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España va a tener una lucha cuesta arriba para mantener su déficit al 5,5%. El desempleo continúa aumentando, ya que España está, al fin y al cabo, en recesión y subirán los costes y bajarán los ingresos. No obstante el presupuesto actual permite ganar tiempo y lo que contará será la buena voluntad del resto de Europa, según se vea cómo España intenta reconducir un nuevo experimento de austeridad. Cuando esos déficits aumenten, entonces, ¿qué va a hacer Europa? Con cada mala noticia, el problema de la financiación de la deuda española crecerá. Hasta ahora, los bancos españoles están comprando la deuda gubernamental que pueden, o lo que es lo mismo, toman prestado del BCE al 1% durante tres años, y lo invierten en bonos al 5,5%. 30 veces de apalancamiento. Tratando durante todo este tiempo de cortar pérdidas y reducir sus carteras de préstamos - un truco digno de Houdini.
Spain is going to have an uphill struggle to keep its deficit down to 5.5%. Unemployment is still rising, as Spain is after all in a recession and costs will be up and revenues down. But the current budget buys time and what will amount to good will from the rest of Europe, as Spain will be seen to be trying, conducting yet another experiment in austerity. When those deficits come in higher, then what will Europe do? With each piece of bad news, the problem of funding Spanish debt will grow. Right now, Spanish banks are buying Spanish government debt with everything they can muster, which is to say, ECB loans at 1% for three years, invested in 5.5% bonds. With 30 times leverage. All the while trying to cut losses and reduce their loan books – a trick worthy of Houdini.
Last Monday I was in Paris and was asked to do a spot on CNBC London. I arrived at the studios an hour early due to a misunderstanding of the time zones, so while trying to catch up on the news I listened to CNBC. I had just written about Spain in last week's letter and guessed that was what they wanted to talk to me about, but for the full hour before I got on it seemed like every guest wanted to talk about Spain. When I had my turn and indeed got the Spain question, I smiled and noted that we were now in a period when it would be "All Spain All the Time," for at least the next year. I should have noted that there would be brief interruptions where we glanced at Portugal and perhaps Ireland, but the real focus would be on Spain.I fully intended to write about something other than Europe this week, but the events of the last 24 hours compel me to once again look "across the pond" at the problems that not only plague Europe but will be a drag on world growth as well, as Europe goes through its continued painful adjustment as a consequence of trying to adopt a single currency. Since Spain is going to be on the front page for some time, it will be useful to look at some of the problems it is facing, to put it all into context. And what I heard while in Europe in private meetings is troubling.
But structural unemployment may also be caused by government policies that make it difficult or even uneconomic for businesses to hire workers. Typically these policies are put in place by well-meaning if economically ignorant politicians (nobody wants to create unemployment), but the problems are there no matter what the intentions were. Let's look at a few Spanish structural problems.The first is a rather poisonous employment environment. The graph below was created by The Bank Credit Analyst to discuss structural employment problems in France, but the country that is even higher on the employment protection index is Spain. Note that both countries are higher than 3rd and 4th place Greece and Portugal.
In an open market, the large majority of jobs are created by small businesses. But when you make it difficult and more expensive for small businesses to hire workers, it is not surprising that you get fewer jobs. In the US, our experience is that when the minimum wage rises, youth unemployment rises as well, even in times of recovery. This has been consistent over the last few decades, when statistics have been kept. There are a lot of reasons for this, which we will not go into today, but there is every reason to believe that Spain in particular and Europe in general would be no different in that respect from the US.
Let's put that in context. The US has about 6.5 times more people than Spain. There are 2.43 million existing homes for sale plus shadow inventory in the US, estimates of which vary. Using the WSJ number, this would suggest Spain has the equivalent of 15 million-plus homes for sale. That in a country where unemployment is more than double ours and where population growth and household formation is certainly slower than in the US. Only Ireland can rival Spain for the largest housing bubble.The number of homes being foreclosed on is estimated to triple in Spain. About 120 evictions take place every day. Those who default on their mortgages cannot walk away from the debt, as in the US. A story is out tonight about one resident who lost her job and is being foreclosed on. She will still owe over about half her debt, or more than €100,000, plus court costs and penalties.
Home prices have fallen just 10-20%, as banks cannot afford to write down mortgages (more on that later). Realistic estimates assume a 40-50% total drop is more likely, and anecdotal evidence suggests it could be even more if the economy does not recover soon. And as we will see, that is going to be tough.
Spanish Banks en Bancarrota...
In any event, there is widespread agreement that the regional Spanish banks, the cajas, are bankrupt, as they made massive loans for construction and mortgages
But although bank regulators have estimated that Spanish banks will need €26 billion in extra capital, many skeptics believe this severely underestimates future losses and that the government may have to step in with a much larger bailout for the financial sector.
Spanish private debt is 220% of GDP, dwarfing government debt, which is high and rising. So not only are banks being forced to raise capital and reduce their loan books, consumers and businesses are also overextended. The government wants to increase taxes or reduce spending by 17% to get the deficit down from over 8% to 5.5%, a combination that is not geared for growth.€12.3bn will be raised in new taxes, with €5.3bn coming from corporations, and €2.5bn is projected to come from a temporary amnesty on tax evasion (you've got to love the optimism). We have seen how such policies worked in Greece. They meant lower, not increased, revenues. Note that Britain also raised taxes on "the rich" and saw revenues fall in that category, not increase as projected.
Further, as we go along this year, watch for "breaking" news that off-balance-sheet guarantees by the Spanish government will be huge, adding multiples of 10% to total debt-to-GDP. Spain's admitted government debt is over 70% of GDP, which in comparison to other European countries is not all that bad. Except that is not the extent of the problem. There is regional debt, bank-guaranteed debt, sovereign guarantees, etc. that take it to roughly 85%.