Tag Archives: Default

The Only Real Solution Is Default, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on July 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

Default, like winter, is coming, big time. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

The destruction of ‘phantom wealth’ via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance.

The notion that the world could always borrow more money as long as interest rates were near-zero was never sustainable. It was always an unsustainable artifice that we could keep borrowing ever larger sums from the future as long as the interest payments kept dropping.

The only real solution to over-indebtedness since the beginning of finance is default. There are pretty names for variations on default that sound much less gut-wrenching–debt jubilees, refinancing, etc.– but the bottom line is the debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid and whomever owns the debt as an asset absorbs the loss.

Every default is a debt jubilee for the borrower. Whether the default is informal or formalized in bankruptcy, the debt payments are no longer being paid to the lender / owner of the debt.

Every debt jubilee is a default that forces the owner of the debt to write the value down to zero and absorb the loss. The jubilation of the owner of the debt is rather muted unless the state swoops in and passes the losses onto the taxpayers via bailouts / transferring the losses to the public’s balance sheet.

Every default is a refinancing–to zero. We’ve refinanced the debt so the borrower pays zero and the value of the loan / debt is now zero.

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Russia ‘Defaults On Foreign Debt’ For First Time Since Bolshevik Revolution Amid Western Sanctions, by Katabella Roberts

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

Is it really a default if your creditor refuses payment or makes it impossible for you to repay, but you are ready, willing, and able to do so? From Katabella Roberts at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:

Russia on Sunday defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1918 after the grace period on its $100 million payment expired, according to reports.

The $100 million interest payment deadline due to be met by the Kremlin had initially been set to May 27 but a 30-day grace period was triggered after investors failed to receive coupon payments due on both dollar and euro-denominated bonds.

Russia said that it had sent the money to Euroclear Bank SA, a bank that would then distribute the payment to investors.

But that payments allegedly got stuck there amid increased sanctions from the West on Moscow, according to Bloomberg, meaning creditors did not receive it.

Euroclear told the BBC that it adheres to all sanctions.

The last time Russia defaulted on its foreign debt was in 1918 when the new communist leader Vladimir Lenin refused to pay the outstanding debts of the Russian Empire during the Bolshevik Revolution.

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Defaulting on the Debt Is the Moral Thing to Do, by Ryan McMaken

Posted on October 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

You are not liable for the government’s debts. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

The US is in the midst of yet another “debate” over the debt ceiling. In the twenty-first century, this is a ritual that Washington politicos and journalists go through every few years when the prospect of default and government shutdown is used as a way to hold Americans hostage until they cave to a debt-ceiling hike. I won’t bore you with the details of which politicians are voting against a higher debt ceiling this time around. Outside a tiny handful of principled eccentrics of the Ron Paul variety, virtually everyone in Washington favors more deficit spending. The fact that the leadership from one of the parties currently pretends to oppose higher debt levels tells us nothing about what the regime really wants.

What it wants, of course, is sky-high spending, forever, and it wants to borrow huge amounts—at rock-bottom interest rates—to do it. A default—brought about by a stable debt ceiling—would complicate that goal. A failure to hike the debt would also limit the power of the regime, so we can expect most everyone inside the Beltway to be deeply opposed.

So, it was not exactly a surprise when Janet Yellen took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal earlier this month to call for an immediate increase to the debt ceiling. She doesn’t hold back when it comes to predicting sure and immediate doom if the debt ceiling is not increased.

“Our current economic recovery would reverse into recession, with billions of dollars of growth and millions of jobs lost,” Yellen insists, and she predicts that

failing to raise the debt limit would produce widespread economic catastrophe. In a matter of days, millions of Americans could be strapped for cash. We could see indefinite delays in critical payments. Nearly 50 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security checks for a time. Troops could go unpaid. Millions of families who rely on the monthly child tax credit could see delays.

And if a financial crisis weren’t enough, Yellen claims the US “would emerge a permanently weaker nation” (emphasis added), supposedly because the US government would no longer be able to borrow more cheaply than its unnamed and ominous “economic competitors.”

Needless to say, this is quite the laundry list of ills all stemming from the fact the US government would have to live with spending only the $3.4 trillion or so that it collects in taxes. Not piling on an extra $1 to 3 trillion in debt on top of that every year? Why, that would just be madness!

