Will the US become the new Greece?

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This continues my series of closer looks at the seven areas I think can bring the 103 (now 105?) month economic expansion in the US to an end. The previous articles are here (overview), here (interest rates), and here (Inflation).
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When considering "Budget Deficits" we are naturally looking at Government deficits, and not the overall global debt load, a load that in and of itself should scare almost anyone. In addition, government deficits are not a US-only problem, at least not US government debt alone. Governments around the world have spent the past decade amassing an ever growing pile of national debt. This has been an easy way to stimulate economies, placate masses, and generally take advantage of the ability to make new, cheap money, or to access pools of "cheap" money.

What happens when the markets' perception turns, and easy government money is viewed as a liability that will push down economic growth? The answer is Greece, where crushing debt, and without its own flexible, sovereign currency, coupled with no external forgiveness resulted in the destruction of the economy, in a self-reinforcing cycle of negative government policies and economic collapse.

How long can budget deficits continue to grow before the markets decide that US sovereign debt is no longer "risk free", or that there are other options for making a return greater (and at equal or lower risk) than government debt? When will there be a tipping point of belief that deficits and national debt payments actually do matter, with the expectation of a drag on economic growth by allocation of national budgets to interest payments, greater probability of a recession, ultimately resulting is loss of market confidence (and reduced resilience should a recession occur)?

Couple the growth of visible budget deficits with the fiscal gap of promised future expenditure, and the outlook is even worse (though perhaps a subject for a future article).

There is a fine balance between Sovereign debt as a safe-haven, and the returns on sovereign debt being strong enough to shift money from other markets - especially if such strength is due to an increase return (the occasional spikes in Spanish and other European debt as a good example), and therefore the future drain on government coffers to pay the interest. Once those interest payments are perceived as being high enough to impact the economic viability of the rest of the economy, we could see a general loss of faith and an associated flight to any "safe" none-market assets.

It is fairly easy to see the reason for concern. Currently 6% of the Federal budget is required to make payments on the interest on the national debt. This is interest only, at an average rate of 2.32% for January 2018, which on a national (Federal) debt of $21 Trillion. This should represent an annualised total debt servings cost of $481 Billion, with no associated reductions in the outstanding debt. In fact, US Federal debt will continue to grow, and with that growth, an even growing servicing cost.

Currently the Fed 10-Year treasury rate is hovering around 2.8%. This is a .5% increase over the past six months effectively matching the increase in the Fed discount rate.

So what happens if the Fed does deliver 3 rate hikes in 2018 (2 more)? If they increase at the .25% rate, we should see a Fed rate in the 2.75% range from the current 2.25% rate.

All things being equal, we should then see the actual rate of interest paid by the US Government rise by .75% to around 3.1%. This excludes any sovereign debt risk premium should China and Japan stop purchasing US sovereign debt, or if there is another downgrade of US debt.

So if we then look at the total that would be payable on the $20.7 Trillion debt, (but for simplicity staying at the current level even though this debt will rise to closer to 21.5 Trillion by the end of the year). The increase to 3.1% across the $20.7 Trillion debt would result in an annualised cost of $642 Billion, an increase of almost $160 Billion.

Markets will look at that increase, and see a combination of increased government spending to fund that debt, and a compounding level of debt expenditure. If the current debt load on the US budget is at 6%, every increase squeezes the amount of government spending available for non-debt servicing expenditure.

This at a time when economists are predicting that the US will begin running almost perpetual $1 trillion deficits. The interest component of the Federal budget is going to rise quickly. The tipping point will come not when the debt can no longer be serviced, as that realistically is too far in the future to be meaningful in terms of market reactions (years, not months). But it will be the tipping point of lost confidence that such deficits can deliver economic growth. And that point is either very soon, or may already have passed.

In their 2009 book “This Time Is Different” Reinhart and Rogoff state that national debt above 90% of GDP results in falling GDP growth. This number certainly caught the headlines, and for a while was presented as a Great Truth. Of course, there were then numbers of papers downplaying that Truth, and highlighting potential errors in their calculations.

Yet their premise stood up to critics, in as much as the 90% threshold does seem to signal a future decline in GDP growth due to debt servicing headwinds at the national level.

The United States is now well past that level, with the current (Federal) debt load of $21 trillion, and State and Local debt loads adding another $3 trillion, for a combined government debt load of $24 trillion. This against a GDP of approximately $19.5 trillion, the US is already running at well over 105% at the Federal debt level, with an additional 15% debt at the State and Local level.

This entire discussion ignores, though it should not, the fiscal gap, and therefore excludes the future bow wave of additional, already promised expenditure. It was this bow wave of pensions expenditure and social support expenditure that ensured Greece would only dig deeper into debt, regardless of bail-outs. 

Both the US and the UK face such a systemic problem - over promise of future expenditure that is not already considered in existing budget and deficit projections. In addition, these future promised expenditures are not limited to the Federal government budgets, and we already are seeing pressure on state and local level pension and entitlement programs.

At some stage there will be a loss of confidence that the combined debt load is manageable, and that the predicted negative impact on growth either has begun or will be felt in the near term.

When that happens, the “US will be the new Greece”. That will not be a pretty picture.

Will Interest Rates kill the recovery?

In my "103 Months" post last week, I specifically mention seven areas that could bring about the end of the Bear market, and result in the end of this business cycle. First on the list was Interest Rates. I also specifically stated that none of the seven areas could take sole credit for a fall in the markets (and flow on negativity and economic contraction), and that each may be impacted by others, and impact others. Which will come first, an Interest Rate hike generated collapse in house sales, or a collapse in house sales spreading uncertainty resulting in an interest rate spike?

