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from MacroScope:

Euro zone may struggle with its own Lost Decade

Additional Reporting by Andy Bruce and polling by Rahul Karunakar and Sumanta Dey.

As Europe’s crisis drags on, the prospect of a Japanese-style lost decade of economic malaise is becoming increasingly real, according to a new poll. Half of the bond strategists and economists surveyed by Reuters are now expecting just such an outcome.

Many market participants have dismissed the fall of two-year German bond yields below their Japanese counterparts as being merely a result of a crisis-fueled flight to quality bid. Two-year German yields are now close to zero, offering returns of only 0.02 percent. By contrast, equivalent Japanese bonds are yielding 0.11 percent.

But a significant portion of analysts in a Reuters poll see something more sinister in the rapid narrowing of the premium investors require to hold German debt over Japanese bonds. One half of those polled – 12 out of 24 – said it is likely the euro zone is close to entering a period of prolonged low or no growth and inflation and low interest rates, with the other half saying it was unlikely.

According to Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities:

I don't really see an early end to the financial crisis in the euro zone. I think it's very unlikely that Germany and the other countries will see eye to eye in the course of this year. That's going to keep the euro zone economy looking very weak for the next several quarters.

Europe's economy stagnated in the first quarter of 2012 and is expected to shrink 0.4 percent this year, according to another recent Reuters poll. Data on Thursday certainly pointed in that direction, suggesting even wealthier countries like France and Germany are also starting to feel the pinch.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Thursday

The Bundesbank is preparing to stomach higher German inflation than it likes, above the European Central Bank's target level, because of the euro zone crisis, a source at the central bank said on Thursday.

Although the Bundesbank still wants stable prices across the euro zone, its latest comments show the bank recognises that upward pressure on German wage costs and property prices suggest its inflation is likely to rise above the bloc's average.

As this chart shows, historically the Bundesbank was quick to react to any signs of inflation:

The Bank of England voted on Thursday not to give the struggling economy another injection of cash as concerns over stubbornly high inflation outweighed the risk of a prolonged recession.

The number of Americans submitting new applications for jobless benefits edged down last week, easing concerns the labor market was deteriorating after April's weak employment growth.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Wednesday

Euro zone factories sank further into decline last month but manufacturers in Asia upped their tempo to meet growing demand from the United States and China, exposing a widening gulf between Europe and the rest of the world.

Unemployment in the euro zone rose to a 15-year high of 10.9 percent in March - as this chart shows the level of youth unemployment paints a worrying picture:

U.S. private employers hired a far fewer than expected 119,000 people in April, the smallest gain since September 2011, a report showed on Wednesday, adding to concerns that the economy has lost some of its momentum. This chart shows the relationship between the first release of ADP figures and non-farm payrolls which are released on Friday.

from MacroScope:

Israel’s new-found jobless

Following on from Nigeria's rebasing of its GDP numbers, giving it a huge growth boost on paper, it is Israel's turn to tinker with the numbers.  This time, though, the end result was not positive.

The country's Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that the first-quarter jobless rate was 6.7 percent. This a good 1.3 percentage points higher than the announced fourth-quarter figure.

It does not, however, signal a sudden cull of workers across Israel. It is the result, rather, of Israel adopting a new way of counting employment designed to bring it in line with the way leading Western economies do it. So the equivalent fourth-quarter number would have been 6. 8 percent, slightly higher.

There were close to 40 changes made to the survey, according to our correspondent  Steven Scheer, from adding 100 more cities and towns to including soldiers. (The later, being 100 percent employed, should have lowered the rate, but apparently not enough).

Government and monetary officials were quick to point out that the unemployment rate is still pretty good compared with say 7.4 percent for the OECD as a whole. The finance ministry also said the increase was due to the new survey showing a higher employment participation..

Nonetheless, it has rather undermined some government claims that Israel is weathering the global economic storm far better than most.

And then, of course, if the new counting measure is better and more accurate, the number of jobless did jump above what was thought - only not just in the past quarter.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Friday

The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter, slightly weaker than expected.  Consumer spending which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 2.9 percent rate - contributing two percentage points to the overall growth rate.

Sell in May and go away? Here are the average numbers for the MSCI world equity index:

More awful economic numbers from the euro zone, Spanish unemployment hit 24.4% in Q1 2012 with youth unemployment rising to 52%.

from MacroScope:

Bernanke: U.S. is not Japan, and I have not changed my mind

Of all the questions Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was asked during his press conference on Wednesday, one appeared to pique his interest in particular: Was he being less aggressive as central bank chairman than the advice he dished out to Japan as an academic in the 1990s would prescribe?

It was the second half of the question asked by Binyamin Applebaum and yet the chairman was eager to get right to it: “Let me tackle that second part first,” he began.

Applebaum may have been channeling the Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, a Princeton colleague of Bernanke’s and critic of Fed policy, who recently argued the Fed chief was being inconsistent and overly cautious.

Bernanke argued that the Fed has done a lot already to support growth and bring down unemployment. Actively aiming for higher inflation with additional use of unconventional tools would risk the central bank’s long-term credibility. Here is his answer in full:

So there’s this view circulating that the views I expressed about 15 years ago on the Bank of Japan are somehow inconsistent with our current policies. That is absolutely incorrect. My views and our policies today are completely consistent with the views that I held at that time.

