Why Europe Cannot be Saved in the Long Run; It's the Math

[JimBowie1958]

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As such the EFSF would take care of Europe's issues for at least 2 years, or so the thinking goes. There are two major problems with this math however, and Buiter makes them all too clear.

One: rating downgrades and ongoing deterioration - should the financing needs of not only Spain and Italy, but also Belgium and France, post its inevitable AAA-downgrade, need to be funded the total insurable amount rises to €2,371.6 billion through Q2 2014. And since there needs to be headroom, and since a number of €3 trillion has been thrown around, there is just no practicable math of how one gets from the current committed funding to the €726 billion that would be required for the full funding amount, especially with a AAA-rating still retained by the CDO. Second, and just as important, is taht the 20% first loss ratio "may well be far too optimistic." Simply said, a far more realistic recovery rate would be one of 50-60% meaning a first loss guarantee of 40-50% will be required, which collapses the total insurable "pot" to about €600 billion. Buiter's unpleasant, for Allianz, Merkel and Sarkozy conclusion is that "that would likely not fund the Spanish and Italian sovereigns until the end of 2012. It would not be a big bazooka but a small pea shooter."...

Italy and Spain together have just under €2.5 trillion worth of general government debt outstanding. Tradable Spanish and Italian sovereign debt alone amounts to €2.1 trillion. Adding Greece, Ireland and Portugal raises general government debt to €3.1 trillion and tradable government debt to €2.6 trillion. Adding Belgium would raise these totals to €3.5 trillion and €2.9 trillion. In the perhaps unlikely case that France would need sovereign debt insurance, targeting the stocks rather than the flows would require taking care of €5.1 trillion of gross sovereign debt or €4.3 trillion of tradable government debt.

These numbers are beyond the size of even the most optimistic estimates of the most audacious of rescue umbrellas. Fortunately, to avert a funding disaster for the vulnerable sovereigns, only the flows of new funding need to be insured. As Figure 3 makes clear, these flows, while large, are more manageable than the stocks.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Special Series (Part 1): Assessing the Damage of the European Banking Crisis | STRATFOR