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First CMBS Mega-Casualty On Deck: $700MM Starwood Portfolio On Verge Of Default, by Tyler Durden

Posted on September 19, 2020 | Leave a comment

A CMBS is a commercial mortgage backed security, a package of commercial mortgages. A big one will soon default, which is how credit crises get started. If this one doesn’t kick the crisis into high gear, another will, and soon. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Over the past 6 months we have repeatedly discussed the plight of commercial real estate which unlike most other financial assets, failed to benefit from a Fed bailout or backstop (but that may soon change). It culminated in June when we wrote that the “Unprecedented Surge In New CMBS Delinquencies Heralds Commercial Real Estate Disaster.” The ongoing crisis in structured debt backed by commercial real estate in general and hotel properties in particular, prompted Wall Street to launch the “Big Short 3.0“ trade: betting against hotel-backed loans, which had the broadest representation in the CMBX 9 index, whose fulcrum BBB- series has continued to slide even as the broader market rebounded.

Yet while prominent failures within the CMBS universe had so far been rare due to overcollateralization of even highly distressed portfolios, as the economic slump drags on, as various stimulus measures expire and as landlords fail to make rent payment, the various embedded liquidity buffers have been rapidly draining and as a result we are now approaching the moment where one or more prominent names are about to suffer a spectacular blow up.

The first among them will almost certainly be the Starwood Retail Property Trust 2014-STAR, a portfolio which is backed by an almost $700 million defaulted loan which is collateralized by several malls – including The Mall at Wellington Green in Florida – owned by Barry Sternlich’s Starwood Capital, and whose investors are starting to take losses according to Bloomberg, after the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered stores, crippled rental payments and wiped out emergency cash reserves that had been keeping interest payments flowing.

A big reason for the devastation is that The Mall at Wellington Green, the core property of the portfolio and Wellington’s biggest taxpayer, saw its taxable value drop 32% in 2019 to $150 million as a result of the Nordstrom departure, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office. Starwood Retail Partners bought the property in 2014 for $341.1 million, marking the largest real estate deal ever recorded in the county at the time. It is now worth less than half, and that’s before most of its other anchor clients also fled or filed for bankruptcy.

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Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll, by Jeff Thomas

Posted on June 9, 2020 | 2 comments

A lot of Americans, particularly the Baby Boomers, have trouble recognizing the limits imposed by reality. From Jeff Thomas at internationalman.com:

Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll
The baby-boomer generation were perhaps the most privileged generation that the US has ever spawned.

Their fathers returned from World War II, eager to get married, buy a house and start a family. The economy was booming, as, during the early years of the war, the US wisely stayed out, but provided tanks, helmets and even toothbrushes to those who were directly involved in the fray.

What’s more, they didn’t accept pound notes or francs; they accepted only gold. So, at the end of the war, when the manufacturing cities of Europe had been destroyed by bombs, the male populations decimated and the governments broke, the US was on a roll. They had most of the world’s gold and had first-rate manufacturing facilities that only had to switch from making jeeps and rifles to making cars and televisions.

That wave of wealth allowed the young married couples to spoil their children with whatever they wanted.

The boomer generation reached their teens in the 1960s, and having grown accustomed to receiving whatever they wanted in life, they were young adults and wanted to party. The phrase, “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” was coined and it was an apt one. Young Americans opted for plenty of all three.

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Here’s What the Government Should Really Do in the Greater Depression, by Doug Casey

Posted on April 29, 2020 | 1 comment

All of Casey’s suggestions make far too much sense to be implemented by our current rulers. From Casey at internationalman.com:

It’s hard to have a conversation today, or even overhear one, without being exposed to moronic – and I now use that word in its colloquial as well as its clinical sense – opinions about what “we” should do.

“We,” of course, is the government. Everyone believes it should “Do Something.” And it is.

But why deal in half-measures?

Why only send everybody a check for $1,200? Why not buy everyone a new Cadillac to get Detroit back to work, a big new house to help builders, and a $10,000 check that must be deposited at a failing bank and then spent at Victoria’s Secret.

A plan like that certainly sounds like more fun than what I’m going to propose. Especially since Americans are going to be a bit short on fun over the next little while.

They used it all up over the last generation.

I’ve explained elsewhere why we’re embarked on the Greater Depression. That’s a done deal. But here is what needs to happen if the depression is to be as brief and as therapeutic as possible.

1. Allow collapse of bankrupt entities. They’re uneconomic (as their bankruptcy has proven), their managements are overpaid and are proven incompetents. The bailout money going into them is simply wasted. Most of the real wealth now owned by the bankrupt will still exist. It will simply change ownership.