I made two points at that time to the Bank of Japan. The first was that I believe that a determined central bank could and should work to eliminate deflation – that is, falling prices. The second point that I made was that when short-term interest rates hit zero, the tools of a central bank are no longer – are not exhausted. There are still other things that the central bank can do to create additional accommodation.

Now, looking at the current situation in the United States, we are not in deflation. When deflation became a significant risk in late 2010, or at least a modest risk in late 2010, we used additional balance sheet tools to help return inflation close to the 2 percent target. Likewise, we have been aggressive and creative in using non-federal-funds-rate-centered tools to achieve additional accommodation for the U.S. economy.

So the very critical difference between the Japanese situation 15 years ago and the U.S. situation today is that Japan was in deflation. And, clearly, when you’re in deflation, and in recession, then both sides of your mandate, so to speak, are demanding additional accommodation. In this case, we are not in deflation. We have an inflation rate that’s close to our objective.

Now, why don’t we do more? Well, first I would again reiterate that we are doing a great deal. The policy is extraordinarily accommodative. We – and I won’t go through the list again, but you know all the things that we have done to try to provide support to the economy. I guess the question is, does it make sense to actively seek a higher inflation rate in order to achieve a slightly increased reduction – a slightly increased pace of reduction in the unemployment rate?

The view of the committee is that that would be very reckless. We have – we, the Federal Reserve, have spent 30 years building up credibility for low and stable inflation, which has proved extremely valuable in that we’ve been able to take strong accommodative actions in the last four, five years to support the economy without leading to an unanchoring of inflation expectations or a destabilization of inflation. To risk that asset for what I think would be quite tentative and perhaps doubtful gains on the real side would be, I think, an unwise thing to do.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Tuesday

U.S. consumer confidence came in slightly weaker than expected but the 'jobs-hard-to-get' index - historically a good lead indicator of the unemployment rate - fell to 37.5 in April.

Spanish equities in price terms are near their 2009 lows but valuations are still some way above:

Australian consumer prices rose by less than expected last quarter while key measures of underlying inflation showed the smallest rise in more than a decade, paving the way for a cut next week and suggesting further cuts were possible.

from MacroScope:

Never mind the pain, feel the austerity

Austerity in the euro zone seems to be working -- at least as far as the headline,  dry, soulless numbers of  budget balancing are concerned. Bailed out  Greece and Ireland have reported substantial improvements in last year's profligacy performance.  Spain, while going in the wrong direction, at least has the satisfaction of being told it is not telling fibs.

We will get to the smoke and mirrors in a bit.

First Greece, the euro zone's poster child for budget ill-discipline. The 2011 budget deficit to GDP ratio  -- basically the annual overspend -- came in at 9.1 percent. This may seem like a lot given the EU target is 3 percent, but it was down from 10.3 percent  a year earlier and from 15.6 percent the year before that. Furthermore, if you take out all the debt repayments costs that Athens has to make , you end up with only 2.4 percent (although in truth that is like pretending you don't have a mortgage).

In Ireland, the craic was all about trouncing expectations. The deficit to GDP ratio for 2011 came in at 9.4 percent, which compared with an original 10.6 percent target and even a revised target just last December of 10.  1 percent. Everything is on track, Dublin reckons, to meet this year's 8.6 percent.

Now, those not wanting their party pooped, please look away.

The official figures suggest that Greece's improvement is almost entirely down to increased revenues. Government spending as a percentage of GDP last year was 50.1 percent, barely changed from a year early and only a tad down from 2008. And this comes after a number of years of painful austerity that has helped keep Greece in recession for more than four years -- it is into its fifth now, staring at a 4.8 percent 2012 contraction -- and that has pushed more than a fifth of the country out of work. Greece's debt (ie accumulated deficits)  as a proportion of GDP last year was 42.3 percentage points higher than in 2008.

Ireland, in the meantime, was enjoying its deficit improvement (still the worst in the euro zone) by finessing away one-off capitalisations into its banks that were worth some 3.7 percent of GDP.  Including those and some others, the deficit last year was  13.1 percent. This comes after Ireland has made budgetary adjustments totalling 25.4 billion euros since 2008 -- the  equivalent to 16 percent of it 2011 GDP -- and has had to hike taxes and cut spending by 8.6 billion euros between 2013 and 2015, i.e. another 5 percent of GDP. It is back in recession and seeing its exports hit by the troubles is main trading partners in the European Union are having.

from Unstructured Finance:

UF Weekend Reads

Nice weather today in NYC. Enjoy it today before Sunday's deluge. Here's Sam Forgione's picks. You can now follow Sam on twitter @samuelforgione

From The New Yorker:

Nicholas Lemann explores new books that illustrate the ties between politics and the economy.

From BusinessWeek:

Lazard's Michele Lamarche takes on the tough task of courting debt-strapped nations.

From Harvard Business Review:

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Wednesday

Spanish house prices fell 7.2 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier while Spanish banks' bad loans rose to their highest level since October 1994 (see chart).

The Bank of England is poised to turn off its money-printing press next month. Minutes of the Bank's April meeting, combined with a stark warning on inflation from deputy governor Paul Tucker on the same day, signalled a sharp change in tone that could bring forward expectations for interest rate rises.

Does the E in PE need a reality check too?