EURUSD Shall Send EU Into Cardiac Arrest

At almost 1.36, purchasers of EURUSD have completely lost grip with reality. Between US monetary policy and Japanese central bank response, carry trades have been caught in a torrential storm. If you were on the wrong side of those moves, your screams were lost to the cheers of equity bulls. However, the move is overextended, largely built on your back.

The problem is that there really is no economy, globally, that can afford to be the leaning post for the rest of the world. The assumption of global macro economics was always that the likelihood of all economies being in the same desperate condition at the same time was negligible. Unfortunately, as the economies became co-dependent, the assumptions of i.i.d. that made those statistical declarations possible withered away.

None of the economists noticed.

So now, here we are, and monetary policy can only be used to grab a quick upper hand. Ultimately, the brunt of utilizing the printing press ends right back on your country’s inhabitants. There’s no “superiorly positioned” exporter that can afford to give up a few points of growth.

So, as you watch the EURUSD climb, remember that each step of the move is unhinging the stability of the largest social wellfare state on the planet. With Germany, the keystone of Europe, flirting with recession, and Spanish and Italian debt barely under control (largely thanks to a renewed Japanese/US carry trade), the wellbeing of EU states is imperative.

But as I said, all countries have become interdependent. The same monetary response that has lowered Spanish/Italian bonds is also making EU exports uncompetitive. Any previously witnessed ECB policy response to this problem simultaneously makes debt yields increase. The only way to avoid the complimentary variance here is for the ECB to purchase EU debt directly.

Throughout the entire debate, this activity has been staunchly opposed by Germany, Finland and Austria. Will those countries cave? Or will they finally succumb to their ethnic roots, and become completely disaffected with EU authority?

Regardless, the euro disaster has not finished rolling yet.