PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Otoño 2023

[Derby]

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/housing-market-affordable-income-expensive-black-knight-mortgage-rates-fed-2023-10

The US housing market is so expensive that incomes would have to spike 55% for it to be considered affordable, industry exec says

*The housing market is so unaffordable that only three extreme scenarios would return it to pre-pandemic affordability.
*US incomes would have to spike 55% to consider the current market affordable, an industry executive said.
*Other scenarios would have to see home prices crash 35% or mortgage rates drop four percentage points.

The current housing market is so expensive that one of three extreme scenarios would have to play out for it to return to pre-pandemic affordability, according to Andy Walden, ICE vice president of enterprise research.

He told CNBC in an interview this week that one of those hypotheticals would be a sharp spike in US incomes.

"If you look at home affordability itself, and what it would take to normalize the market today, it's a 35% correction in price, or a 4% decline in rates, or a 55% growth in income," Walden said. "Some combination of those. Those are massive movements we're talking about, and none of them are going to happen in a vacuum, and none of those one single factors are going to make the move."

He said there's a large potential for movement, but the lack of inventory is keeping prices elevated when they should be pulling back amid rising rates. Walden added that the latest housing data was "red-hot" coming into August, and buying power remains down about 6%.

"Demand has hit its lowest point during the pandemic over the last three weeks, certainly constraining the market and affordability and its lowest level in 40 years," Walden said.

Higher mortgage rates paired with soaring prices have crushed affordability in the US, with rates on the 30-year fixed mortgage hovering near two-decade highs and inching closer to 8%.

For buyers putting a 20% down payment on a $400,000 home, the monthly mortgage is about $930 more expensive per payment compared to pandemic lows, CNBC data said. Last week, the number of people applying for mortgages plunged to the lowest level since 1996, the MBA's latest survey showed.

"That same interest rate lever that's driving down demand, it's pulling down supply," Walden said. "We're actually 8% below where we were last year in terms of supply. 70% of markets are down year-to-date on the seasonally adjusted basis. It is causing that gridlock in the market."

[Derby]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/08/britain-heading-another-black-monday-stock-market-crash/

Is Britain heading for another Black Monday?, Matthew Lynn

Worrying parallels emerge between 1987’s stock market crash and 2023’s bond sell-off

Even almost four decades later, it remains an event scarred into the memory of the financial markets. After a violent storm had ripped across the country, knocking down trees and shuttering roads, trading systems that still relied on brokers shouting at each other across open floors had closed early for the weekend as the damage was cleared up.

As London trading re-opened on Monday, after closing jitters in New York the Friday before, the reaction was swift and brutal. The FTSE-100 fell 11pc in a single session, while in the United States the Dow Jones ended the day down by a terrifying 20pc.

It became known as Black Monday, the worst single day of trading since the great stock market crash of 1929, and one that shaped policy for the rest of the decade.

As we approach October 19th, the 36th anniversary of that fateful day, could the British and global markets be heading for a replay? To many financial experts, there are already worrying parallels between the two eras.



The bond markets are crashing around the world, just as they did in the run-up to the crash of 1987. Debts have been ramped up. The equity markets are overstretched, with company values stretched to the point of breaking in many cases. A seemingly indestructible bull market is coming to an end. It is not hard to see how that could end in a gale of destruction blowing through the markets.

If it came to pass, a market crash on the scale of 1987 would prove a cataclysmic political and economic event. It would send interest rates soaring, increasing costs for mortgage holders and for highly indebted companies, especially in the property sector. Business would fail and pension funds would be hard.

Perhaps most importantly of all, the already-high cost of servicing national debts would climb even higher. It would force profligate politicians to finally face up to the consequences of their wild spending.

There is plenty about the financial markets over the last few weeks that looks very similar to the late 1980s. There is, however, an important difference. Policy-maker still had fiscal room to respond to the crash of Black Monday. After two decades of easy money, and constant buffering of the markets with quantitative easing to prevent a crash, that no longer exists.

It remains to be seen whether we witness a rerun of 1987. One point is certain, however: if we do, this time around it will be far worse.

