Below is the link to my latest appearance on BNN with Howard Green and Ryan Avent.
Quick thoughts:
Credit Writedowns was one of the first English-language sources to report that the IMF was in the picture regarding funding a European bailout. My view has always been that this is just a backup plan and is not going to be considered a primary plan.
The talk of the IMF as a lender of last resort for sovereigns continues. I continue to see any imminent real IMF involvement as unlikely. The IMF simply does not have the funds to bailout large developed economies, nor is that their mission. Politics in the US would rule out any solution that required the US to contribute to the IMF to help bailout Spain or Italy. If any IMF-oriented solution comes into being, the IMF would only be used as a fig leaf, and the true paymaster would be the ECB.
Yves Smith is right when she says that an IMF solution is just a precaution on both a political and practical level.
Ultimately, Greece will default. They are working out the terms now. But let’s be clear, investors will receive less than half of their investment back in net present value. The Europeans are trying to craft a proposal that isn’t a technical default. But, let’s get serious, calling a haircut of 50-60 or 70% a non-default is a joke. Moreover, as I said in November, the Greek non-default deal not is running smoothly and it’s exactly because Europe has eviscerated the sovereign CDS market by taking this approach. In any event, Spain and Italy are where the rubber meets the road.
Also note that our talk covered a little ground at the end regarding the Canadian housing market. The previous guest went into a lot greater detail here. But the gist of the problem is that Canadian households have a larger debt burden relative to the size of the domestic economy than American households did when the Americans’ property bubble burst. Moreover, policy space in Canada is limited as the policy rate is 1%. And the global economy is decelerating right now to boot.