¿Cuánta pasta nos queda para no tener que mendigar nada a la UE? Sabemos que ni Andalucía, ni Valencia ni Cataluña están muy sobradas y han tenido que pedir auxilio a España. Pero al Estado español, ¿Cuánta pasta la queda antes de pedir el rescate? Pues de esto es de lo que se trata, de ver si conseguimos financiación o tienen los políticos que bajarse los pantacas y pedir auxilio, más que les peso a su ego… Sabemos que vamos a solicitar el rescate de manera bastante inminente, pero ¿nos lo darán? ¿Nos querrán ayudar? ¿Es por esto por lo que se demora todo? ¿Es por estas dudas por las que no se pide el rescate, porque se sabe que no nos lo van a conceder? Ay… Y ojo, lo de menos es si tenemos que trabajar 6 días o de si tenemos soberanía o no. Llevamos años que poco hacen los políticos, afortunadamente, sino que se mueven al son de fuera… Pero, ¿nos darán dinero? ¿Nos perdonarán lo que les debemos? ¿Tendremos capacidad de repago sin crecimiento o con recesión?
Is Spain Running Out Of Cash?
Some hours ago Spain finally bit the bullet, and after months of waffling had no choice but to hand over €4.5 billion (the first of many such cash rescues) in the form of a bridge loan to insolvent Bankia, which last week reported staggering losses (translation: huge deposit outflows which have made the fudging of its balance sheet impossible). As a reminder, in June Spain formally announced it would request up to €100 billion in bailout cash for its insolvent banking system, which subsequently was determined would come from the bank rescue fund, the Frob, which in turn would be funded with ESM debt which subordinates regular Spanish bonds, promises to the contrary by all politicians (whose job is to lie when it becomes serious) notwithstanding. And while Rajoy has promised that the whole €100 billion will not be used, the truth is that considering the soaring level of nonperforming loans in Spain - the biggest drain of both bank capital and liquidity - it is guaranteed that the final funding need for Spain's banks will be far greater. As a further reminder, Deutsche Bank calculated that when (not if) the recap amount hits €120 billion, Spanish total debt/GDP would soar to 97% in 2014 from an official number of 68.5% in 2011 (luckily the endspiel will come far sooner than that). But all of that is well-known, and what we wanted to focus on instead was the fact that bank bailout notwithstanding, Spain will have no choice but to demand a full blown rescue within a few short months for one simple reason: its cash will run out.
Before we dig deeper, a quick reminder: while everyone focuses on the cash generation by the Spanish sovereign, via the almost daily Bill and Bond auctions, what many forget is that the bulk of the proceeds is merely used to refinance existing debt. The remainder goes to fund the actual national deficit (of which there is plenty to go round), and to be deployed via various less than legitimate channels to keep insolvent financial institutions "solvent" until such time as these can become someone else's problem. Namely Germany's. Until that happens however, Spain is facing crunchtime as it has to fund over €40 billion in debt maturities in the next two months alone.
A secondary problem is that not only is Spain still facing a gaping primary deficit, it also has to pay the interest on its rolling refis which as everyone knows, and Rajoy most certainly, are unsustainable in the 6%+ range, not so much standalone, but certainly when juxtaposed with an economy which is collapsing in nominal terms, and is "growing" at a -0.4% growth rate. In other words, compounding the refi issue, is the fact that ever more of the organic growth from the economy has to be paid out to various state creditors.
Add the fact that the economy itself continues to collapse, with unemployment deteriorating with no bottom in sight, only completes the triangle of terror.
Which brings us to Exhibit A: the chart below shows Spain's National Account monthly cash balance, broken into its two subcomponents: the deposits at the Banco de Espana, and the Treasury Liquidity Tenders (columns 11 and 12; full historical breakdown here). The reason we bring it up is that this is the chart that everyone loves to forget.
The chart shows is that in July the Spanish cash balance dropped to €23 billion after hitting a 2012 high of €54 in March. It has plunged straight line since then, unable to repeat last year's July cash surge (when the number was more than double), and if the recent deposit outflow is any indication, the government will have had to plug many bank holes using fungible cash using any means necessary and possible. In other words, once the next Spanish State Liability update is posted, we wouldn't be surprised to see this number plunge to a new post-Lehman low. Yet what is scariest is that all else equal (and it never is), at the current run rate Spain may well run out of cash by the end of the year even assuming it manages to conclude all its remaining auctions through year's end without a glitch.
