“Perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse.”

-Northcote Parkinson

Parkinson was a well known British scholar who specialized in naval history. Before he passed away in 1993, he authored 60 books, including “The Devil to Pay”, “Dead Reckoning”, and “So Near, So Far.” His writings recognized patterns of behavior in administrations and institutions in a way that makes we modern day chaos theorists proud. Patterns repeat.

The point of collapse is generally crystal clear in the rear-view mirror. Professional politicians in Japan have been telling stories for 20 years as to why they can prevent economic stagnation. In the US, the storytelling started in 2007. All the while, stock market and real-estate prices have every opportunity to rally to lower-highs, then collapse to lower-lows.

Despite all of the dissimilarities between Japan and the US, there is one similarity that continues to matter most in our risk management model – debt as a percentage of GDP. Now that the US can’t cut interest rates any lower, the “perfection of planned layout” to quantitatively ease, is also similar. We agree with Reinhart & Rogoff that crossing the 90% debt/GDP threshold is the equivalent of crossing the proverbial Rubicon of economic growth.

On July 2nd, as part of our Q3 Hedgeye Macro Themes presentation, we cut both our Q310 and full year 2011 GDP estimates for the US to 1.7%. At the time, these US economic growth estimates were about ½ the Bloomberg consensus estimate. Now we’re starting to see both the sell-side and the Fed gradually cut their estimates, but not by enough. Our estimate for 2011 is still too high.

Growth slowing, both domestically and in China, is core to our bearish views on both the US Dollar and US Equities. There will be a downward bias to our US growth estimates as long as debt-financed-deficit-spending continues to remain the answer to the Fiat Fools prayers.

Markets trade on expectations. Yesterday’s setup in the SP500 was unlike most Augusts in America. That’s because the ‘government is good’ crowd leaked an idea to the Wall Street Journal that QE2 was coming, and that Ben Bernanke was going to solve for buy-and-hope begging.

To think that we have institutionalized market expectations in this great country to this degree is downright frightening. All things rallies start and end with rumors about what a humble looking man of government will represent at 215 PM EST on an August afternoon. Sadly, this kick starts thoughts of what another thoughtful European mind, Alexis De Tocqueville, warned about American style democracy in the 19th century.

So now what?

What do we do with this big Keynesian intervention that has delivered the fear-mongering national marketing message? Have we sufficiently scared the horses? While we’ve been getting paid, has this “perfectly planned layout” of telling Americans that this is a “great depression” worked?

With 40.8M Americans on food stamps (record high) and 45% of the unemployed having been seeking employment for 27 weeks or more (record high), now what?

Should we start begging for QE3? Should we cancel the bomb of an Existing Home Sales report for public release on August 24th? Or should we get back on TV after checking our I-pads and drinking our $5 mocha-frap and tell Americans to bite the bullet on ZERO percent returns-on-savings while we pay Washington to continue to lever-up our future to the point of economic collapse?

Before the Fiat Fools run out campaigning for QE3, never mind decisions made in 1997 Japan, maybe they should analyze some real time market results to yesterday’s announcement of QE Light:

  1. The US Dollar is battling for resuscitation after 9 consecutive down weeks at $80.80 (down -9% since June)
  2. US Treasury yields are making record lows on the short end of the curve, with 2-year yields striking 0.49%!
  3. The Yield Spread (10yr minus 2yr) continues to collapse, down another 4bps day-over-day to 223bps
  4. US stock market futures are diving below the beloved 200-day Moving Monkey line of 1115
  5. US Volatility (VIX) is spiking from its intermediate term TREND range of support (22-23)
  6. QE Specialist (Japan) got smoked overnight, closing down -2.7% to down -11.9% YTD

Now what?

De Tocqueville’s answer: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

My immediate term TRADE lines of support and resistance for the SP500 are now 1099 and 1138, respectively.

Best of luck out there today,

KM

Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer

The Point of Collapse - toc2