UK financial system ‘not able to support recovery’

Britain’s financial sector is not equipped to support recovery when it comes and could trigger a double-dip recession if not fixed, the newest recruit to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) warned yesterday.

 

Adam Posen said the issue was “the next target of concern” for the UK economy. Speaking at Cass Business School in London, he said: “I am concerned that the UK financial system as currently structured, as well as damaged by the crisis, may not be ready to support the coming handover of recovery to private-sector impetus from public-sector stimulus.”

He said the main question was where credit for non-financial companies – particularly small and medium-sized enterprises – would come from. Without it, the emergence of a sustainable private-sector led recovery would be constrained, there would be insufficient investment into the UK economy, and a reduction in the number of businesses formed he said.

Mr Posen said the banking system must therefore be “largely fixed” before macroeconomic stimulus is withdrawn. “The alternative is likely to result in a still-born recovery, a double-dip – though less severe – recession, and/or persistently slow growth,” he said.

Mr Posen said history had taught us that those economies that have recovered “faster and stronger” have either fixed their banking systems quickly, or have alternative channels through which to provide capital to businesses.

“I am concerned because the financial system in the UK does not seem to have a spare tire for the provision of capital to non-financial businesses when the banking system has popped a leak.”

He said in this way the UK drew a “worrisome” comparison with Japan in the mid-1990s, when recovery began but the economy was unable to sustain it.

Mr Posen insisted that the Bank’s £175bn quantitative easing programme would not lead to “unacceptably high inflation at any time horizon.” He added the MPC would keep the UK “well out of deflation” over the medium term.”

Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:32pm EDT

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The rate of loan charge-offs by major U.S. banks has exceeded those seen in the early years of the Great Depression as the credit crisis continues to take a toll, Moody’s Investors Service said on Monday.

Bank charge-offs — loans written off as uncollectable — have reached $116 billion year to date, or 2.9 percent of outstanding loans on an annualized basis, Moody’s said in a report. By comparison, bank charge-offs were about 2.25 percent in 1932, the third year of the Great Depression, Moody’s said.

Charge-offs climbed to $45 billion in the third quarter from $40 billion in the second quarter and $31 billion in the first, Moody’s said.

On an annualized basis, charge-offs were about 3.4 percent of outstanding loans in the third quarter, matching the Great Depression peak in 1934, Moody’s said.

The charge-off totals cover banks rated by Moody’s with more than $50 billion in assets. Moody’s-rated banks hold 85 percent of the total assets in the U.S. banking system.

Bad loans resulting from the global credit crisis have battered banks’ profits and triggered an upsurge in the number of troubled and failed banks. Banks that took major write-downs on residential mortgages during the housing slump are now suffering losses from commercial real estate and business loans as well.

The high costs of credit problems weighed heavily on banks’ third-quarter results, Moody’s said.

“For most banks, third-quarter earnings were at best modest, and in many cases they recorded sizable losses,” Moody’s said.

Since more credit costs loom, “we believe earnings prospects for the fourth quarter of 2009 and for 2010 are bleak for many U.S. banks,” Moody’s said.

The charge-offs have already been incorporated into Moody’s bank ratings, however, and will not trigger more rating actions, Moody’s said.

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Editing by James Dalgleish)”

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Merkel Says Saving Won’t Pull Germany Out of Slump (Update2)

By Rainer Buergin

Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) — Chancellor Angela Merkel said that spending is necessary to pull Germany out of its worst recession in modern history, justifying her government’s focus on tax cuts to generate economic growth.

Merkel, in a speech to a convention of her Christian Democratic Union in Berlin today, stood by tax cuts worth 24 billions euros ($36 billion), more than the 15 billion euros she had pledged before the Sept. 27 elections. Delegates approved the coalition’s policy platform for the next four years, after the Free Democrats backed the program yesterday. The Christian Social Union, Merkel’s Bavarian ally, approved it at a meeting in Munich, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

With the coalition contract, “we’ve decided to go down a road that relies fully on growth,” Merkel said. “There’s no guarantee that it’s going to work, but it has a chance. I don’t see any chance that we’ll succeed if all we do is save, save, save.”

Under the coalition agreement, Merkel keeps control of the coffers away from the Free Democrats, who advocated more aggressive tax cuts than the chancellor. The negotiations, conducted over three weeks, were dominated by attempts to balance government spending with debt that’s set to soar to a post-World War II record.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, the finance minister-designate, said yesterday in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper that there’s no way he’ll be able to balance the budget over the four-year legislative term.

‘Needs an Impulse’

With Germany, the world’s biggest exporter, struggling to recover from recession, it is “naturally” impossible to eliminate the deficit during Merkel’s second term, Schaeuble, 67, said. “It certainly doesn’t make sense to talk about savings measures at a time when the economy needs an impulse.”