Markets exist to facilitate the effective application of capital. As such, capital will flow to the markets in which capital can be expected to deliver the greatest return to the owners of the capital. Capital will flow to assets with the greatest probability or generating the highest risk-weighted return. And while markets do not get this right all the time, generally markets sense where returns will be achieved, high or low, and move capital to those asset classes. The result has been capital allocation distortions. (It was interesting to write that first sentence, then to google the exact words - first place returned was the SEC) 

The mythical Rational Market Hypothesis tells us that open access to information ensures that capital will flow efficiently. This or course does not and cannot happen, as there is not free and open access to all information relevant to investment decision making. Different players have and always will have access to market moving information that is not available to all investors. In addition, a range of human and even algorithmic factors will ensure a different weighting of information by different market participants, ensuring a less than efficient market.

What does this have to do with interest rates?

Each time the Fed or the BoE talks rate hikes, the markets pause (for milliseconds sometimes) and asks if the higher rate will have a negative impact of economic activity, and thus on market value, or if Treasury Bills will deliver a higher capital growth, and therefore, is it time to leave one market and enter another (leave stocks, enter treasuries or other bonds). Business and investors have become so numbed to ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) that they have come to see any hikes as potential speed bumps on the economic highway.

Continued ZIRP has resulted in behavioural distortions, with a new set of assumptions, including current market reactions reinforcing self-delusional assumptions of market rationality. In the middle 2000s we were convinced that we had become expert at managing risk, now we believe in the power of monetary policy to ensure ever-expanding market value. This cannot end well.

In the UK, the change in the "Ogden rate" (the discount rate applied to large insurance claims, predicated on the assumption that large claims will be invested in the most conservative manner) in early 2017 provides a wonderful example of a political decision designed to reinforce the "end of boom and bust" narrative. A change in a long term discount rate from 2.5% to -.75% both boosted insurance pay-outs and imposed massive loses on the insurance industry (The rate is now under review). The political nature of the decision was in effect a reiteration of the UK government’s assumption or expectation that interest rates would remain in the ZIRP range for the foreseeable future.

ZIRP ensured a limiting of the range of options for capital, be effectively removing treasuries, US, British Gilts, Japanese, from the portfolios of available return generating assets.

The end of ZIRP has seen a steady increase in the retail cost of money. At some stage, that increase will be perceived as reaching a point at which users of credit will begin to make decisions to not invest, or not spend. Owners of capital will begin to ask if the markets will therefore continue to increase at a rate significantly higher than "safe haven" investments.

So what is that interest rate number that will move the markets?

Only this past week the Chairman of the Federal Reserve presented to Congress for the first time, with his upbeat assessment of the US economy having quite a strange impact. The Wall Street Journal reported: "On Tuesday, Mr. Powell made his first Capitol Hill appearance since taking over as Fed chief this month, where he underscored the improvement in economic prospects, which many investors took as a suggestion that the central bank will lift borrowing costs four times this year. “It now looks more likely that the Fed is going to tighten more quickly,” said Peter Elston, chief investment officer at Seneca Investment Managers."

The markets seem to be at a point where positive economic news itself causes concerns about interest rates, upsetting the fragile balance between shares as the probably area of best return on capital, and fear that shares will fall resulting in negative returns.

That fragility could tip either way, although the messaging would suggest a greater probability of a negative shock. Bad economic news (such as the reported fall in new housing starts) could hint at a slower pace of rate hikes while at the same time undermining confidence. Alternatively, stronger economic news could cement more rate hikes sooner, again undermining confidence in the markets as the source of future capital appreciation.

Further, that fragility is all about perceptions and perceptions of perceptions. Will rates increase? If rates increase, will shares fall? If shares fall, will that force rates higher, or will a continued fall in shares erase gains. Should gains be "locked in" by selling now and putting the capital into "safe" options, and ride out a fall in share values, while earning more interest on the bonds / treasuries?

The Fed rate after all flows through into mortgage rates, auto loan rates, student loans, and credit card interest rates. All of these have a direct impact on individuals' economic behaviours and choices.

So if we game this situation, it looks something like:

1. Fed increases interest rates, reaching an eye-watering 2.5% by mid-2018.
2. Following a Fed rate rise event, markets expect reduction in mortgage lending, increase in credit card interest, reduction in auto loans.
3. Market data is released showing a drop in new mortgage applications.
4. Home builder and real estate stocks hit.
5. REITs drop on expectation that housing prices will stabilize or fall.
6. Contagion across industries creates further falls in equities.
7. Holders of capital determine that treasuries will provide a "no loss of capital" position and that shares have created a "capital at risk" situation.

As the "rational" market distributes and creates information with an inequitable and non-transparent distribution, individual market participants reach widely different conclusions, ultimately coalescing into a consensus that the stock markets are no longer the best place to hold or invest capital for a time long enough for stable bottom to be found.

In this way Interest Rates may provide one of the catalysts for a substantial and sustained drop in market values. This is only one of the seven situations that I discussed last week. Next week we'll look at another of the seven.

What remains clear is that in a world with so many potential contributors or drivers of a change from Bull to Bear, there is no single non-interconnected economic or political situation that will be "the cause" of the coming end of this expansion. The big question will be which, through the lens of history, will carry the "blame".