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Bed Bath & Beyond warns it may go out of business, stock tanksThe end may be near for Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY).In a statement published before the market open on Thursday, the company said that amid continued financial struggles, bankruptcy is on the table as it works to shore up its leaky balance sheet."The Company continues to consider all strategic alternatives including restructuring or refinancing its debt, seeking additional debt or equity capital, reducing or delaying the Company's business activities and strategic initiatives, or selling assets, other strategic transactions and/or other measures, including obtaining relief under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code," Bed Bath & Beyond said in a statement."These measures may not be successful."Bed Bath & Beyond shares were down 17% in pre-market trading. The stock is trading at levels not seen since 1993.(...)
En 2023, la UE debiera intensificar el rerrescate a España iniciado en 2022 sin imposición de ningún delicadito memorándum de entendimiento como el de 2012 —entonces hacía falta ir con pies de plomo para desmontar el 'cajahorrorismo'—. Lo razonable es que la UE espere al nuevo Gobierno que salga este años de las urnas; y, entonces, reviente la soberbia con una ley marcial económica en materia inmobiliaria y de Deuda —la Bolsa española —a diferencia de la de EEUU— no está sobrevalorada y España tiene poco o nada que decir en cuanto al tipo de cambio EUR/USD—. Quedará así expedito el camino para un pacto social de rentas como Dios manda. Nos da igual que el Presidente sea del PSOE & PCE con la abstención de Vox & PP o viceversa.
Fed’s Esther George sees rates staying high at least into 2024As her 40-year central banking career comes to a close, Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George is advising her colleagues to stay tough in their efforts to stamp out runaway inflation.George said Thursday that she thinks the Fed should raise its benchmark borrowing rate above 5% and keep it there until there are substantial signs that prices are stabilizing.“Holding that until we get evidence that inflation is actually coming down is really the message we’re trying to put out there,” she told CNBC’s Steve Liesman during a “Squawk Box” interview. “I’ll be over 5% and I see staying there for some time, again until we get the signal that inflation is really convincingly starting to fall back toward our 2% goal.”(...)
The digital dollar is coming on the back of the FTX collapseThe arrest of CEO Sam Bankman-Fried may be the smaller news story coming out of the collapse of FTX. Politicians will miss the point surrounding the massive political donations of the company and instead push for simplistic solutions to a complex issue. Ultimately, the collapse of the crypto company could lead to onerous federal regulations and the establishment of a federal “digital dollar.” The FTX issue isn’t large enough, under normal circumstances, to push through such dramatic banking and financial changes, but it is clear that those at the Federal Reserve and many in Congress have been salivating for such changes for years. This could be a fig leaf to justify it. The loss of billions of dollars through the collapse of FTX is beginning to echo through the economy. Both private investors and crypto holders lost big in the company’s collapse. With nearly 1 million customers, the similarities to previous large-scale collapses are obvious. The criminal charges against Bankman-Fried perhaps offer someone on whom to pin responsibility, but not a means to fix the damage. The purported remedy instead may be the largest fiscal overhaul since the creation of the Fed.A switch to a cashless, centrally-controlled digital form of currency could be relatively simple. Currently, the Fed and several major banks are running a “Digital Dollar pilot,” and it is being pushed as a good idea by media outlets including opinion writers in the Wall Street Journal. The Fed is preparing the electronic form of currency in conjunction with similar efforts by other nations. After all, the argument may go, if the United States doesn’t innovate, China or someone else will. Some in Congress already support the idea, and FTX may have provided just the grounds needed for a transition to such a system.A digital dollar will enable a near-total control of each person’s transactions. This would extend far further than the Internal Revenue Service’s $600 income rule and could have massive impacts on taxation, earnings and privacy. The ability to instantly track, catalog and scrutinize every person’s transactions is a dystopian nightmare. Considering the relative efficiency of the IRS, it is entirely probable that the agency could send out audit letters to people for Venmo-ing their friends back for their share of a restaurant bill or taxi ride. Furthermore, the digital dollar likely will coincide with a gradual