The Four Horsemen

Well I left the original title. But ended up with nine Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Some or all of these Horsemen are likely to drag us into a global depression.

1. Commercial real estate

Office occupancy across the country is down about 20% from pre-pandemic levels, but much more in the big cities, especially the Democrat-run ones where crime, homelessness and drugs make office workers unwilling to come downtown. Office buildings in big cities like San Francisco and New York are selling at small fractions of their previous purchase prices, and then re-entering the rental market at cut-rate prices.

Retail malls and big boxes have been suffering from online shopping and a glut of retail space. For places like France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, average retail space is less than 5 square feet per person. In the U.S., that number is more than 23. This year is on track to be the worst year for retail bankruptcies since 2020, with strip-mall mainstays like Bed Bath & Beyond, Tuesday Morning, Party City and David’s Bridal all filing for bankruptcies. Notably Home Depot, Target, The Container Store all warning of negative trends. Shopping malls are seeing the same kind of drop in valuations as the heavily impacted office buildings.

2. Banks

A Hoover Institute report calculates that more than 2,315 US banks currently have assets worth less than their liabilities. The market value of their loan portfolios are $2 trillion lower than the book value. And remember this is before the fall of the asset values which is still to come. These banks are insolvent, even though their financial reporting may not disclose the fact due to “held to maturity” accounting rules.

(Egon von Greyerz on Twitter.)

Nervous bankers don’t want to take risks and so pull back on lending. The Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey provides information on this tendency, otherwise known as a credit crunch. Quoting the Fed:

“In a set of special questions, the April SLOOS asked about banks’ reasons for changing standards or terms for loans across all loan categories over the first quarter. Overall, major net shares of banks reported that a less favorable or more uncertain economic outlook was an important reason for tightening, as well as reduced tolerance for risk, deterioration in customer collateral values, and concerns about banks’ funding costs and liquidity positions.”

3. Federal government

The Federal Government’s interest expense, on its $32 trillion in debt, now exceeds that of the former elephant in the room, military spending. Also, misleadingly, called “defense”. As of the first half of FY2023, The Federal government is spending 50% more than it takes in. An uncontrolled spiral is underway and will result in hyperinflation if not quickly brought under control.

4. Residential real estate

Recent years have seen an explosion of Short Term Rentals (STR) as Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) loans have made it easy for people with relatively little in the way of income or assets to acquire large numbers of properties to be deployed with AirBnB, VRBO and others.

You probably thought that, after the GFC, NINJA (No Income No Job or Assets) loans became unthinkable.  Well you thought wrong. They came back in as Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) loans. Basically a NINJA loan for the purchase of rental properties, DSCR loans enable real estate investors to get a loan because it takes into account cash flow from investment properties rather than pay stubs or W-2s, which many investors do not typically have. Lenders use DSCR to evaluate a borrower’s ability to make monthly loan payments. DSCR is simply the ratio of gross rental income to debt service expense, Needless to say, any hiccup in the income stream can turn quickly into default. DSCR requirements are typically 1.0 to 1.25, although some lenders will accept ratios as low as 0,75 with a 12-month cash buffer. Of course these loans are used to acquirte traditional rental properties, but the volume has been in STRs, This will not end well.

Large Investors – hedge funds and institutions – have been buying wholesale quantities of single family rental properties (SFRs), often buying whole developments from builders. Now they have started to sell, presumably as their financing is floating rate lines of credit rather than traditional mortgages. While the selling is subdued so far, it could become an avalanche.

Also see the China section

5. Consumer spending

Consumer spending will be negatively impacted by the increasing burden of debt service and layoffs.

Leading off is the end of student loan forbearance. This is no small matter with student loans now totaling $1.7 trillion, averaging $28,850 per borrower. Reportedly many borrowers have taken advantage of forbearance to add indebtedness for cars, vacations and a myriad of other purposes and will now be facing daunting monthly payment obligations. All of this will have a negative impact on consumer spending.

Consumer debt now amounts to about $4.8 trillion, bad enough, but the re-instatement of student loan repayment adds a sudden 35% to the burden.

