Things like that never go away and he must regard the EU zone as a very profitable short sell opportunity, which makes whatever he is trying to do dangerous, so in that light all his settings for “Best for Britain pushes for second referendum on Theresa May’s deal with EU“, a cause he is backing is very dangerous. In this by pushing the UK away from Brexit, the pressure on Italy decreases. The dangers become that irresponsible spending in the big four can go on for several more years and there is no way to control the ECB and their puppet masters. Unelected people deciding on the descent of financial futures in 27 nations that is how I personally see it. You can agree or disagree, yet ask yourself when was the last time that any European got a decent explanation on who of how the 3 trillion euro spend was going to be dealt with? You see over a decade in an economic setting that is close to the late 90’s, whilst keeping strict austerity in play all over Europe. There is quite literally no way that this will happen, because politicians will adjust their policy towards any speculative proclaimer of ‘the European economy would quickly rebound‘ economists, whilst not prosecuting them when they get it wrong (merely because making any claim of expectation is not a crime, is it?). A setting that the people have no chance of winning, hell, they won’t ever be able to break even on this. This shows that Brexit will be a hard, but the better way to go. When billionaires start proclaiming how bad it is and how ‘we all’ can get a better deal that is when you become afraid for your life and that is what is at stake. And we see this in the Australian Financial Review with ““creeping into the market”, Kapteyn says – “a potentially dangerous one”. After the glory days of 2017 in which investors basked in a globally synchronised upswing, markets are now faced with the potential return of the two-speed world economy: the US vs the rest“, so when we get “America’s economy is growing around 3.5 per cent; some independent analysts estimate growth as fast as 4 per cent. Europe is “at best” growing by 2 per cent“, that shows the dangers, because as George Soros is getting the winnings, the other players do not, from my point of view it is a form of leeching, leeching Europe dry for the term of a generation or better. You see again it is a personal view, it is why Best for Britain is getting the support, it is about delaying Brexit at the very least for as long as possible, merely because it stops the game people like George Soros are likely to be playing and when that stops Europe can start bringing things about, hopefully for the better, especially as the ECB will be forced to print money for all kinds of dubious reasons, dubious because kick-starting the economy after you printed 3 trillion to try it twice is just ridiculous, that money has to be paid back at some point and everyone is in denial about the latter part.

Yet this is still about Italy, not the UK. You see, Italians want what is best for Italy and I am fine with that, I believe in a healthy sense of national pride. Yet with “Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio of 130 per cent is ‘borderline sustainable’” they are facing an ugly truth, Italy needs to face 5-15 years of Austerity, yet with the ECB trying to economically equalise Europe, at the cost of the big four, so it amounts to Italy trying on top of an economy for 60 million Italians, whilst they are weighted with invoices for close to 250 million Europeans who can’t be bothered to get their house in order. it amounts to giving an addicted gambler $500 whilst they are only allowed to use $10 for gambling, you tell me how long it takes for things to go really wrong, and that is pretty much a given on this situation. It was seen in the Netherlands 2012 and 2013, and now we see, when we look at the Dutch government statements with in September 2017 we see “The economy will grow by 3.3% in 2017 and a projected 2.5% in 2018“, we see the EU commission giving the Netherlands a ‘mere’ 3.2% last month for that same timespan. Now the 0.1% is actually pretty good, but it is still dangerous when it is a 0.1% in Italy, the issue is seen when we see that the Netherlands has a 65% debt level against Italy at 130% of GDP, and the Dutch are actually in a much better position, so the 0.1% is no actual pain level. Portugal, Spain, Greece, Belgium and Italy all have debt levels well over 100% of GDP, several other nations are somewhere between 60% and 80% of GDP, whilst France is at 99.8%. It is the debt levels that are excellent for banks and not so good for the people. You see, when the big four are required to pay €254 billion in interest each year and that is just the large 4, how do you think that this gets paid for? A decade of inability to set a proper budget and all this is before we consider the €3,000 billion that the ECB printed for what they call Quantative Easing. That is what Italy needs to get away from and at 135% they have the hardest job of all. So when you see that all that money goes all to the banks, short sold loans that they never had the money for to pay for can you see just how dangerous the George Soros setting is in all this? It all impacts Italy to some degree. These are not merely the facts; there is also presentation, representation and misrepresentation. The issue is in the Australian Review, it is the view of Arend Kapteyn. Yet where is he at when he gives us “We are only now at the beginning to find out how responsible or irresponsible [the new coalition government] are going to be on the fiscal side“, you see, the setting then becomes what is irresponsible? Being not pro Eurozone, being forced to default whilst the alternatives are just too unacceptable for the Italian people? So is he the pro greed setting, or the pro solution setting, because with such debt levels we can almost unanimously accept that these two choices are mutually exclusive. The most interesting political part is that Enzo Moavero Milanesi is now Minister of Foreign Affairs. I would have thought that the populists wanted that part for themselves, the fact that this post is now with an Italian independent is an interesting choice, if the populists can work with this setting and use it to maximise their economy by setting new option and opportunities, Italy gets an optional path where minimised immigration and maximised economy could have a setting where the Italian unemployment rates could fall to a number below 10% over the next 24 months (highly speculative on my side). If they pull that off, the entire euro sceptic setting could grow a lot faster than would have been possible with Paolo Savona in the mix.