Bond market blitz

Investors are beginning to fret about a repeat of Black Monday primarily because of a sell-off in the bond market, where companies and governments issue debt and promise a guaranteed rate of return. Usually a sleepy corner of financial markets, the bond market has been gripped by a wave of selling in recent weeks.

If you want a vivid illustration of the rout in the bond markets, the place to look is Vienna. At the height of the bull market in government debt, Austria very smartly launched a 100-year bond, and then reissued it in 2020. With a coupon of just 0.85pc, investors would have to wait a whole century to get their money back, and for all that risk and patience they would get less than a 1pc return.

Amazingly, in retrospect, the issue was 16 times oversubscribed as investors scrambled to give away their money for practically nothing until long after they were dead. And today? The bond has, perhaps not very surprisingly, crashed in value. If you sell it, you will get back only 33 euros for every 100 you invested.

Why anyone wanted to lend the Austrian government money for 100 years is perhaps a question that only psychologists can answer. What is certain is that the bond market has fallen in value on a spectacular scale over the last few months. The Austrian 100-year bond is an extreme example, but the value of most of the major bonds have fallen by between 40pc and 50pc over the last year, with the losses accelerating over the last month.



The crisis is most often measured in yields – the rate of return offered by a bond, which moves inversely to price.

Yields have spiked to levels that even seasoned market professionals can barely remember. The yield on a 10-year US Treasury Bill, the key instrument that determines prices across the world, was closed to 4.9pc on Friday, a level not seen since 2007. In Britain, the government is now paying above 4.5pc on a 10-year gilt, significantly more than when Liz Truss supposedly “crashed” the economy a year ago.

The Italian government is paying close to 5pc, the highest level since 2011 when the eurozone came close to falling apart. Germany, which has had negative yields for most of the last decade, meaning investors were effectively charged a fee for lending money to the government, is now paying close to 3pc. In every major market, the cost of money is rising rapidly.

The bond market does not get the same kind of attention as equities or property. Most of us are not aware of owning any bonds, in the same way as we might own our home, or a portfolio of shares. But bonds are the crucial underpinning of the financial system, and your pension fund will certainly own lots of them, as will your bank, while your employer and of course the government will depend on the debt market for its financing.

In total, the global bond market is worth $133 trillion (£109 trillion), or rather it was when it was last properly measured in 2022. When it crashes, it has far more impact on the everyday economy than any other part of the financial system.

High interest rates are not ‘transitory’

There is no great mystery about why prices are crashing and, as a result, yields are going up. Investors are beginning to believe interest rates will remain high for longer than previously thought. As a result, they are demanding a higher rate of return on their investments. 100-year Austrian bonds that pay out 0.85pc no longer cut it.

The latest surge in government borrowing costs began with messaging from the US Federal Reserve in early September that interest rates will need to stay higher for longer.

Continued strong jobs figures in the world’s biggest economy have also stoked concerns – a tight labour market drives inflation. Bond yields lurched higher on Friday after figures showed the US economy added nearly twice as many jobs as expected in August.



Investors and economists are also concerned about high levels of government borrowing. Both Italy and France have raised their deficit forecasts over the last month, and show little willingness to bring borrowing back under control, while President Biden’s wild spending carries on regardless of the impact it might have on the economy.

In the background, the huge spike in inflation in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine has proved stubbornly resistant to higher interest rates. The central bankers who only a few months ago complacently assured us that the rise in prices was merely “transitory” have started to concede that inflation has become embedded in the same way it did in the 1970s, and that rates will have to “stay higher for longer” to control that again.

We won’t be seeing rates of less than 1pc again for a long time. The result? Bonds have been massively repriced, even five or ten years out, for a world in which money is far more expensive than it has been for a generation.

Stock markets remain wildly over-stretched

So far, we have not yet seen the sell-off in the bond market feed through to equities, even though higher borrowing costs will mean lower growth potential for companies. But it may well be only a matter of time.

In a note sent to clients late last week, Barclays argued that the only way the rout in the debt market could finally stabilise would be if equities effectively crashed as well, amid a general re-pricing of financial assets.

“We believe that the eventual path to bonds’ stabilising lies through a further re-pricing of lower risk assets,” the bank’s analysts argued. “We believe stocks have substantial room to re-price lower before bonds stabilise.”