This cycle, layoffs started with the highest paid workers. Elon Musk cut the workforce at Twitter by 75% and nothing much happened. The lights stayed on, development continued. Other “tech” bosses followed suit, tentatively. It became clear that some of these companies were basically adult daycare where little was demanded of employees. With generous severance plans, the hit to consumption has been muted so far but can be expected to build momentum, even as those still employed adopt more cautious approach to their spending plans. As noted above, retail businesses are signalling a downtrend in consumer spending. Fed Chair Powell has made it clear that he intends to keep hiking interest rates until the unemployment rate climbs significantly. This could easily snowball.

Res ipsa loquitur.

6. Inflation

See preceding post, “I Have To Laugh“.

7. Climate Initiatives

What a mess. Nothing damages an economy as much as an unreliable or intermittent energy supply. Widespread use of  wind and solar energy requires a complete re-engineering and replacement of the transmission grid, including use of batteries or other energy storage technologies. This will take decades and staggering costs. Governments trying to shortcut this process will cause economic havoc, as has already started in Europe. There is a better solution – nuclear – and a few enlightened governments may have consulted actual engineers and started down this path. But never underestimate the stupidity of governments pandering to vocal activists. And even if CO2 really is at fault (the historical record says it is a result, not a cause) the US is a drop in the global bucket.

Then there is the electric car fantasy. California has already had to ask electric car owners to suspend charging for fear of overloading the grid. Gas stations and tank trucks distribute enormous amounts of energy. The elcctricity industry is nowhere near able to generate or transmit this energy, but radical governments are calling for the elimination of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. Way to cripple the economy, folks.

8. China

The Chinese housing bubble is collapsing as desperate speculators “want to cry without tears.” The government is attempting to prop up the market but it isn’t working. This is the largest asset class in the world and defaults will have worldwide impact, not only on foreign investment but also on Chinese trade with the rest of the world. China has propped up the global economy in the past. It now appears that it will drag it down.

9. Russia and Ukraine

Obviously the big risk here is continued escalation, possibly resulting in a nuclear Armageddon or, more likely, a land war in Europe. Again the stupidity of politicians make these outcomes a significant risk.

Powell On QE

Extract from the FOMC minutes 10/24/2012. Emphasis is mine:

MR. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we have had Gary Cooper, the Most Interesting Man in the World, Bill Belichick, Woody Allen, and now Hamlet. [Laughter]

I support alternative B, to relieve the suspense. And as far as what is to be decided at the next meeting, it seems to me we should let it be decided at the next meeting. But I will say that if we have another good run of data, I think there would be a strong case to defer action. And I don’t see us as committed to act unless conditions warrant.

I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons.

First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce?

Second, I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.

My third concern—and others have touched on it as well—is the problems of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. We’ve got a set of principles from June 2011 and have done some work since then, but it just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly. Markets can be much more dynamic than we appear to think.

Take selling—we are talking about selling all of these mortgage-backed securities. Right now, we are buying the market, effectively, and private capital will begin to leave that activity and find something else to do. So when it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much the sale, the duration; it’s also unloading our short volatility position. When you turn and say to the market, “I’ve got $1.2 trillion of these things,” it’s not just $20 billion a month— it’s the sight of the whole thing coming. And I think there is a pretty good chance that you could have quite a dynamic response in the market. And I would just say I want to understand that a lot better in the intermeeting period and leave it at that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman

After you’ve read this, do you think that Powell is in the least surprised by the consequences of raising rates? I don’t know what he will do, but I doubt that he will be deterred from whatever his strategy may be.

Something’s Going To Break

From past experience, we can be pretty sure that the bear market doesn’t begin until the inverted yield curve returns to a positive slope. Usually this happens because of a major disruption in the financial markets. Here are some of the opportunities for breakage.