abolishment of physical cash. There may be some ability to keep small denominations or amounts, but if the transition mimics Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 banning most private ownership of gold, your financial autonomy would be at risk.Who in Washington wouldn’t support the end of traditional cash? There will be plenty of politicians and pundits who extol the advantages: an end to counterfeiting (both domestic and funding rogue states such as North Korea), an effective end to traditional money laundering, and difficulty for criminals to pay for drugs. It also can be used to track questionable purchases and donations. Does it look like you’re buying cocaine or illegal firearms? You’re tracked. What about donating to the Canadian truckers the next time there’s a protest? After all, it has happened before. Donate to the “wrong” political cause? Perhaps your information is leaked. These are all events that have modern-day precursors in our country, Canada, China and beyond.If you listen to the government, a digital dollar sounds like a panacea built on the end of economic liberty. There are key advantages to the federal and state governments. Your Social Security, welfare or paycheck would be deposited instantly. Your bank accounts would be synced with the Federal Reserve databases, your movements tracked through transactions, and you would become an asset to the Fed just as much as digitally “printed” dollars.If you believe that such a concept is either far-fetched or likely only far in the future, think again. China’s dictatorship learned the full implications of monetary and social control over its population through digital currency and its social credit system. China launched the world’s first digital currency and it includes several concerning elements. Its record of transactions is private — unless law enforcement needs them. And although in an early stage, China’s digital yuan is used by more than 200 million people and just passed 100 billion yuan in transactions. Not only that, there is a very real possibility that those blacklisted by the Chinese government will be unable to use currency at all. China offers a model that we would be loath to follow. However, more regulation and the recent crypto crash may say otherwise.Democrats always seem to find a way to win in cases like the FTX collapse. A young, incompetent CEO gets to donate to left-wing causes, receives fawning media profiles, and then his company crushes the dreams of a million investors. Despite the reported heavy donations to left-wingers, they can simply accuse him of similar, yet untraceable, donations to Republicans in order to muddy the waters. Democrats then can use the circumstances they benefited from to push for far-reaching regulation that will expand the power of the regulatory state. The collapse of FTX was perhaps predictable but not intentional. The vulture-like actions by those in power to take advantage of the disaster are both predictable and intentional. After all, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel: Never let a crisis go to waste.
Nos interesa retrasar el ajuste a 2024. Suena mal, ya lo sé. Pero tiene su porqué. No es prudente ser demasiado explícitos.
Los ortogramas ruso y chino han aprovechado para avanzar en sus agendas históricas.
https://twitter.com/sninobecerra/status/1610203347742756865CitarEl Banco de España se encamina hacia su rescate: razón, el BCEPor Alvaro J. Medina | 3 enero, 2023Pablo Hernández de Cos, gobernador del Banco de España
El Banco de España se encamina hacia su rescate: razón, el BCEPor Alvaro J. Medina | 3 enero, 2023Pablo Hernández de Cos, gobernador del Banco de España
¿Qué sucede si obtenemos beneficios?Si registramos beneficios, podemos destinar algún dinero a provisiones y reservas generales para protegernos frente a posibles pérdidas futuras. Los beneficios restantes se reparten entre los bancos centrales nacionales de los países de la zona del euro, que son los accionistas del BCE. Los bancos centrales nacionales también pueden guardar parte de este dinero, pero generalmente los beneficios restantes se transfieren al Gobierno nacional, contribuyendo a su presupuesto, lo que redunda en el interés de los ciudadanos de la zona del euro.