More pertinently, as the chart shows, the rise in bond yields looks very similar to the surge in borrowing costs that led up to the Black Monday crash of 1987. In the year before the crash, US bond yields had been steadily rising, following almost exactly the same trajectory as they have done over the last six months. That only ended with the massive sell-off that came in October.

In 1987, equities were not even significantly over-priced compared to their long-term averages; most share prices reflected a realistic assumption of profits, growth and value.

Now most indices, with the exception of a few dogs such as Britain’s FTSE-100, stock markets are already wildly over-stretched by any historical comparisons – meaning they have much further to fall if a crash does materialise.

There are of course plenty of signs of stress in the financial markets. The first tremors were felt here in the UK in the wake of the mini-Budget last September. The markets were unnerved by the scale of the borrowing planned by the Government. Sterling crashed and borrowing costs spiked.

The surge in bond yields triggered the LDI crisis, with pension funds over-committed to instruments that assumed bond markets would not move for years. A fire sale began and the Bank of England was in short order forced to step in and stop things spiralling out of control.

It was a vivid illustration of how issues in the bond market can spill over but perhaps will prove to be a relatively minor one in future.

There are plenty of warning signals elsewhere as well. In the US, there was a small-scale panic in the spring prompted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, caused at root by its over-exposure to a falling bond market. Only intervention from the Federal Reserve, in much the same way as the Bank of England had to step in over the LDI debacle, prevented that from spreading to other banks in the US, and several other regional financial institutions were hustled into mergers.

In Germany, there is a growing property crisis, with values falling by almost 20pc so far this year and developers starting to go bust. In China, the country’s debt-fuelled property bubble is rapidly running out of air.

If there is a crash, it will be easy for anyone to look back at all those events and conclude that the warning signs were all in plain view.

Growing global debt mountain

If the financial contagion does spread, the main casualties are not hard to work out. In the UK, we have already witnessed a steep rise in mortgage rates and some modest falls in house prices, but if there is a full blown crash it will get much worse.

It is just as bad elsewhere. In the US, the average mortgage rate has hit 7.5pc, the highest level since the millennium. House prices are falling at an annual rate of 7pc in Germany, the steepest decline in 23 years.

A market crash will be felt by companies that borrowed cheaply, and complacently assumed that rates would never rise again, especially in the private equity industry. The sector bought up huge swathes of the economy with cheap money and will have to start selling at huge losses once all that debt has to be refinanced at far higher rates.

The consultancy firm Alvarez & Marsal estimated in a report last week that $500 billion of corporate debt will have to be refinanced next year; all of those companies will find they have to pay far higher rates, putting pressure on their businesses.

But it will be felt most painfully by governments, for the simple reason that they have borrowed so much over the last decade.

In the UK, the cost of servicing our huge debt mountain has risen to £100 billion a year, double the amount only a year ago, and almost 11pc of total government spending. In France, debt costs are now the biggest single budget item, forcing the free-spending Macron government to make savings elsewhere. Interest on Italy’s debts already consumes 4pc of GDP every year and that is only going to rise as it borrows more and more simply to stay where it is.



In the US, interest payments on the national debt are forecast to rise from $475 billion last year to $1.2 trillion by the end of the decade: all President Biden’s investment in “green technologies” will have to generate huge returns to make all that borrowing look worthwhile.

In reality, all the major governments across the developed world will have to start cutting their spending, and reducing their borrowing, simply to bring their cost under control. Add it all up, and it is going to be very tough to adjust to higher rates.

What would happen if there was a financial crash as spectacular as the Black Monday collapse in 1987?

“Back then, we didn’t have a big recession in the UK, for example, until the early 1990s,” says Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics. “This time, the UK economy is adjusting to a sustained period of rate rises which means the economy is already struggling. There will be no buffer for a shock.”

Western economies lose their lustre

There are some big differences between 1987 and 2023. The overall debt levels were far lower back then, and government debts far less burdensome. In the US, the debt to GDP ratio was just 48pc then, compared to 120pc now, and the UK was also comfortably below 50pc, compared with 100pc now. Interest rates were significantly higher and households and companies were holding significantly less debt, which gave them a lot more flexibility to cope with the crash.