• The average 30-year mortgage rate, as of today, is 7.13% according to Bankrate.com. Housing affordability has dropped to what Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr calls the “lowest level in history.”
• Office occupancy in major city centers is ranging from 40-60% as a result of WFH practices. Pressure on bricks-and-mortar retailers from online shopping continues to build. The overall US CMBS delinquency rate jumped 18 basis points in February to 3.12%. (The all-time high on this basis was 10.34% registered in July 2012. The COVID-19 high was 10.32% in June 2020.) . Giga-investor Blackstone just defaulted on $562 million of CMBS.
• CPI/PCE inflation continues. While energy prices continue to be contained by withdrawals from the SPR, labor prices continue to increase. Fed chair Powell says that his primary measure of inflation is core PCE less housing, which implies a heavy weight on labor costs when evaluating inflation.
• The Fed continues to raise short-term interest rates to reduce business activity and therefore reduce inflation. So far with little success. Financial markets are busily fighting the Fed’s attempts to tighten financial conditions. History says this does not end well.
• There’s a war on, into which black hole the US continues to pump money and armaments. These will need to be replaced at great cost. Defense spending will be increased. The big risk is of further escalation, which could include the use of nuclear weapons.
• The primary source of inflation is deficit spending by government. Half of the government’s debt has a maturity of less than five years. The Fed’s rate increases are quickly running up the government’s interest bill, which of course will increase the deficit – that’s how the black hole works. Interest is already nearly as large a budget item as defense spending.
• China’s recovery from its draconian COVID policies is limping badly after a small initial surge. In addition, the US is actively hampering the development of technology in China and relations are a historic lows. There is a significant risk of another war, this time over Taiwan, where TSMC is the crown jewel of semiconductor manufacturing. All this means that China is unlikely to be the source of cheap manufactures goods that have helped quell inflation for the last twenty years or so.
• The US stock markets remain highly overvalued and not investable as the flood of liquidity during the COVID era has supported speculation. The options market has grown to be larger than the equity market of which it is supposedly a derivative, leading to extreme gambling activities such as 0DTE options..

Get the idea?

Honne And Tatemae

There are many financial conditions indexes, but in general terms they represent the cost and availability of credit and equity financing, interpreted as relatively “tighter” or “loose, easy”. Markets were surprised that Powell appeared unconcerned that these indexes showed that financial conditions were more or less unchanged by the Fed’s rate and QT actions. His unconcern was interpreted as conceding that the bulls were right in believing that rates would soon come down.

My interpretation was that he simply didn’t think it was a problem. One of the Fed’s primary concerns is to keep financial markets functioning normally, and the indexes show that they are. However, it is important to remember that the Fed is very well informed. The Japanese have words for this, “honne” and “tatemae”. “Tatemae” is the outward appearance of conformance to society’s norms and rituals, while “Honne” is what is really going on behind the scenes. In this case, the “Tatemae” is the traditional information bureaucracy – the BLS, BEA, and even the Fed itself – and the ritual announcements of  lagged and often politicized estimates of economic data. The “Honne” is that the Fed uses all kinds of information services and is very much in touch with the high-frequency data that is gathered by state governments, industry associations and many other private services. The recent callout of the BLS by the Philly Fed shows that the Fed has little faith in the BLS. Powell knows that the economy is either on the verge of recession or already in one regardless of the NBER’s view. He knows that deflationary collapses are underway in markets like housing and used cars. He probably also expects that taking down inflation, as happened in the GFC, will likely require a severe correction in financial markets, probably worse than the GFC. But I am of the opinion that  he is willing to be wrong about that, so if markets are right to “look through” the recession to a return to low inflation he would be perfectly OK with that. He did warn that no rate reductions should be expected in 2023, nor would he back off prematurely, but this was widely ignored.

Edit: This morning’s employment report demonstrates the useless, erratic nature of the BLS data.

Happy Days Are Here Again

Markets continue to behave as if 2022 never happened, inflation is dead, growth is strong, the Fed is impotent, we’ve had a soft landing and caution can be thrown to the winds. Stock prices have resumed their uptrend and new highs are soon to be seen. After all, the Dow is only down 7.5% from its all-time high close, and the S&P only 15%, dragged down by the big tech stocks, which are recovering fast from irrational selling, thanks to cost reductions from layoffs. VIX, the volatility index, is at levels last seen in early January last year, close to the December 2021 all-time stock market highs (18.06 as I write). Perhaps that is not a coincidence.

