Argentine bonds show growing speculation that the country will default for the second time this decade as inflation and anti-government protests swell.
The nation's $10.8 billion of floating-rate dollar bonds due in 2012 yielded 7.20 percentage points more than Treasuries of similar maturity at 5:43 p.m. in New York. That implies an almost 20 percent chance of Argentina halting payments in the next two years, according to Credit Suisse Group. No other emerging-market government securities have as high a probability of default.

The 19 percent decline in bond prices since President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner took office in December shows investors are losing faith even as record commodity exports spur the longest economic expansion in at least two decades. Confidence waned after statisticians accused the government of fabricating data to hide an inflation surge and farmers alienated by a tax increase staged a nationwide strike that caused food shortages last month.


So, Argentina will collapse and go bankrupt because the government is lying about inflation? Oh my. The US gets away with this only due to foreign powers propping up our corrupt politicians who pull this exact same stunt here. But we can't do this forever. It is obvious after a decade of inflation lying, the lion of inflation has risen and is now stalking us. By the way, if Argentina goes belly up, this is going to drag us downwards, too. We are way too fragile with a dead banking system, to fake it much longer if other nations let go and fall off the cliff. THIS IS HOW THE GREAT DEPRESSION DEVELOPED.


Investment Outlook

Bill Gross

Minsky, McCulley, El-Erian, Gross, Feldstein, Summers, and a host of others would likely argue that additional policy measures are required to support home prices which have fallen by 10% over the past 12 months and are set for a repeat by this time in 2009. Lower Fed Funds? They would, in PIMCO’s opinion, likely do more damage than good from this point forward. Foreign and domestic investors are being fleeced with negative real interest rates, and the weak dollar, stratospheric commodity prices and steadily rising import inflation are the result. The better alternative is to initiate a limited mark-to-market write-down of private mortgage debt as envisioned in the Dodd-Frank Congressional proposal combined with government-subsidized loans at below market rates. Look at it this way: you can allow a home to fall in price from $400,000 to $300,000 and force an upside-down "short sale" foreclosure, or you can reduce the homeowners’ $400,000 mortgage to $350,000, refinance the loan through the FHA at 4% and stabilize the neighborhood and its home prices. Surely Republicans, Democrats, AND Wall Street mortgage holders (PIMCO included) can recognize that stability as opposed to freefall market clearing is the better alternative, especially if the pain is shared by all parties. It is our best chance to cushion Minsky’s asset-based deflation.

The problem is, the vanishing wealth. No one in their right mind is going to put their money into anything that is losing value and this emphatically includes the dollar itself. No one giving advice or peering into the future can see reality if they refuse to understand that we are in a negative wealth cycle now in the West. And there is no magic charm or easy out. There is one and only one way out: to save money and work for profits which get plowed back into value-added labor output. Not Funny Money™ making schemes. But rather, real industrial output. I see Germany and Japan cutting back on industrial output. The last local factories here in Berlin, NY, my dying town, are cutting shifts and no longer running day and night but are running at a half staff. We can't be a nation of bankers, property flippers, gamblers and therapists. We have to produce something tangible and real. And the profits must be generated here, not fly off to Japan or Germany! And we will never save any money if interest rates are 500 points below the rate of inflation!