Perhaps more significantly, governments had already started the hard work of making their economies more competitive. The 1987 crash came in the middle of the Reagan-Thatcher project of rebooting the Western economies, curbing the overwhelming power of the trade unions, privatising inefficient state owned monopolies, and handing power back to companies and entrepreneurs.

All of that was just starting to pay dividends, unleashing a wave of innovation and growth that enabled economies to grow even through periods of financial turbulence. That is not to say it didn’t matter. The loosening of financial policy in the wake of the Black Monday crash led to a round of inflation that arguably led to the fall of the Thatcher administration in 1990, and the defeat of Reagan’s successor Geoge HW Bush in 1992. But it also came at a time when the major developed economies were getting stronger.

That is certainly not true today. In reality, all the Western economies have been steadily enfeebled over the last fifteen years. State spending has grown exponentially, much of it paid for by printed money. Regulation has been endlessly increased. Governments have been captured by lobby groups, and corporations have fallen under the sway of ideologically driven managers committed to social values instead of innovation and growth.

The corporate raiders who disciplined bloated management hierarchies in the 1980s are a distant memory. The crash of the 1980s proved in retrospect to be little more than a punctuation mark instead of the closing of one chapter and the opening of another.

That won’t be true of the crash of 2023, if it happens. It may well mark the point at which two decades of relentless government expansion, increased welfare entitlements, and soaring debt levels, all of it financed by cheap money, starts to unravel. Governments, corporations and households will all have to start living within their means again, and growth will only be possible through greater innovation and productivity instead of through printed cash.

When we look back from the 2030s or 2040s, that may well be seen as a good thing. A collapse will force us to focus on restoring real growth. But there will be a lot of pain getting to that point. We have already seen that in the bond markets over the last few weeks – and very soon we may see it everywhere else as well.

[pollo]

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/housing-market-affordable-income-expensive-black-knight-mortgage-rates-fed-2023-10

The US housing market is so expensive that incomes would have to spike 55% for it to be considered affordable, industry exec says

*The housing market is so unaffordable that only three extreme scenarios would return it to pre-pandemic affordability.
*US incomes would have to spike 55% to consider the current market affordable, an industry executive said.
*Other scenarios would have to see home prices crash 35% or mortgage rates drop four percentage points.

Parece que poco a poco se van colando en la prensa común voces que hablan de la cruda realidad de la vida de la mayoría de gente. Quizá ya es la hora de que se caiga el chiringuito generacional, por la cuenta que le trae a occidente.

[saturno]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/redfin-ceo-issues-dire-warning-uss-rock-bottom-real-estate-market-american-dream-trouble

"We can come up with creative financing. The piper always has to be paid when that happens. But fundamentally, we have to figure out how to build more houses. And, mostly, it has been the red states where we have figured that out, where through low regulation and through a real partnership with builders, places like Orlando and Las Vegas have just been building like crazy, and that's where everyone's moving. So, it used to be that about 18% of our customers were relocating. Now it's more than 25% of our customers are relocating. That continued through the pandemic. It's not going to stop."

[/quote]

hay 2 formas de resolver lo que dice
-- constuir, sin resolver la razón del caos territorial (zonas y zonas, etc-)
-- regular fiscalmente por ej, tomando como referente la norma general el salario minimo, no con norma individualizables (granular)

En la primera, que dice el artículo, extiendes el problema, no lo resuelves,
En la segunda, el artícullo da por supuesto que se produciría un conflicto con la ideologia implicita que él defiende,

Vaya- Pero no-

La ideologia interviene aqui cuando identifica "sueño americano" con "desregulación"-

Y la contradiccion resulta de negarse a considerar que sea la propia desregulación la que entra en conflicto ¡con el sueño americano!