To me, this looks like an opportunity. Far be it for me to rain on a parade, but this looks like a bull trap.

What If?

The stock and bond markets are depending on the recession to “force” the Fed to “pivot” back to money printing and ZIRP. The economy is addicted to free money and is slowing rapidly now that it has been withdrawn. The bond market has already priced in disinflation and Fed easing, and the stock market has been buoyed accordingly, proceeding from short squeeze to short squeeze since June of 2022.

But what if Powell has decided that the QE policies that have yielded only $1 of GDP growth for every $10 of fresh debt are toxic and the addiction must be broken, no matter what the symptoms of withdrawal might be? That his legacy will be having returned the economy from dependence on continuous stimulus to sustainable growth? To say nothing of reducing the Fed-induced income inequality that is being exacerbated by inflation? That would certainly earn him a niche in the financial Hall of Fame, perhaps next to Paul Volcker.

What Happens Next

Well 2022 is just about over. I traded badly this year but that is behind me, I hope. Especially annoying since I have been expecting this bubble to burst for a long time. The big question is, where do we go from here. Some thoughts:

• Housing. Sales volumes are falling very rapidly because affordability is poor, but prices are holding as sellers are reluctant to drop their expectations. In the last housing bubble pop, it took a year and a half for this process to work through so that sellers finally acknowledged that prices could actually fall. This means that housing costs, which make up a disproportionate share of CPI, will be sticky.
• Employment. The pandemic significantly reduced the labor pool as many people retired or just dropped out. In China, the pandemic and measures to suppress it have badly damaged the economy and look to continue to do so. It seems likely that the offshoring that reduced labor demand in the US is over, and will be replaced by onshoring and relocation of production. Either way, labor demand is likely to remain relatively strong well after consumption growth falls. Labor looks to reclaim at least part of the loss of its share of economic output, at the expense of capital, i.e. profits.
• Energy. The idiocy of belief that minor reductions in CO2 output will have a material affect on the climate is hampering investment in energy sources. Of course this will throttle growth in energy production and keep prices high, even as a slowing economy will reduce demand for other commodities. I was amused to find that DNA recovered from northern Greenland revealed that during the region’s warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, including aurochs and mastodons. Then of course there are the (hopefully temporary) supply constraints that have been caused by the sanctions on Russian production.
• Food. The good news is that more CO2 in the atmosphere helps food production. But modern farming depends heavily on diesel fuel for big equipment and natural gas for fertilizer production. Fossil fuel prices directly affect food prices, because even though yields may be good, farmers will not plant crops on which they cannot make a profit. In addition to high prices, shortages of some crops will develop as farmers pivot to crops which require less of these costly inputs.
• Interest Rates. It seems that no-one believes that Fed Chair Powell will actually carry out the attack on inflation that he has outlined. Some argue that a recession will “force” him to abandon his current goals and resume ZIRP and QE, redefining his goals in the process to accept a higher level of inflation on an ongoing basis. Others believe that the recession will cause inflation to fall quickly and make the question moot as his goals, such as positive real rates across all maturities, will be automatically met.It is certainly true that this long-suppressed business cycle is moving fast, but there is a long way to go to normal. My personal view is that his vision for his legacy is an economy that does not depend on massive growth of debt relative to GDP as has been the case in recent years, and he will do “whatever it takes” to get there

In summary, inflation will prove sticky although not runaway, and Powell will accept a recession. But as the recession gains hold, it will accelerate as defaults reduce credit availability regardless of Powell.

Recession

Albert Edwards observes that history implies that recession is starting now:

Disintegration

The world is disintegrating. Trust has been lost, both within countries and between countries. Without trust, economic relationships cannot operate.

China

China is a poor country, despite the glitz and glamor of its big cities and its showpiece infrastructure, with a per-capita annual GDP of about USD 11,000.

