US States' Budget Deficits

It is an endless cycle until we see a "real" recovery. Unemployment continues to rise, salaries and hourly rates of those who still have a job are seeing their incomes drop, and States are continuing to spend more money then they receive. More and more Americans are on food stamps, yet bankers continue to receive billions in bonuses for a job well done. States are going to have to make a choice (they might select multiple options). They will either use inflation (debasing the currency) to pay back the debt in cheaper dollars, significantly raise taxes, or default on the debt. Debasing the currency seems to be a popular trend right now for the US; I think throughout 2010 we will start to see higher taxes along with it. I would think defaulting on the debt is the last thing a State wants to do, but we could see some of this over the next few years in high risk States like California, and New York. Below are a few related articles for your viewing...

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/state-budget-deficit-map-2010-estima

http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2009/11/21/news/doc4b0768cb81be1584614972.txt

http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-11-19/politics-city-county-government/california-budget-politics-city-county-government/california-budget-crisis-diaries-new-guess-for-state-deficit-tops-20-billion/comment-page-1

US Dollar Attacked At All Angles

Here is a summary of how the US dollar (USD) is being attacked:

• Obama Admin devaluing USD while claiming strong dollar policy

The Obama Admin's intentions are clear, they intend to devalue the dollar. They have printed enough money to increase the monetary base by over 100% in slightly over a year. Per the Telegraph UK, "America's monetary base was equal to 6% of national income, and now, after a little over a year of money printing, it's 12%". The motive is to boost US exports. More importantly we can lower the value of our huge amounts of foreign debt.

• Quantitative easing has no indication of slowing
  

The Fed Reserve continues to buy our debt with printed money, even though Ben Bernanke stated that he was going to be implementing an exit strategy to stop quantitative easing. Our government is still auctioning off record amounts of our debts across various time frames, like 1yr, 5yr, 7yr, and 10yr. The Fed Reserve still has to buy up debt on the 5yr, 7yr, and 10yr debt because there is not enough domestic and foreign demand for our debt anymore. There is still much more debt to sell (at record amounts), so I am betting that Ben Bernanke is lying to keep the USD afloat. Watch gold, silver, other commodities, and strong currencies for the indication of what the market believes.

• USD becoming popular carry trade

Since interest rates are almost at zero, investors are borrowing USD and investing in areas around the world with high interest rates i.e. Brazil with 8.75%, and Egypt with 8.25% interest rate. The carry trades are flooding the world with cheap dollars.

• Central banks dumping large amounts of USD

Global central banks are diversifying into commodities and foreign currency as a hedge against USD devaluation. According to Bloomberg, "foreign currency holdings increased by $413 billion last quarter, to $7.3 trillion". World leaders are acting on their threats to dump US dollars, and this might become more aggressive if USD value falls off a cliff.

• Tension with Chinese over Yuan and Hong Kong Dollar Peg to USD

Not only are the Chinese holding huge amounts of our debt that is being devalued, but their currencies are being devalued along with ours.

• Joseph Stiglitz's Thoughts

"A new global reserve system is needed after the global financial crisis exposed the U.S. dollar-based system as flawed and risky". "The current global reserve system is fraying. It's falling apart. The issue isn't whether we go to a new system. The question is do we do so in an orderly or disorderly way." Stiglitz's suggestion is going with a SDR via the IMF; with a basket of currencies as the world's reserve currency instead of the USD by itself.

Current Trade Deficit Thoughts

According to the latest trade deficit numbers of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, "total US exports in July 2009 were $127.6 billion and US imports were $159.6 billion". In the short term, imports have increased by $7 billion over June 2009, and exports increased by about $3 billion over the same time. Typical of the US, we are consuming much more than we are producing. "The gap between US imports and exports grew by 16%, the most in a decade" per Bloomberg.

Here is the breakdown of some important US trade numbers via the US Census Bureau Foreign Trade Statistics:

US trade deficit increased by approximately:
$4 billion with the European Union to $8 billion
$2 billion with China to $20 billion
$1 billion with Canada to $2.2 billion
$1 billion with Germany to $3.2 billion
$500 million with Venezuela to $2.3 billion
$200 million with Japan to $3.9 billion

Obviously the US trade surplus is increasing at a slower rate, here are our top six trade surpluses (numbers are approximations):
$1.3 billion with Hong Kong
$1.1 billion with Netherlands
$950 million with Australia
$870 million with Belgium
$787 million with United Arab Emirates
$500 million with Singapore

The good news is that the US trade deficit at $32 billion has decreased by over half since hitting a monthly record of $65 billion in July 2008. Since the US dollar has been weak lately, our exports have potential of increasing because they will be more competitive in global markets. On the other hand, we are losing many of our manufacturing jobs and the workforce is still contracting, so even if other countries want to purchase our products, what volume of products will we have to sell? We will see what happens to the trade deficit for August.

