MacroScope

So euro zone finance ministers conferred about Greece and Germany’s Schaeuble came out to declare significant progress although no deal yet. Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker looked forward to a final settlement at the ministers’ face-to-face meeting on Nov. 12.
But a source with no particular axe to grind was much more downbeat, saying there was no real progress with Germany and the IMF at loggerheads over the need for euro zone governments and the ECB to take a haircut on the Greek bonds they hold in order to make the numbers add up.

The IMF is convinced it is the only way, Germany will not countenance it.  So all sides remain far apart and that is without even taking account of a knife-edge parliamentary vote in Athens next week on labour reforms to cut wages and severance payments, which the EU and IMF insist are a key part of a new bailout deal, but which the smallest party in the coalition government has pledged to vote against.

That leaves the two larger parties – New Democracy and PASOK – with a working majority of just nine lawmakers and on a less contentious vote on privatizations on Wednesday, a number of PASOK deputies rebelled.

Nonetheless, it’s in no one’s interests to let Greece crash at this point so the presumption is a deal will be done, featuring Greece getting two years to make the cuts demanded of it, extending maturities on its loans and cutting the interest rates. Talk of the ECB foregoing profits on the Greek bonds it holds (rather than taking a loss) continues to do the rounds too although that is complicated by the fact that it has to hand those profits back to euro zone national central banks, who then decide what to do with them. That profit would presumably only be realized when then bonds mature too, unless some new financial engineering is unveiled.

That the numbers don’t add up was laid bare by the Greek government yesterday which said its debt pile would hit 190 percent of GDP next year, that’s up from around 160 percent and resolutely heading away from the 120 percent target set by its lenders for 2020. We know that the troika of EU/IMF/ECB inspectors have advised that another 30 billion euros needs to be found to keep Greece afloat.

Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic teams may have brought home more medals than organisers had dreamed possible but the Games themselves have probably failed to lift the economy as much as the government had hoped.

The country’s gross domestic product will grow 0.6 percent in the current quarter, according to the latest Reuters poll, revised down from a 0.7 percent prediction in an August poll.

That is enough to drag Britain out of its second recession in four years but most of the bounceback is from an extra working day and better weather in the quarter.

It seems foolish to hope for a summer lull given recent history but in euro zone debt crisis terms at least, the next week looks quieter unless the markets turn savage again.

That’s not to say things are getting better – Spain’s 10-year borrowing costs are still above the seven percent level which it cannot survive indefinitely — it’s just that things aren’t getting much worse at the moment. Certainly with the Spanish bank bailout signed off as far as it can be, there’s nothing on the policy front to shake things up for a while although the debt-laden region of Valencia’s call for help with its debt hardly inspires confidence that Madrid can get things back on track.

What there is next week is a welter of evidence coming up on the health, or lack of it, of the world economy.
Flash PMIs for the euro zone, France and Germany are swiftly followed by Germany’s Ifo sentiment survey and second quarter GDP figures from Britain. The Q2 U.S. growth figure also comes out on Wednesday as well as the Chinese PMI on Tuesday. The euro zone’s slide into recession is likely to be confirmed and of course Britain is already there and unlikely to clamber out despite government and central bank protestations that the country’s travails are all to do with the euro area.

Spain has become the latest European country to slip into recession joining the Belgium, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.

Click here to view an interactive map.

*Updated to include Romania and Bulgaria

Focus for the euro zone is firmly on Washington with G20 policymakers gathering ahead of the IMF spring meeting. The Fund is seeking an extra $400 billion-plus in crisis-fighting funds which, tallied with the $500 billion euro zone rescue fund about to be established, adds up to a meaningful firewall for the markets to ponder before they consider pushing Spain and Italy to the edge.

But as many sage minds are saying – U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner among them – a firewall does not solve the root problems of the euro zone debt crisis. As our very own Alan Wheatley puts it, “It is not obvious why a stronger firewall should encourage anyone to enter a burning house”. Nonetheless, Reuters polling yesterday ascribed only a 25% and 13% chance respectively to Spain and Italy needing an international bailout.

If the IMF falls short, given the jittery mood in financial markets, that could be cue for a further sell-off. The IMF has pledges of $320 billion so far. The Chinese and British have yet to show their hands and the BRICS led by Brazil are demanding more power at the Fund before handing over extra cash. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told us earlier in the week that conflating those two issues was not acceptable so there is potential for a rift. The U.S. and Canada have already said they will provide no more funding. Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies had dinner on Thursday night, ahead of a longer session on Friday.

Today we get the what could possibly be the most pre-spun British budget ever, though don’t rule out the traditional “rabbit from the hat” surprise so beloved of British finance ministers.

The important stuff for the markets is that with ratings agencies still threatening to rob Britain of its AAA status, it will be pretty much fiscally neutral – i.e. no serious economic stimulus on offer – borrowing will have come in  a little lower than expected this year and the government’s independent forecasting body will predict the economy will eke out just enough growth this year to avoid a new recession.

In other words, don’t expect much market reaction, though the fact the slightly lower borrowing may allow slightly lower debt issuance in the coming year could give gilts a small fillip.

If it were about age, 40-somethings would cringe. But it seems a dead certainty that 40 now means 50 -- or even higher -- when it comes to predicting the chances of a recession taking place.

Going by past Reuters polls of economists, every time the probability hits 40 percent, the recession's already started or is perilously close to doing so.

After the brief recovery period from the Great Recession, Reuters once again started surveying economists several months ago on the chances of developed economies stumbling back into the muck.

Britons have a reputation for endless talk about the weather, and the UK’s Office for National Statistics is no different.

We’ve already noted how the ONS cited the effect of the royal wedding and surrounding bank holidays as one reason why the economy only managed growth of 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter between March and June.

While that’s taken up most of the talk, the ONS also pointed to the “record warm weather in April” as another “special event” that dented economic growth.

This time it was the royal wedding. When the economy shrank unexpectedly late last year, it was the bad weather. If Britain’s economy again struggles to generate growth in the current quarter, perhaps it will be blamed on the new series of ‘The Apprentice’.

"Thanks for nothing!"

Britain’s economy grew 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter between March and June, exactly in-line with the Reuters poll consensus. Perhaps the most interesting part of the GDP release statement was the Office for National Statistics’ claim that without special factors, including the royal wedding, growth could have hit 0.7 percent.

That would have taken the GDP index at market prices back above 100 points – its 2006 base level – for the first time since the recession, but as it happened, it fell just short, at 99.8.

Ben Broadbent’s appointment to the Monetary Policy Committee ought to dispel any notions that the Bank of England would be left short of hawks after the departure of Andrew Sentance.

A brief look at the history of Reuters polls shows that Goldman Sachs’ UK economists – led by Broadbent – were uber-hawkish in their outlook for British interest rates early last year.

In January 2010, Goldman predicted rates would rise to 1.5 percent by end of the second quarter of last year, and 2.5 percent going into 2011 — hugely out of step with both the consensus and as it turned out, reality. Rates went nowhere last year, and are still at a record low of 0.5 percent.