Chairman Xi presented his plan for world domination at the opening of the party congress. Not going to happen, sir. Your country is an economic and social house of cards that is in the process of collapsing. The housing market, investment of choice for the masses, is a bubble bursting and desperate local governments are even buying their own land use rights from themselves or one another because retail buyers have left the building. So to speak. Your Covid-zero policy has shaken the people’s faith in the benign CCP, while wreaking destruction on millions of small businesses. Unemployment is high and rising, college graduates cannot find jobs. Biden’s withdrawal of support for your semiconductor industry has condemned it to a bleak future without the production technology that your people cannot build. Export demand from the rest of the world is shrinking fast. Sir, your country is likely heading for a deep economic depression and social turmoil. This will further weaken China’s positioning for the world hegemony which you desire.

United States

In the USA, we live in a world now that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would readily recognize. The state has commandeered the legacy media, as well as the new social media, to not only put out the “progressive” state’s version of reality but to identify, spy on, ostracize and  punish critics and dissenters.

President Biden, your “progressive” policies are not working. Democrat-run inner cities are being abandoned to crime and homelessness. Illegal immigrants are flooding in without any prospects for employment or training. You are continuing to feed the inflation which is mostly damaging the people you claim to represent. Your support for expansion of NATO triggered the invasion of Ukraine, with severe economic and social consequences.

You and your Democratic predecessors, notably Hillary Clinton, have created a deeply divided society, with those who have drunk the purple Kool-Aid and accept the state’s lies and propaganda on one side, and those with a more traditional view of reality on the other. Neither side trusts the other, respects the other’s views, or is willing to compromise. Both sides are preparing for more direct conflict as the sporadic clashes increase in frequency and severity. This is a recipe for a failing state with extremism on both sides. Negative economic consequences are to be expected.

Europe

Neither China nor Europe are democracies – by design. The architects of the European Union claimed that, since democracy had enabled Hitler, it could not be a part of the EU’s structure. As a result, bureaucrats who suffer no consequences for their failures and care little for the fate of the citizenry run the EU. Ursula van der Leyen is no less of an autocrat than Xi. Deep rifts have emerged as democratically elected governments have resisted the orders of the bureaucrats. These rifts are between rich north and poor south as well as conservative east and “progressive” west. It is only a matter of time before a second country leaves the EU, and that will spark a rush for the exits.

The coming winter is going to be hard, as the bureaucrats’ energy policy has been disastrous. Immigration policies have resulted in shocking increases in crime, with many countries reporting zones where the police dare not go in fear for their lives. Mario Draghi’s “whatever it takes” has left a legacy of irresponsible debt, as in the USA. As  interest rates increase, this is going to be a huge problem

Russia and Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has no winners. Regardless of the outcome, the invasion is an economic disaster for both of them. Their economies depend heavily on the export of commodities, such as food, energy and metals. The volumes of these commodities are large, and their absence are also a problem for the countries that have come to depend on them.

Conclusion

I could go on, but it is time to recognize that the future is not bright. Economies will get worse. Much worse. Be careful out there. Don’t focus on the narrative of the “Fed pivot.” The Fed is irrelevant.

Flippy

Shortage of labor + higher wages and benefits = Flippy 2 

PASADENA, Calif., Oct 4 (Reuters) – Fast-food French fries and onion rings are going high-tech, thanks to a company in Southern California. Miso Robotics Inc in Pasadena has started rolling out its Flippy 2 robot, which automates the process of deep frying potatoes, onions and other foods. A big robotic arm like those in auto plants – directed by cameras and artificial intelligence – takes frozen French fries and other foods out of a freezer, dips them into hot oil, then deposits the ready-to-serve product into a tray. Flippy 2 can cook several meals with different recipes simultaneously, reducing the need for catering staff and, says Miso, speed up order delivery at drive-through windows. “When an order comes in through the restaurant system, it automatically spits out the instructions to Flippy,” Miso Chief Executive Mike Bell said in an interview.” … It does it faster or more accurately, more reliably and happier than most humans do it,” Bell added.

Of course this is in addition to the original Flippy, which does burgers, etc.

Can the fully automated fast-food restaurant be far off? Ordering is handled by kiosks, cooking by Flippy. What’s next?