MacroScope

Central banks in debt-strapped countries have a golden opportunity ahead of them, if you will excuse the pun, to help their countries’ finances by selling their yellow metal holdings.

At least, that is the message that Royal Bank of Scotland’s commodities chief Nick Moore has been giving in recent presentations — and he thinks it might happen.   The gist is that gold is now at a record price but banks have not come close to  meeting their sales allowance for the year.

Under the Central Bank Gold Agreement there is a quota of 400 tonnes that can be sold by central banks within a 12 month period and with only about three months to go in the latest period less than 39 tonnes has been sold.  At today’s price that remaining 361 tonnes is worth some $14 billion.

Moore believes that euro zone central banks in particular may increase their sales because of the record price and the deteriorating fiscal positions.  Furthermore, he reckons the price of gold will come down over the next 12 months as its  safe-haven appeal eases and inflation expectations fade.

Among the so-called PIGS — Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain — Italy is the major gold holder with qround 2450 tonnes. But Portugal has some 380 tonnes,  Spain 280 and  Greece 112.

The Greek debt crisis appears to be entering a new phase, in which the country is no longer just waiting to get needed help but getting concerned that others — including euro zone powerhouse Germany — may actually be making it hard for them to recover.

First, there is Prime Minister George Papandreou (right in photo). His concern is that speculators are pushing  the cost of borrowing so high that it is undermining the plans he has put in place  for deficit reduction.  Papandreou is known for being a mild-mannered sort, so any kind of irritability is worth noting.

But Theodoros Pangalos (left), the deputy prime minister and once foreign minister, has no such reputation to hold him back.   He has launched an attack on Germany, saying that a) it is allowing its banks to mess around with Greek bonds and b) that it suits Berlin in any case to let the euro fall.

What do Poland, the European Union’s brightest economic light, and Greece, its dimmest, have in common? Both have plans to cut their budget deficits to the Union’s  prescribed 3 percent level by 2012, and both of those plans depend on a lot of ifs.

I can already hear cries of protest from Poland, the only EU member to show any growth at all last year. It that has taken great pains to distance itself from more troubled EU states and is extremely proud of its growth results, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently telling the Financial Times: “Who would have thought we would see the day when the Polish economy is talked about with greater respect than the German economy?”

But the comparison still works, not only because Poland and Greece have promised to shrink their deficits so quickly — Greece from an expected 12.7 and Poland from around 7 percent this year — but also because they are depending on growth forecasts that may not materialise. Both stories are also emblematic of a theme sweeping across Europe — an effort by governments to build confidence over fiscal consolidation plans in an uncertain recovery.

A week ago we ran a post on MacroScope noting, in part, that Britons have a strange relationship with the euro, sometimes bordering on disbelief that it exists at all. Some new numbers from the monthly Bank of America Merrill Lynch fund managers poll underline the extent of UK scepticism compared with that of others.

For two months, BofA Merrill has asked fund managers around the world what they think will eventually happen as a result of the Greek debt crisis. Four choices are on offer:

1) The Greeks will sort it out themselves

2) The European Union will bail Greece out

3)  Greece will default or restructure in an orderly manner and remain in the euro zone

Greece announced a 4.8 bln euros extra austerity programme on Wednesday in a bid to secure European aid to tackle its cripling debt problem.

But few people think this is the end of the story. Two German MPS have said Greece should consider selling some of its islands as one option to reduce debt. Fancy turning Santorini into a luxurious private resort, anyone?

On a serious note however, Stephen Jen, head of macroeconomics at London-based hedge fund BlueGold, says Greece needs a “Thatcher-like” wholesale restructuring of the economy to fully exterminate default risks and deep fiscal cuts alone might not be sufficient to calm bond markets in the long term.

Greece is a country that has always punched above its weight. Its population, after all, is barely more than Chad’s. But it has rarely grabbed as much attention as now with a debt crisis that has gone as far as having some people predict the downfall of the whole house of euro.

With this in mind, MacroScope has noted two thoughtful new posts on Greece and the underlying issues facing the euro zone.

 First, Willliam De Vijlder, chief investment officer at Fortis Investments,  is taking an economist’s joy at all the various conflicts surrounding the issue — from worries about moral hazard (setting bad precedent for others with a bailout) to income transfers versus economic incentives (German retirement has been raised to 67, Greeks can head for the beach from 55).

The White House budget proposal released on Monday assumes the U.S. economy is heading for a six-year run of above-average economic growth with no sign of a worrisome spike in inflation or interest rates.
The forecasts underlying President Barack Obama’s budget plan show real gross domestic product rising 2.7 percent this year, which is largely in line with private forecasts.
Beginning in 2011, the White House’s projections diverge. It expects six consecutive years of strong growth ranging from 3.2 percent to 4.3 percent — well above what most economists consider the longer-term trend of around 2.6 percent.
The last time the economy saw a similar streak of strong growth was in the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom.
The missing link is still jobs. Despite the rosy economic forecast, the White House sees the jobless rate only slowly declining from the current 10 percent level. In fact, the forecast shows the unemployment rate won’t dip below 6 percent until 2015.
Strong growth. Weak labor market. Can we really have both for six years?

In downgrading the debt to A2, Moody’s ensured that Greek (and other) banks will still be able to swap Greek bonds for cheap funding from the European Central Bank, assuming that nothing has changed by this time next year when the ECB will only accept bonds rated A-/A3 or above as collateral by at least one agency.

Both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have cut Greek bonds to BBB-plus this month, meaning if Moody’s cuts Greece to an equivalent level, Greek banks are likely to face difficulties in getting access to liquidity as analysts estimate more than half the collateral they have submitted at the central bank is in government bonds.

Yet Moody’s explained the decision as partly due to its expectation that the ECB will keep accepting Greek debt as collateral, a decision which hinges on Moody’s itself keeping Greece’s rating above the watermark. 

Buy now, pay later was the mantra of U.S. consumers during a debt-fueled binge earlier this decade.

Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch economists think getting U.S. household debt-to-income back to the long-term trend will require eliminating $1.75 trillion in debt, assuming no change in disposable income. That will probably take years.

And that’s their more conservative forecast, just taking the ratio from its current level of 131 percent down to 115 percent. To get back to the average seen in the 1990s, $4.35 trillion in debt would have to be eliminated.