No matter how you slice the Pizza, the factual and actual quality Italian dish is under massive amounts of pressure on several sides and any Italian thinking that their life will get better in the short run is just gobbling down a [Unnamed Franchise] Pizza, bland food that look like a UFO and tastes not as great. The fact is that like Germany did earlier this decade, Italy will know 5-10 years of hardship, yet when persevered Italy could have an actual growing economy for a much longer time, something to look forward to (if you are Italian). Can this government pull it off? That is hard to say because it has been shown that the actions of the ECB are close to non-stoppable and that will still impacts the bottom line. It is good for America and George Soros in the short term, yet after that they will not care and Europe will not be going anywhere ever soon. That danger is just ignored all over the place. Just 2 days ago the Financial Times also gave us “There are still two weeks to go before Riga, but naming an end date for QE right now would be like the ECB shooting itself in the Italian boot,” said Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING-DiBa. “The Italian situation has tilted the balance towards the doves [and] clearly calls for the ECB to keep its options open and even to make clear that they will extend QE at least until December” (at https://www.ft.com/content/dd6b5d70-6413-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56), which is already an extension of well over a year. so when we see “The ECB has pledged to reinvest an average of €15bn a month over the first four months of next year, using the proceeds of government bonds bought under QE that have now matured” in that same article, we need to consider ‘bonds that have now matured‘, so that danger is seen in the Spanish setting where we see from some sources: “Spain will have refinancing requirements that exceed €300 billion per annum before 2022. In 2018, 41.2 billion euro, in 2019, 82.4, in 2020 83.9 and in 2021 58.5 billion euro, with 60.4 billion maturing in 2022“, so this fiscal year Spain will be required to find €41 billion, or increase taxes or cut services, and it will be twice that amount next year around, so how exactly is Spain in a setting to get the economy back whilst the debts are rising beyond normal control? Italy faces “84 billion euro maturities in 2018, 161 billion in 2019, 164 billion in 2020 and 172.5 billion euro in 2021” do the Italian people know that they are in such deep and hot waters? I wonder, and when they get confronted with that part of the bad news cycle, what will the previous and opposition then proclaim? I wonder if we will see true honest coverage on that blame game. I will order a decent Pizza to watch that unfold, because there are merely the two larger players in the EU-debt zone bloc confronted with the hardships that will hit them hard. Pushing these debts forward is just not a workable solution, not when the debt exceeded 130% of GDP, if you doubt my words, just talk to the average Greek in Athens and ask him how his quality of life is nowadays.

So as you wanted that your slice of life included a slice of pizza, consider the 99% in Italy who soon face the reality that they are no longer able to afford that for a long time to come.

 

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