Se resuelve vinculando la norma fiscal al mismo concepto de sueño americano,
Es decir, en lugar de vincular precios o fiscaliad a la liquidez disponible del demandante (salario o crédito), hacerlo a una  norma social objetiva neutral existente (por ej, salario mínimo) y disociar las transacciones particulares del mercado entre empresas-

Como hicieron con los bancos, comerciales y de depositos, lo pueden hacer con las transacciones B2B y entre particulares-  Los bancos soportaban multas, las transacciones soportarÍan una fiscalidad separada para transacciones particulares y profesionales,




Yo creo que se acabará haciendo así- Ya estamos tardando, porque el primero que lo haga tomará la delantera sobre los demás- Si en el mundo será seguramente EEUU, en la UE, deberÍa ser España-

Aparte de que, como en EEUU, la economia ES es la menos regulada de forma que pasar de una regulación fragmentada ("caso por caso, zona y zona, etc,") de la vivienda a otra planificada  (salario mínimo normativo) es donde tendrÍa más rapida adaptación,

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-07/metro-bank-in-talks-for-debt-restructuring-equity-injection

Metro Bank in Talks for Debt Restructuring, Equity Injection

    Shareholders face dilution unless they contribute new funds
    Restructuring would wipe out riskier debt, extend senior bonds

Metro Bank Holdings Plc is in discussions over a financing package with its bondholders and shareholders with the aim to reach any agreement before Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Bondholders have been in talks with Metro Bank about an equity injection by existing investors that would be carried out alongside a debt restructuring, the person said, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. The proposal would extend the maturity of its outstanding senior debt and convert the subordinated debt into equity. Shareholders will need to inject new equity to avoid a severe dilution.

The situation is fluid and an agreement may not be reached. As well as trying to hammer out a deal with equity and debt holders, Metro Bank is continuing to consider other options such as selling mortgage assets in order to free up capital.

A spokesperson for Metro Bank declined to comment. The lender’s largest shareholder Jaime Gilinski could not be reached for comment. Representatives for PJT, which is advising bondholders, declined to comment.

Under the bondholder scenario, Metro’s £250 million ($306 million) tier 2 notes would be converted into equity and the maturity of £350 milllion of senior bonds due 2025 extended. Existing bond and equity holders are considering whether they want to inject more money into the bank given its challenges over growth and costs while weighing that against the risk some could face a wipe out if Metro Bank’s situation deteriorates seriously.

The bond due in 2025 would cease counting toward MREL — Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities — purposes when its maturity date is less than twelve months away, hence a refinancing should happen before October next year.

Metro was previously approached about a possible merger with fellow mid-tier bank Shawbrook, but those talks did not progress. Still, other bidders could emerge for Metro, either among the medium-sized banks or from a large bank, several people close to the situation said. The bank is working with adviser Morgan Stanley on its options.

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gas-pipeline-between-finland-estonia-shut-over-suspected-leak-2023-10-08/

Gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia shut after suspected leak

OSLO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was shut early on Sunday after an unusual drop in pressure probably caused by a leak, Finnish gas system company Gasgrid and Estonian operator Elering said.

Gasgrid said the cause was not yet known, but gas supplies were stable for now.

"I do not want to speculate at all on the cause of the leak," senior Gasgrid executive Janne Gronlund told Reuters.(...)

[Urederra]

Creo que está nueva guerra que ha empezado en Oriente Próximo va a ser el "velo" que esconda la caída final del "capitalismo popular".

[Benzino Napaloni]

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/housing-market-affordable-income-expensive-black-knight-mortgage-rates-fed-2023-10

The US housing market is so expensive that incomes would have to spike 55% for it to be considered affordable, industry exec says

*The housing market is so unaffordable that only three extreme scenarios would return it to pre-pandemic affordability.
*US incomes would have to spike 55% to consider the current market affordable, an industry executive said.
*Other scenarios would have to see home prices crash 35% or mortgage rates drop four percentage points.

Parece que poco a poco se van colando en la prensa común voces que hablan de la cruda realidad de la vida de la mayoría de gente. Quizá ya es la hora de que se caiga el chiringuito generacional, por la cuenta que le trae a occidente.

Pero aún no se va al grano. O se va, pero tímidamente.

El CEO de AirBnb sólo se ha decidido a soltar la liebre cuando ha visto que es su propio negocio el que está a punto de irse a hacer puñetas. Después de Nueva York, Florencia ha sido la siguiente en poner límites.

El sistema de Airbnb "está roto". El CEO de la plataforma admite estar en crisis y pide a los anfitriones bajar los precios

A buenas horas, mangas verdes. A estas alturas las ciudades ya han tenido que empezar a intervenir porque se están quedando sin suficientes trabajadores residentes.