What all this really means it that any debate over whether Spain needs a bailout is at this point moot. It also means that absent a direct cash injection into the Spanish sovereign, Rajoy will have no choice, but to demand a bailout. What he does subsequently - whether he stays or he goes - will determine if the Spanish transition from a sovereign state to the latest vassal entity of the Troika and, more importantly, Germany will be peaceful (as much as possible) or rather violent.
A ver qué pasa..., pero el guiri lo ve muy chungo. Un abrazo
PD1: Las actuaciones de los afectados por las preferentes (ese engaño de decirles que iban a cobrar el 7% anual en deuda perpetua sin liquidez, salvo que las quisieran recomprar la propia entidad que ni quiere ni puede y que sin liquidez alguna se dice que cotizan al 50% de su nominal, que es mentira ya que ni a ese precio las quiere nadie…, pues lo que están haciendo los titulares de las preferentes es largarse de sus respectivos bancos/cajas donde les han engañado… Normal. Lo otro sería masoquismo.
Novagalicia es una de las entidades que más está sufriendo el enfado de los clientes particulares que se sienten robados por el escándalo de las participaciones preferentes. Hasta el punto de que ha tenido que cerrar oficinas por las amenazas de los depositantes. Un malestar que ha provocado que en el primer semestre del año los minoristas hayan retirado 3.500 millones de euros del banco nacionalizado.
La entidad presidida por José María Castellano cerró el primer semestre del año con unos depósitos totales de clientes de 43.984 millones, con una reducción del 15,6%. La entidad justificó el descenso por la operativa mayorista, es decir, las relacionadas con las cédulas no negociables, la cesión temporal de activos o el Tesoro. Una actividad institucional que ha afectado al conjunto del sector.
De esa cantidad, el dinero procedente de ciudadanos de a pie que lo habían invertido a plazo era de 18.791 millones, una cifra inferior en 2.847 millones a la que Novagalicia tenía a finales de 2011. Por su parte, los clientes particulares contaban con 12.772 millones en depósitos a la vista, 715 millones menos que al cierre del pasado ejercicio. En total, 3.562 millones menos, casi cuatro veces el dinero atrapado en participaciones preferentes de la institución gallega
Novagalicia no cuantificó la cantidad de dinero reembolsado y se limitó a decir en su nota de prensa que "la captación de recursos de clientes minoristas refleja el impacto de la intensa competencia por el pasivo" y la caída de la tasa de ahorro en España. Una aseveración cierta a medias -el retroceso general ha sido del 5,6% frente al 13% de Novagalicia- porque entidades como Banco Santander y BBVA acabaron el semestre con saldos positivos, que en el caso del grupo con sede en Bilbao ascendió a 3.000 millones.
"Los bancos sanos se han beneficiado del cabreo de los clientes de los competidores que han caído", apunta un experto del sector. "De Bankia han salido cerca de 5.000 millones de euros de pequeños ahorradores, que se han ido a La Caixa, a Santander y BBVA", añade. Un trasvase, conocido en el sector como "fly to quality", que se ha producido sin que ninguno de los tres grandes del sector hayan tenido que recurrir a pagar altos intereses por sus depósitos. Como ejemplo, la mejor oferta de BBVA apenas pasaba del 2%, mientras que la de La Caixa no llegaba al 3%.
Novagalicia tiene 43.000 personas damnificadas por el corralito de las preferentes, un producto bancario que ofrece una rentabilidad superior a la del mercado, pero que no tiene vencimiento (deuda perpetua). Por tanto, el cliente no puede recuperar la liquidez salvo si el banco decide amortizar la emisión de forma anticipada. La entidad gallega colocó 970 millones de euros de este tipo de instrumento financiero, que ahora valen menos de 400 millones. Los afectados se han manifestado incluso ante la casa de José María Castellano, que ha optado por pedir un arbitraje para dirimir el litigio.