Since the US has had a trade deficit for a prolonged amount of time, the difference is essentially debt. The larger the debt is the more likely it is for investors to believe that demand for our products is decreasing. As such, I believe if the deficit continues to get larger it is likely to have a negative effect on the stock market. Less buying of our goods from other countries hurts producers in the US and their respective company's stock market values. Investors like Peter Schiff realize there are few investment opportunities domestically, that is why he invests a large percent of his assets overseas and in commodities. I myself think we are headed for a 'W' shaped stock market pattern where we are near the top, and within a short period of time (six months or sooner) we will have a pullback in the market.

Stock Market Gains Created By Government Bailout Monies

If you have been following the stock market closely since March 2009, you would be able to draw the conclusion that the gains of the stock market are not based on solid economics. I think what we are seeing is what market analysts call a 'dead cat bounce'. Per Bob Chapman, "there is low volume in the overall market and short covering", which typically infers a bear market and lower market prices. In addition, the market is pricing in the future economic strength that we are suppose to have, and this is simply not possible with a weak dollar. You cannot have a weak dollar, and a strong economy. Also, there is no such animal as a jobless recovery, especially when our economy is fueled by 70% spending. What's more is that the savings rate among Americans is increasing quickly, so the people that do have money are saving more and spending less. The latest government numbers showed that Americans were saving approximately 7% of their income on average, versus 0% of their income on average a year ago. This is the highest our savings rate has been since 1994. Based on the graphics below, I would conclude that people across all generations are saving more and making less.

New Subscribe Features

I have added new subscribe features to the website. The subscribe feature will notify you of updates when I post. You have two options: to subscribe in a reader, or subscribe by email. If you subscribe in a reader you can view updates in a reader of your choice, and it seems to be quicker than the email option. If you subscribe by email it is much slower, I receive emails about 10 - 12 hours after the post is published.

Credit Derivatives Still Forcing Banks to FDIC Takeover

A flavor of a credit derivative is a pool of mortgages that are packaged up into securities called Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). No one knows just how large the MBS market is in total, but according to the Bank of International Settlements the total value of the credit derivative market is approximately $500 trillion. Warren Buffett said it the best when he stated back in 2002 that "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction". These financial weapons almost brought down the entire financial system in the US back in September/October 2008, and they are still doing damage today.

Here we are about a year later, how is the financial sector doing? Associated Press noted that as of August 21, 2009; "81 institutions have failed, which is the most since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis". The Guaranty Bank with about $10 billion in assets failed this past weekend, which is the 10th largest financial institution to fail in US history. Wall Street Journal noted that, "Guaranty's woes were caused by its investment portfolio, stuffed with deteriorating securities created from pools of mortgages originated by some of the nation's worst lenders". Next question is what is the scope of this problem...

According to the FDIC, there are about 9,400 banks in the US. About 15% of these banks are involved to some degree with MBSes. In addition, banks have to deal with their losses in the commercial real estate market, which I outlined in the Commercial Real Estate Conditions article. Remember when the government performed financial institution stress tests earlier this year? There was much controversy on how that was done, and the results were largely skewed. Shortly thereafter, the Weiss Research Firm did their own more fair and much less criticized stress tests. Out of the nineteen banks stress tested, "seven institutions -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group, GMAC LLC, SunTrust Banks, Inc., and Fifth Third Bancorp are at risk of failure". Let's see how the continuing domino effect of bank failures plays out later this year and into next.

State of The Job Market and The Consequences

The most recent unemployment number is 9.4% as of the end of July 2009 despite a ~250k job loss. This is an improvement over the previous month's unemployment number of 9.5%, how can this be? The unemployment rate is determined by dividing the number of unemployed by the number of people in the labor force. The only way the unemployment number can contract is by shrinking the labor force, and that is exactly what the Bureau of Labor Statistics' unemployment number reveals. One last note on unemployment is that people who are unemployed are looking for work for a much longer period of time. According to EconomPic, 50% of the people whom are unemployed will be searching for work an average of approximately 15 - 27 weeks. This is certainly not good news for the various States' unemployment insurance programs, and it could not be at a more difficult time for most States.

The past 18 months or so have been tough on the job market, and it is no surprise that the amount of people on food stamps has broken a record. In October 2008, there were approximately 31 million Americans on food stamps. Currently, 34 million Americans are on food stamps, and the number is rising. About one in nine Americans are using food stamps.

Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the United States economy. Is it any surprise that consumer spending has fallen the most it has in almost 30 years? According to Bloomberg, purchases slid 2 percent since the peak at the end of 2007 -- the most since a 2.4 percent decline in the 1980 recession. Not many people in our country have discretionary spending funds, so how easy is it to get some credit nowadays? Banks are maintaining their strict lending policies, and most people are not taking advantage of HELOC. According to the Federal Reserve, consumer credit (covers most common forms of credit like home loans, college loans, credit cards, etc.) is contracting at a 5% annual rate. Financial institutions are still hoarding all the bailout monies to improve their damaged balance sheets. In this country, we have to get to a point where the bailout money is enough for these financial institutions, and they can start lending again.