Esto es un síntoma de por dónde irán los tiros. Pero antes de eso veremos intentos de que Papá Estado pague las facturas. Ya lo estamos viendo. Es de primero de manipulador: atrasas con todo hasta que sólo queda en pie lo tuyo, y así puedes alegar que si no se te rescata se va a la mierda todo. (Hola 2008 bis).

A esto aún le quedan muchas etapas por quemar. Al menos sí es cierto que el proceso ya ha empezado.

[Vipamo]

Creo que está nueva guerra que ha empezado en Oriente Próximo va a ser el "velo" que esconda la caída final del "capitalismo popular".

Qué va! Ahora saldran millones de israelís y palestinos de Israel con destino España para comprarlo todo en centro y costas. No veas el festín inmobiliario que va a haber hasta navidades.

[BENDITALIQUIDEZ]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gas-pipeline-between-finland-estonia-shut-over-suspected-leak-2023-10-08/

Gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia shut after suspected leak

OSLO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was shut early on Sunday after an unusual drop in pressure probably caused by a leak, Finnish gas system company Gasgrid and Estonian operator Elering said.

Gasgrid said the cause was not yet known, but gas supplies were stable for now.

"I do not want to speculate at all on the cause of the leak," senior Gasgrid executive Janne Gronlund told Reuters.(...)

Seguramente habrán sido los finlandeses que han volado su propio gaseoducto para culpar a los rusos...

[sudden and sharp]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gas-pipeline-between-finland-estonia-shut-over-suspected-leak-2023-10-08/

Gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia shut after suspected leak

OSLO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was shut early on Sunday after an unusual drop in pressure probably caused by a leak, Finnish gas system company Gasgrid and Estonian operator Elering said.

Gasgrid said the cause was not yet known, but gas supplies were stable for now.

"I do not want to speculate at all on the cause of the leak," senior Gasgrid executive Janne Gronlund told Reuters.(...)

Seguramente habrán sido los finlandeses que han volado su propio gaseoducto para culpar a los rusos...

... o una milonga. No hay tal leak, como no hay poco aceite...   













-----------
[ Es el precio, estupido....  ]

[Derby]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/2023-10-08/empresas-espanolas-recortan-dividendo-salarios_3750162/

DESTINAN EL 67% DEL NUEVO VAB
Las empresas españolas sacrifican dividendos para pagar salarios como las europeas

Después de una década de austeridad, la pandemia ha cambiado las prioridades de las empresas, que han optado por mejorar sus plantillas recortando inversión y dividendos

El mercado laboral español ha experimentado un profundo cambio desde que comenzó la pandemia. En el ciclo expansivo anterior, el que va desde la crisis financiera hasta 2019, la obsesión de las empresas pasaba por ahorrar, ajustar costes laborales y reducir el enorme endeudamiento que acumularon durante la burbuja. Este esfuerzo permitió un gran desapalancamiento a costa de reducir inversión y el salario de sus trabajadores. Cuando llegó el covid a España, la actividad de las empresas se desplomó y se vieron obligadas a elegir entre despedir a sus trabajadores para evitar las pérdidas o mantenerlos y soportar ese coste a cambio de retener el capital humano. La gran mayoría optó por lo segundo, apoyándose en los ERTE que diseñó el Gobierno precisamente para contener los despidos.

Se produjo así un cambio que se ha mantenido hasta la fecha. Las empresas no financieras están priorizando el capital humano incluso por delante de su facturación. El mejor ejemplo se observa en los primeros meses previos a la pandemia. En esas fechas, la actividad todavía seguía renqueante, sin embargo, las empresas recuperaron rápidamente a sus trabajadores de los ERTE e incluso aumentaron sus plantillas. De hecho, en España se ha creado empleo con un crecimiento del PIB inferior al 0,5%, lo que supone una novedad histórica para el país.

El buen comportamiento del empleo permitió recuperar los niveles de ocupación previos a la pandemia ya en el primer trimestre de 2022. Un rápido rebote que contrasta con el PIB, que tardó unos meses más en conseguirlo. Ese boom del empleo permitió a España superar la cota de los 20 millones de afiliados ya en el mes de mayo de 2022, una cifra nunca antes alcanzada. Y al inicio del verano se quedó cerca de los 21 millones.