PD1: SocGen on Italy and Spain: there's a very real possibility that both will require a financial assistance programme to reach the targets:
PD2: Hoy me he cabreado con mis hijos. Les pedía que estudiaran inglés en estos días que no han empezado las universidades y andan tocándose los cataplines por casa… Me decían que ya sabían suficiente. Mentira. Si tienen que trabajar fuera no saben todavía lo necesario. Tengo a uno que quiere ser profesor, que quiere ser catedrático. No se cosca que no va a haber más convocatorias públicas de empleo en no se sabe cuántos años. No caben más funcionarios y los interinos querrán opositar antes de que les larguen a la puñetera calle…
La gente todavía no se da cuenta de la gravedad de la crisis actual y su previsible larga duración en el tiempo. La gente joven no sabe que tendrá que emigrar para poder trabajar en algo decente y con una remuneración acorde a lo trabajado. Los otros tiempos nunca volverán. Ahora toca huir de España y buscarse las castañas con ahínco:
Fears Rising, Spaniards Pull Out Their Cash and Get Out of Spain
Julio Vildosola at his family's new home in Buckden, England. "The macro situation in Spain is getting worse and worse," he said.
It is, Julio Vildosola concedes, a very big bet. After working six years as a senior executive for a multinational payroll-processing company in Barcelona, Spain, Mr. Vildosola is cutting his professional and financial ties with his troubled homeland. He has moved his family to a village near Cambridge, England, where he will take the reins at a small software company, and he has transferred his savings from Spanish banks to British banks.
"The macro situation in Spain is getting worse and worse," Mr. Vildosola, 38, said last week just hours before boarding a plane to London with his wife and two small children. "There is just too much risk. Spain is going to be next after Greece, and I just don't want to end up holding devalued pesetas."
Mr. Vildosola is among many who worry that Spain's economic tailspin could eventually force the country's withdrawal from the euro and a return to its former currency, the peseta. That dire outcome is still considered a long shot, even if Spain might eventually require a Greek-style bailout. But there is no doubt that many of those in a position to do so are taking their money — and in some cases themselves — out of Spain.
In July, Spaniards withdrew a record 75 billion euros, or $94 billion, from their banks — an amount equal to 7 percent of the country's overall economic output — as doubts grew about the durability of Spain's financial system.
The withdrawals accelerated a trend that began in the middle of last year, and came despite a European commitment to pump up to 100 billion euros into the Spanish banking system. Analysts will be watching to see whether the August data, when available, shows an even faster rate of capital flight.
More disturbing for Spain is that the flight is starting to include members of its educated and entrepreneurial elite who are fed up with the lack of job opportunities in a country where the unemployment rate touches 25 percent.
According to official statistics, 30,000 Spaniards registered to work in Britain in the last year, and analysts say that this figure would be many multiples higher if workers without documents were counted. That is a 25 percent increase from a year earlier.
"No doubt there is a little bit of panic," said José García Montalvo, an economist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. "The wealthy people have already taken their money out. Now it's the professionals and midrange people who are moving their money to Germany and London. The mood is very, very bad."
It is possible that the outlook could improve if the European Central Bank's governing council, which meets Thursday, signals a plan to help shore up the finances of Spain and other euro zone laggards by intervening in the bond markets.
But right now, if anything, Spain's picture is growing dimmer.
On Friday, the government's bank rescue fund said it would need to pump up to 5 billion euros into the failed mortgage-lending giant Bankia, which the state seized in May. And on Monday, Andalusia became the latest of Spain's semiautonomous regions to ask the central government for rescue money.
The wider prospects for the euro zone are also still bleak. Moody's Investors Service said on Monday that it had changed its outlook on the AAA rating of the European Union to negative, and that it might downgrade the rating if it decides to cut the ratings on the union's four largest budget contributors.
Spain's gathering gloom comes despite a gradual return of capital to banks in Greece and the relative stability of deposits in those other euro zone trouble spots, Italy, Ireland and Portugal.
The continued exodus of money and people from Spain could be a warning to European policy makers that bailing out the country — a step now widely expected — may not stem the panic as long as the Spanish economy remains in a funk.
It was a lesson learned in Greece, where despite successive European bailouts, about a third of deposits have been withdrawn from its banks since 2009, as the public worried that Athens might have to return to the drachma.
Spain is still a far cry from a nearly bankrupt Greece: it has a much larger and more diverse economy, lower levels of debt and a bond market that is still functioning.
It might be more accurate to say that money is leaving Spanish banks at more of a jog than anything close to a sprint.
Although retail and corporate deposits are down 10 percent compared with those of July 2011, the country remains relatively rich in savings, with 2.3 trillion euros in overall deposits, according to data from Morgan Stanley.
But once under way, the flight of bank deposits can easily overwhelm rational facts and analysis.