¿Qué ocurriría en caso de pérdidas?Lo más importante para nosotros es nuestro mandato de asegurar la estabilidad de precios, que prevalece sobre otras consideraciones. Aplicaremos las políticas adecuadas para lograr nuestro objetivo de inflación, aunque esto se traduzca en menores beneficios o incluso pérdidas. Si tenemos pérdidas, podemos utilizar, en primer lugar, el dinero guardado en años anteriores para cubrirlas. El BCE y otros bancos centrales de la zona del euro han obtenido beneficios considerables durante varios años —entre 2012 y 2021, los beneficios antes de impuestos y las provisiones generales fueron de aproximadamente 300.000 millones de euros—. Esto se ha debido en gran parte a la política monetaria aplicada durante esos años, sobre todo a los programas de compras de activos y a los intereses negativos pagados (es decir, los intereses generados) por los depósitos de los bancos. Conscientes de los riesgos financieros que asumimos, hemos utilizado parte de estos beneficios para constituir colchones financieros como provisiones y reservas generales, dentro de los límites estatutarios. Asimismo, algunos colchones financieros se generan por la revaluación de algunos de los activos de los bancos centrales. Estos colchones también forman parte de nuestro patrimonio neto y contribuyen a nuestra solidez financiera.En el caso del BCE, si nuestra provisión general para riesgos no fuera suficiente, los bancos centrales nacionales de los países de la zona del euro podrían cubrir las pérdidas restantes con sus propios ingresos procedentes de las operaciones de política monetaria. Cualquier importe adicional puede registrarse en el balance del BCE para ser compensado con los beneficios netos que se obtengan en el futuro. Para más información sobre los procedimientos de distribución de pérdidas y ganancias, consulta este Occasional Paper.Es importante recordar que, a diferencia de las empresas, los bancos centrales pueden perder dinero y seguir funcionando de forma eficaz. Con todo, el principio de independencia financiera implica que los bancos centrales nacionales siempre deben estar suficientemente capitalizados.En resumen, los colchones financieros de los que disponemos, nuestros marcos de gestión de riesgos y otras salvaguardias a nuestra disposición aseguran que las pérdidas no afecten a la capacidad del Eurosistema de trabajar para lograr nuestro objetivo de mantener de estabilidad de precios.
Empezamos fuerte este 2023!Hay dos cosas sobre las que me gustaría incidir del último post de asustadísimos;CitarNos interesa retrasar el ajuste a 2024. Suena mal, ya lo sé. Pero tiene su porqué. No es prudente ser demasiado explícitos.Entiendo que se debe a la sincronización política y económica que mas adelante se menciona. Se repetiría el patró visto con el rescate greigo, y tendría su lógica,
[...] pero:CitarLos ortogramas ruso y chino han aprovechado para avanzar en sus agendas históricas.Hasta hace 10 meses el ortograma ruso era el ortograma europeo.El NordStream 2 (que costó +10.000 millones de €) iba a alimentar la locomotora alemana, y el sueño euroasiático estaba más vivo que nunca. Trump había declarado la paz en el mundo yendo a Korea del Norte e iniciando una nueva y fructífera etapa comercial con Putin.De repente todo se va al traste.Los democratas acusan a Putin de interferir en las elecciones USA (¿puede haber argumento mas absurdo?) nos enteramos de que el hijo drogadicto de Biden está en el consejo de administración de la mayor empresa gasista de Ucrania, y toda la diplomacia europea, históricamente reconocida por su mesura, representa un bochornoso papel belicista y beligerante con Borrel al frente (él sabrá porqué, aunque se intuye).Cuidado que el tren puede descarrilar.
Fiscal policy: from free to affordable lunchhttps://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog230104~7aa6afd8fb.es.htmlGovernment borrowing rates have increased sharply on the back of high inflation and the normalisation of monetary policy. Investors have also become more averse to holding riskier assets. Moreover, they pay attention to the sustainability of government debt, especially in countries with large outstanding liabilities. Both aspects have contributed to higher sovereign bond spreads. Further downgrades to the economic outlook could exacerbate this trend. Yet, these developments are only one part of the story. Another aspect to consider is that higher inflation tends to improve some headline figures of fiscal sustainability. In particular, for a given amount of outstanding debt, a higher nominal GDP means that the debt-to-GDP ratio falls.This blog post assesses how these opposing factors affect public debt sustainability. What matters most is the different speeds at which debt servicing costs and nominal GDP increase in times of inflation. Higher borrowing rates only apply to newly issued debt (i.e. affect the marginal borrowing rate). Because of that, the average financing costs of euro area governments have remained relatively low, as governments have locked-in lower rates.However, looking further ahead government borrowing costs will eventually increase as the debt stock is refinanced at higher interest rates. In addition to that the interest rates paid by governments on new debt depend also on the soundness of their fiscal position. Higher indebtedness can push up credit spreads to levels where debt dynamics deteriorate, even in the absence of other economic shocks.Another aspect to consider is that governments need to find lenders when they refinance the flow of maturing debt. Experience has shown that when government access to capital markets deteriorates, the terms at which a country borrows can undermine its fiscal sustainability.