La intensa creación de empleo desde 2020 no es exclusiva de España, ya que ocurrió en casi todos los países desarrollados. Responde a dos motivos: la inflación (que ha recortado los costes laborales en términos reales) y, sobre todo, a la escasez de trabajadores. Las empresas han optado por mantener y reforzar sus plantillas ante el temor de quedarse sin profesionales.

El resultado de esta estrategia es que los costes salariales han crecido intensamente desde que comenzó la pandemia. En los últimos cuatro trimestres (con datos hasta el segundo trimestre de 2023) las empresas se gastaron en salarios y cotizaciones sociales 443.000 millones de euros. Esto supone un 17% más que antes de la pandemia, un crecimiento superior al del valor añadido que generan, que ha aumentado un 15%.

Visto de otro modo: de los 95.600 millones adicionales de valor añadido que generan las empresas (lo que facturan menos el coste de los insumos), el 67% se ha destinado a elevar la masa salarial. El grueso de los recursos extra que han conseguido gracias al crecimiento económico y la inflación se han destinado directamente al pago de salarios. Esto incluye tanto el aumento de las plantillas como, en los meses más recientes, subidas de salarios para limitar la pérdida de poder adquisitivo de los trabajadores.

Actualmente, las empresas dedican en torno al 59% de su valor añadido a salarios, lo que significa que se han situado en línea con la media de la eurozona. Supone una gran alteración respecto a los años posteriores a la crisis financiera, cuando dedicaban poco más del 55% de su valor añadido a pagar salarios. Esto significa que se ha producido un reequilibrio en el reparto de los ingresos empresariales hacia los salarios. Está por ver si esto supone un cambio estructural o si todavía es un resultado temporal consecuencia de las dos crisis vividas (pandemia e inflación).

Solo el tiempo resolverá esa duda. Por lo pronto, las empresas están destinando a salarios, una cifra similar a la del año 2009, cuando estaba comenzando el gran ajuste de la economía tras el estallido de la burbuja. En paralelo al aumento de los salarios, las empresas también han seguido reduciendo deuda y mejorando sus recursos propios. Esta sí que es una tendencia que viene desde la crisis financiera y que se ha acentuado en los últimos dos años por la gran incertidumbre que rodea a la economía.(...)

[sudden and sharp]

------
 

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-08/sweden-s-wallenberg-says-business-must-adapt-to-new-world-order

Sweden’s Wallenberg Says Business Must Adapt to New World Order

*Wallenberg Investments AB chair boosts Canada-Sweden ties
*Says embracing clean-energy shift is ‘competitive advantage’

Swedish business leader Marcus Wallenberg said companies and governments must adapt to a “completely new world order,” in which tension between China and the US has driven western countries to pour billions of public dollars into clean-energy industries.

While the chair of Wallenberg Investments AB described himself as a free trader at heart, he said the current geopolitical circumstances have forced everyone to adapt and recognize the need for investment in the sectors of the future.

“You have to realize that going through this green transition, we will have to spend a lot of dollars to make that happen,” Wallenberg said in an interview with Bloomberg in Ottawa, shortly after he and a Swedish business delegation met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Whether it’s going to be in R&D or whether it’s going to be financing big infrastructure projects, it will not be possible in my mind only doing it from one party. You’ll have to have cooperation between business and government. I think it’s going to be a prerequisite in one way or another. And then you can debate what is the right way of doing it.”

Wallenberg, a fifth-generation member of the prominent Swedish business family, led representatives from the investment, manufacturing, telecommunications and other sectors to Canada’s capital, including FAM AB, Atlas Copco AB, Epiroc AB, Saab AB, Ericsson AB, Stora Enso Oyj, GreenIron H2 AB and Navistar Inc. Trudeau has enthusiastically embraced the US-led push to topple China’s dominance in clean energy sectors, and recently pledged as much as $5 billion in public money to Sweden’s Northvolt AB to build a battery plant in Quebec.

The Covid-19 pandemic taught countries that completely relying on global supply chains is not as safe as once thought, Wallenberg said, and President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has also really “moved the needle.” The bill set out billions in subsidies for green manufacturing, forcing allies including Canada to match the dollars for global companies or lose out on key investments.