The coalition’s tax-cut plan split the difference between Merkel’s 15 billion-euro target and the FDP’s 35 billion-euro campaign pledge. It’s aimed at low and mid-level earners, starting Jan. 1 with relief for families with children.

“There is no alternative to the chosen strategy of consolidating public finances not in 2010, but only later,” Andreas Rees, an economist at Unicredit SpA in Munich, said in a note. “It does not make sense to cut public spending already next year when unemployment is expected to soar by at least 500,000.”

Germany’s benchmark DAX Index rose for the first time in three days, gaining 0.4 percent to 5,762.94 as of 1:18 p.m. in Frankfurt. Even so, consumer confidence unexpectedly fell for the first time in more than a year as concerns that job losses will erode spending power outweighed signs of economic recovery.

Consumer Spending

“I’m firmly convinced that not only 2010, but also 2011 will be strongly affected by this crisis,” Merkel told delegates. “We know that unemployment is going to rise and that’s why we have to do everything to strengthen consumer spending.”

The bargaining over tax cuts follows the Sept. 27 vote that ejected Merkel’s Social Democratic coalition partners. The Social Democrats said a budget deficit the government forecasts at exceeding 5 percent in 2010 leaves no room for lower levies, even after the deepest slump since the Great Depression.

Wolfgang Boehmer, Christian Democratic prime minister of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, told ZDF television last night that he’s concerned how Merkel will pay for the tax cuts.

“A clear way of counter-financing isn’t in sight yet,” Boehmer said. “I can’t agree to anything that makes existing budget gaps even bigger.”

Focusing on cutting the deficit now “would be exactly the wrong signal,” Schaeuble told the same program. “The whole world sees it that way. We’re already criticized internationally for not running up the deficit enough.”

Disputed Ministry

The Finance Ministry was the most disputed post of the coalition agreement that sees FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, 47, assume the joint role of foreign minister and vice chancellor. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 37, will take over the Defense Ministry and be replaced as economy minister by the FDP’s Rainer Bruederle.

Wheelchair-bound Schaeuble, who was paralyzed from the chest down by a deranged gunman at a political rally in 1990, served as interior minister for four years under Merkel. Schaeuble aided Merkel’s ascent in politics. She toppled him from the party chairmanship in 2000 because of his links to a party-financing scandal under former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

“He has the strength to drive things through,” Stefan Bielmeier, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG, said in an interview from Frankfurt.

He may make more enemies as he tries to rein in spending for a government that’s accumulated record debt.

Schaeuble has previously involved himself in finance issues. He championed a CDU plan to simplify the tax system in the late 1990s as leader of the party’s parliamentary group. Last year he pilloried executives earning inflated salaries soon after the financial system nearly collapsed.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rainer Buergin in Berlin at rbuergin1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 26, 2009 10:45 EDT
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“PARIS (Dow Jones)–The French employment market will continue to worsen for several quarters, Finance Minister …”

“Wheat Prices Rise as Frost, Drought May Reduce Australia’s Crop

By Jeff Wilson

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) — Wheat prices rose for the first time in three sessions on speculation that frost and drought will reduce crops in Australia, the world’s fourth-biggest exporter.

Frost in eastern Australia and hot, dry weather in the west during the past month may curb output, the Commodity Weather Group said today in a report. The dollar’s slump against major currencies this year also may boost demand for U.S. grain.

“Weekend weather was not good for the Australian wheat crop,” Dale Durchholz, an AgriVisor LLC senior analyst in Bloomington, Illinois, said in a report. “Some think it may push output to the lower end of expectations.”

Wheat futures for December delivery rose 19 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $5.1775 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. While the price dropped 2.8 percent in the previous two sessions, the most-active contract has gained 13 percent this month.

Australia will harvest 23.5 million metric tons of the grain this year, up from 21.5 million tons a year earlier, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report on Oct. 9.

In the seven days through Oct. 8, U.S. wheat exporters sold about 480,000 metric tons, the USDA reported last week. U.S. sales for delivery before May 31 fell 32 percent to 12.242 million tons as of Oct. 8 for the marketing year that began on June 1, from 18.055 million a year earlier.

The U.S. is the world’s largest wheat exporter, followed by Russia and Canada. Wheat is the fourth-biggest U.S. crop, valued at $16.6 billion in 2008, behind corn, soybeans and hay, government figures show.

The Commodity Weather Group is based in Bethesda, Maryland.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Wilson in Chicago at jwilson29@bloomberg.net.”——LOOK AT THESE SIGNS AS THEY SHOW THE COLLAPSING WORLD OF THE ANGLO!