A good balance between interest (i) and growth (g) helps to keep debt under controlOne major determinant of public sector debt sustainability is how the cost of debt compares to the resources available to service it. As long as the nominal average interest rate on government debt (i) is smaller than the nominal GDP growth rate (g), a country’s government debt-to-GDP-ratio may remain stable even with a primary budget deficit. This gap is widely known as the “interest-growth (i-g) differential”.In the euro area, average government borrowing costs have been lower than GDP growth rates in recent years. And in spite of recent increases in market rates, average interest costs are still projected to remain below growth rates for some time to come (see Chart). There are two reasons for this. First, euro area governments have increased the maturity of their debt in recent years, and so it takes longer for higher market yields to affect the cost of the overall debt stock. Second, bond yields have risen by less than inflation so far, and high inflation also boosts nominal growth. This also increases nominal government revenues, making it easier to service the debt. Over the medium term, however, both of these favourable effects are set to fade. Eventually, higher marginal borrowing rates will be passed on to the average cost of debt as the debt stock is rolled over (raising i), and inflation is expected to fall (lowering nominal growth, g). According to recent ECB staff projections, the i-g differentials of the largest four euro area economies will increase to pre-pandemic levels only by between 2025 and 2027.Investors demand higher interest (i) for higher public debt levelsSo, everything is fine and there is nothing to worry about when we think about debt sustainability? Well – it depends. In our baseline projections, we use today’s market-implied expectations about the future interest rate environment. The outlook for g corresponds to ECB staff’s projections of growth and inflation over the near- to long-run. But crucially, also the conduct of fiscal policy will affect the prospects for the i-g differential. Having nominal growth rates persistently higher than interest rates (negative i-g differentials) could potentially give rise to a fiscal 'free lunch', as it allows larger budget deficits in the near-term while the debt-to-GDP ratio can fall again over time. But, this is only true if additional debt does not cause i to rise above g.Higher debt can worsen the balance between i and g by raising the supply of, and hence the yield on, government bonds, which ultimately raises the average interest cost. We have estimated this relationship for the euro area. A 10 percentage point rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio is consistent with a 20 basis points increase in yields – but only for issuers with a relatively low debt stock. For highly indebted countries it means an increase of 65 basis points. In other words, piling up more debt can make borrowing for governments more expensive (i). Moreover, higher public debt can discourage private investment, leading to lower growth (g). The level of outstanding debt thus affects i-gThis suggests that favourable i-g dynamics can only be expected in scenarios in which countries pursue a gradual return to sound fiscal positions (illustrated by the gradual fiscal consolidation scenario in the Chart). But if fiscal deficits stay elevated, the i-g dynamic is projected to become unfavourable. This is especially the case for euro area countries with high levels of debt. If further increasing, these debt levels can gradually raise the average borrowing cost, tighten borrowing conditions for firms and households, and reduce growth.
Barcelona, crónicas de una decadenciaEl columnista Carlos García-Mateos debuta en la literatura con ‘Barcelonerías’, un conjunto de textos sobre el deterioro de la capital catalana por el ‘procés’https://theobjective.com/cultura/2023-01-06/barcelona-cronicas-decadencia/
EN EL INSTITUT NOVA HISTÒRIALa última revisión histórica del soberanismo: "Cataluña fue un Estado 500 años"Salvador Brulles, profesor cercano a la ANC, ha elaborado una nueva teoría que distorsiona la historia de España. "Estamos en una dictadura encubierta", señalahttps://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/cataluna/2023-01-05/cataluna-estado-version-academica-independentismo_3552861/