“China has been working very hard on the battery and the EV situation for a long time,” Wallenberg pointed out. “We see that in the new cars that they’re launching and that they’re now spreading around the world that are very competitive price-wise and so on. So it’s obvious that they’ve done their homework also in this space. And we have to learn how to compete.”

European nations are also moving toward having an industrial policy in place one way or another, he said, though debate still rages about subsidies. There are different ways to support industry, he added, noting that in Sweden several projects have been launched due to favorable local conditions and innovation.

In Canada, Wallenberg said he believes there is “so much more to do” to strengthen business ties with Sweden. “You are a high-tech country, you have very skilled labor and skilled companies that can really build on this. And I think the mindset is very much alike,” he said, adding that Canada appears to be moving in the right direction on the climate transition. “Same latitude, same attitudes kind of thing.”

Wallenberg, also chair of FAM AB and Patricia Industries, is involved in banking and finance, defense, private equity and pharmaceuticals as chair of SEB AB and Saab, vice-chair of EQT AB and as a director on AstraZenea Plc’s board. The Wallenbergs’ business dynasty began in 1856 when they founded the bank that became SEB – and he said his family believes in the opportunities presented by the clean-energy shift.

“I happen to believe, my family happens to believe, that for us it’ll be a competitive advantage going that route,” he said. “I think green business is going to be a good business and it’s going to be a competitive advantage. And maybe people don’t see it today, but I think we’ll see it in the years to come.”

[Derby]

https://www.wsj.com/finance/fed-rate-hikes-lending-banks-hedge-funds-896cb20b

The New Kings of Wall Street Aren’t Banks. Private Funds Fuel Corporate America.

With interest rates at multiyear highs, hedge funds and private equity are taking over lending

Hyland Software, a business software company based in Ohio, relied on Credit Suisse for years to arrange billions of dollars in loans. After the Swiss bank collapsed in March, Hyland switched tracks and borrowed $3.4 billion from a little-known investment firm, Golub Capital, and others that specialize in a Wall Street craze known as “private credit.”

High interest rates, driven by the Federal Reserve’s higher-for-longer policy, are shaking up how corporate loans get done. Soaring rates brought down banks such as Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank and forced others to reduce lending. As those lenders stepped back, private-credit fund managers stepped up, financing one jumbo loan for American corporations after another.

This shift is accelerating a trend more than a decade in the making. Hedge funds, private-equity funds and other alternative-investment firms have been siphoning away money and talent from banks since a regulatory crackdown after the 2008-09 financial crisis. Lately, many on Wall Street say the balance of power—and risk—has hit a tipping point. 

“There’s been a steady progression, but since Covid and the banking crisis this year we’ve really seen the banks rein in risk,” said David Snyderman, head of alternative credit and fixed income at Magnetar Capital.

Magnetar, a hedge fund once known for bets against subprime mortgages, recently arranged a $2.3 billion loan for CoreWeave, a red-hot cloud-computing operator for artificial intelligence. It was Magnetar’s biggest private loan yet.



The loans are expensive, but for many companies they are the only option. Next, private-credit firms are coming for the rest of the credit market, bankrolling asset-backed debt for real estate, consumer loans and infrastructure projects.

Private-equity firms use revenue from most of the loans to make leveraged buyouts, saddling the companies they acquire with expensive debt. Ultimately, more companies could end up under their control.

(...) Some analysts are concerned about private credit taking over the loan market.

The shift “has concentrated a larger segment of economic activity into the hands of a fairly small number of large, opaque asset managers,” credit-ratings firm Moody’s Investors Service said in a September report. “Lack of visibility will make it difficult to see where risk bubbles may be building.”

There are risks to investors, too. High interest rates are making corporate borrowers more likely to default on the loans. Some managers are concentrating their exposure by making bigger loans backing multibillion-dollar deals.

“The music’s been playing and everyone’s been having a good time, but now the music is winding down and things are getting harder for businesses and lenders,” said Philip Tseng, co-head of U.S. direct lending at BlackRock. “That’s going to demonstrate how much experience matters.”(...)