Setting off the flight was the failure of Bankia, which came as a shock to Spanish savers who had been assured by government officials that the bank was in good shape.
Instead of calming fears, the state takeover prompted comparisons to Argentina in 2001, when peso bank accounts denominated in dollars were frozen in order to stem the flight of deposits.
The corralito, or corral, as the Argentine action is known, has become part of the public conversation in Spain. The million-plus Argentines who have since immigrated to Spain have provided ample and gory stories of desperate legal battles and wiped-out savings.
Eduardo Pérez, a Spaniard who was working in Argentina during that period, remembers the events all too well. He said he lost four-fifths of the money he had kept in an Argentine savings account, though he declined to say how much money was involved.
"Some of my friends lost everything," Mr. Pérez said. "So yes, everyone in Spain knows about the corralito."
Recently, Mr. Pérez, who lives in the northern city of Bilbao, removed about a third of his euros from his Spanish savings account and sent them to Singapore, converting them to Singapore dollars.
Having lost his job at a multinational company a few months ago, Mr. Pérez, 48, is trying to make ends meet by focusing on his travel Web site and blog, which aggregate Spanish-language travel videos.
But as the job outlook worsens, he is contemplating following in the path of his savings and starting a new life in Singapore with his wife.
"Two years ago, we never would have thought of this, but now I have real fears that there will be a breakup with the euro," he said. "And when you keep hearing people saying, 'Don't worry, it's not going to happen' — well, that is when you have to start worrying."
Analysts said that the record-high outflow from Spain in July was probably spurred in part by July's being a taxpaying month for many corporations, which prompted them to withdraw cash from deposit accounts.
Also playing a role were investment funds that moved cash reserves to foreign banks in light of the credit downgrades at Spanish banks.
Still, as the examples of Mr. Vildosola and Mr. Pérez show, individual deposit flight is becoming more pronounced.
Some people are willing to fly to London for the day just to open an account there, as most banks in the city require such transactions to be made in person.
Spanish bankers working for British financial institutions say they have been hit with a barrage of questions about how to open savings accounts in London.
"It seems as if everyone I know in Spain is getting on an easyJet to come to London and open a bank account," said one such banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing his company's policy.
That is what Mr. Vildosola did before he took the more drastic step of moving his family to England.
"It's sad," he said. "But I just don't think there is a future for me in Spain right now."
Es una tristeza, pero la gente se larga de España. Se van los más audaces, los que se atreven. Quien da primero da dos veces… No hay que dudarlo. Si no hay trabajo aquí, debemos emigrar como siempre se ha hecho…
PD3: Este verano hemos salido 7 veces a cenar fuera, uff, quizás demasiadas. Descubrimos un "loureiro", es decir, un restaurante que no es restaurante: te dan de comer en una casa y se evitan ellos los costes fiscales (ponen una rama de laurel en la puerta para identificarla)… Negro negrísimo no, renegrío… Pero no es por ahí por donde van estos tiros, sino por la generosidad. ¡Qué cacho de raciones daban! Lo normal en los restaurantes, sobre todo los finolis de nouvelle couisine, es que te den seis chipirones muy adornaditos y monos, en un plato estiloso. Pues en el loureiro te soltaban una ración increíble, que debería ser de cantidad como si fueran 6 platos de otros restaurantes… Eran fuentes largas con montaña de comida: luras, chinchos, xoubiñas, calamares, carne con patatas fritas, pimientos Padrón… ¡Qué generosidad, pensaba siempre! Lo alucinante eran los precios también. Semejante mogollón de manjares, mejor cocinados que muchos otros restaurantes oficiales, venían a costar de media unos 7 euros por comensal. Estos precios ya no son los gallegos. Sí que lo fueron hace unos años, muchos… Pero hasta Galicia se acabó por contagiar de la subida de precios general que ha sufrido España en los últimos 15 años. Sin embargo, en los loureiros comías por 70 pavos para 10 comensales… Esto es generosidad. Esto es lo que aprendí este verano: hay que ser generoso en el trabajo, en lo que le damos a la gente por nuestro oficio. Hay que hacer las cosas muy bien hechas, aunque nos cueste mucho hacerlas, aunque empleemos mucho tiempo. Hay que hacerlas muy bien y ofrecerlas. Como cuando dan de comer en los loureiros…: abundante, con generosidad.