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Grab Your Bits and Shoulder Your Kits, We’re Going In! by Raúl Ilargi Meijer and Alexander Aston

Posted on March 1, 2020 | 2 comments

The coronavirus may come to be seen as the beginning of a new era in human history. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer and Alexander Aston at theautomaticearth.com:

This is a new essay from Alexander Aston. He describes how once the world has passed through the -narrow- bottleneck of the coronavirus and its effects on our societies, which are long overdue for a redo, and on the central bank-engineered distortions of the markets that are -make that were- supposed to be the foundation that allowed us to flourish, there will be a better world waiting.

I’m all for it, and I have no rational issues with it either, but when I read“..these are the moments at which humans are the most creative and most inspiring”, my warped mind can’t NOT think: ..yes, we’re moving towards a better world, and we’re terribly sorry that you didn’t make the cut..”

Here’s Alexander:

Dear Raúl, I hope you are well. Things are all right on my side. Submitted my thesis, am being examined by the heads of Archaeology for both Cambridge and Oxford, which is a huge, albeit intimidating complement. Otherwise, just watching the world come unglued, so I wrote you something to put up if you like it. All the best – Alex

 

 

“A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places.

And scattered about it, some in their overturned warmachines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians—dead!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in His wisdom, has put upon this earth.”

– HG Wells

 

 

It took until the first two months of 2020 for the long Twentieth Century to finally come to an end. One thing now seems absolutely clear, this will be the decade that the majority finally come to understand that things are never going back to “normal.” To be sure, the complex entanglements of institutions, narratives, cultural practices, and economic relationships that emerged during the previous century have been under immense strain these past two decades. Enormous effort has been expended to maintain the inertia of the global system, from the immense violence of imperial politics and regime change wars, to the more subtle violence of economic dispossession by a privileged elite that control the mechanisms of power.

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The State of the Union: An Annual Reminder of Inevitable Default, by Tho Bishop

Posted on February 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Politicians bloviate, time marches on, and the nation edges ever closer to default. From Tho Bishop at mises.org:

Last night’s State of the Union was particularly noteworthy for its showmanship. Scholarships were given away, medals were awarded, families reunited. At a time when national politics is bad theater, President Trump is clearly its most gifted star.

Trump also knows what sells. As a political figure, he’s motivated not by any consistent ideology, but rather by transactional legislation. Following the performance, an MSNBC pundit noted that the speech was a “microtargeted ad” to various demographics aimed at expanding his base before next year’s election.

Combined with his Super Bowl ads highlighting criminal justice reform, his focus on charter schools and honoring a hundred-year-old Tuskegee airman are aimed at eroding away the Democrats’ 90 percent control of black voters. The cameo by Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó was an appeal to Hispanic families who have fled communist regimes—perhaps a poke at Bernie Sanders. Paid family leave, a policy focus of his daughter, is intended to help him with suburban women.

What doesn’t sell? Fiscal responsibility.

The political equivalent of Crystal Pepsi, the Republican Party has given up its long-standing façade of budgetary restraint. As Donald Trump told donors earlier this year, “Who the hell cares about the budget?”

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The Three Ds of Doom: Debt, Default, Depression, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on July 17, 2019 | 1 comment

The world is at the precipice of a gigantic debt-contraction and depression. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

“Borrowing our way out of debt” generates the three Ds of Doom: debt leads to default which ushers in Depression.

Let’s start by defining Economic Depression: a Depression is a Recession that isn’t fixed by conventional fiscal and monetary stimulus. In other words, when a recession drags on despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus being thrown into the economy, then the stimulus-resistant stagnation is called a Depression.

Here’s why we’re heading into a Depression: debt exhaustion. As the charts below illustrate, the U.S. (and global) economy has only “grown” in the 21st century by expanding debt roughly four times faster than GDP or earned income.

Costs for big-ticket essentials such as housing, healthcare and government services are soaring while wages stagnate or decline in purchasing power.What’s purchasing power? Rather than get caught in the endless thicket of defining inflation, ask yourself this: how much of X does one hour of labor buy now compared to 20 years ago? For example, how much healthcare does an hour of labor buy now? How many days of rent does an hour of labor buy now compared to 1999? How many hours of labor are required to pay a parking ticket now compared to 1999?

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Governments Default on Debt More than You Think, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on September 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

Governments even default on debts denominated in their own currency, which some economists say can’t happen because governments can always print up more of their own currency. From Daniel Lacalle at mises.org:

In this era of monetary fiction, one tends to read all types of undocumented and misguided views on monetary policy. However, if there is one that really is infuriating: MMT science fiction.

One of its main principles is based on a fallacy: “A country with monetary sovereignty can issue all the debt it needs without default risk.”

First, it is untrue. A report by David Beers at the Bank Of Canada has identified 27 sovereigns involved in local currency defaults between 1960 and 2016 (database here).

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