The Irish Financial Crisis Becomes a Political Crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/europe/23ireland.html?_r=1

This has been an ongoing concern of mine for most of the European debt crisis. First, universal austerity simply does not work as a strategy for dealing with massive debt levels as its deflationary influence essentially digs the hole deeper as you are trying to get out. Secondly, it's politically damaging considering that it will coincide with a severe economic crisis. Ireland is in the midst of what can only be described as a depression and that will not correct anytime soon. In fact, it will get much much worse considering the magnitude of their fiscal contraction. The incumbent government will lose the next national election considering that the prime minister has a whopping 11% approval rating from the last poll I saw. Frankly, they should lose given that they have been in power for the boom and now the collapse.

This really is an issue where many Irish sense that their nationally sovereignty is at risk in these bailout agreements. At the same time, they really don't have a choice, but then again neither does Europe. The EU cannot allow Ireland and its banks to fail due to the collateral damage. It will be interesting if Ireland decides to take the approach that they will limit what austerity measures they put in place because they realize their importance to European financial stability. In the long run, Ireland's economic situation will get so bad that it risks severe political instability of the sort that we haven't seen in a while in most developed countries. They already have a 14.1% unemployment rate and that will not get better with the austerity measures being proposed.

As far as the EU's approach on all of this, I am doubtful of its long term viability. Basically, Germany and France are on the verge of backstopping Greece, Ireland, and then Portugal and Spain. If and when Spain becomes part of the mix, I really don't know that they are good for the money. At the same time, they are pursuing deeply deflationary policies which pose a particular problem in the context of a deflating asset bubble. The deflating real estate prices in Ireland, the UK and Spain are one of the major causes of the ongoing banking problems and austerity will only contribute to further deflation of those prices. As this pain continues, it will be difficult for governments to maintain policies of retrenchment.

Frankly, there is a serious risk that Europe is entering a deflationary spiral of a fairly severe magnitude, which will invariably lead to continued political instability.

Sometimes the interplay between politics and economics doesn't make sense:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/11/wtf-data-point-dems-lost-seats-better-economies/

When you think about it, Democrats did quite well in California (12%+ unemployment) and quite badly in my home state of Wisconsin (7.8% unemployment). Does that make much sense? Not really. Of course, I have argued that we are simply in an era of dramatic political volatility rather than any particular ideological movement one way or the other. If you look at Europe, center-right governments in Germany, France, and Italy are all on the verge of collapse or are at the very least deeply unpopular. The newly elected center-right government in the UK already has fallen behind Labour in recent polling.

At the same time, Japan has recently lurched right after electing its first clear center-left government in several decades. Some of the Latin American governments seem to be shifting right, though that certainly didn't hold in Brazil where the Worker's Party (which is effectively Socialist) won quite easily. Spain's socialist government is probably quite likely to lose when the next election happens there due to truly crippling unemployment rates and an economy very unlikely to right itself anytime soon.

We are simply at a time where it is advantageous not to be in power and this was even true in 2008 as well. There were parts of the Democrats' success, or alternatively the Republicans' weakness, that under most elections would have been quite stunning, but in an environment of extreme economic strife such things can happen. The same applied this year as well in reverse.

I suspect that 2012 will see a fairly large number of seats change hands again in the House. If we enter a protracted period of stagnation, or something that at least feels like it, don't be surprised if party control changes routinely. The interesting consequence of that is that we might see truly paralyzed decision making at a time when fairly decisive action is required.

Just how volatile are global politics right now?

Very, it turns out.

Labour now polls even or possibly ahead of the Tories in the UK just four months or so after the most recent election. http://itn.co.uk/6ec09e8f6e13a874aa91c427f4437806.html

Normally I would say ignore politics, but I think what you may be seeing in a number of countries is a move by many democracies toward being ungovernable. That is a risk that we have to keep in mind as the economies of the developed world remain languid. Germany's government is precariously positioned and that is unlikely to improve. The same goes for Australia's. One basic rule of history that I remind myself of when there are situations like this one is that it doesn't necessarily have to end well.

We still haven't seen any headlong plunges toward protectionism by any major parties around the world in order to garner votes, but that's certainly a possibility. It would be a big vote getter in countries that are convinced that all they have to do is improve their trade balance to grow their economies. However, given that all countries seem to be trying to collectively devalue their currencies, it is a possibility trade protections will start popping up. One serious aggravating factor there is that China operates behind somewhat of a trade wall while most of its trade partners are as open as any economies have ever been.

If we do see parties start to flap their gums about protectionism, suddenly even low yielding bonds would look attractive. We aren't there yet, but we could be before long.

German Regional Elections and Their Consequences

It pays to follow results such as these when we are in the middle of a crisis. Whatever you think of Angela Merkel, the rout of her party and its coalition partners in the North Rhine-Westphalia regional elections might spell deepened trouble for financial markets this coming week. Her government's backing for the bailout package for Greece seems to have a lot to do with these election results. As such, continued sovereign intervention in the European financial crisis appears doubtful. This is especially true as the most recent election result in the United Kingdom still has not produced a definitive outcome, and whatever coalition government emerges will be too weak to take on something as unpopular as bailing out fragile southern European economies. 


Stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled. This may have already been anticipated by financial markets, but one cannot be sure. 


Update: It appears given market futures that this is not having a huge impact on the markets and that they are instead focusing on the larger than expected responses by the EU and ECB in the last 24 hours. I'm glad to see that Jean Claude Trichet lost out and that the ECB will be providing assistance to governments should they be shut out of the private bond markets. His prior unwillingness was the cause of the Thursday and Friday blood baths.