Argentina's struggle with the vulture funds

For those who read Spanish here some news on Argentina's struggle with the vulture funds. It was published on 2 August 2014 by Gaceta Mercantil. As you may know, US judge Thomas Griesa does not allow Argentina to pay its restructured debts without also paying the vulture funds. However, he made an exception to his ruling, as you can read below. 

 

Griesa autoriza el pago de bonos argentinos en Europa

El juez de Nueva York consideró por única vez que no podían ser incluidos en su sentencia a favor de los "fondos buitre".

01 de agosto del 2014r

1 / 1

Showing image 1 of 1

El juez federal de Nueva York  Thomas Griesa completó este viernes una autorización para el pago de bonos argentinos reestructurados a través de dos agentes en Europa, tras considerar por única vez que no podían ser incluidos en su sentencia a favor de los fondos especulativos.
Griesa había fallado en ese sentido el pasado 28 de julio a favor del banco Citibank y ahora amplió su orden a los agentes de pago europeos Cleartream (con sede en Luxemburgo) y Euroclear (con sede en Bélgica), por los que transita el dinero en su camino a los bonistas en Europa.
La decisión no modifica el bloqueo que el juez mantiene sobre los 539 millones de dólares depositados por Argentina en el Bank of New York para abonar intereses de bonos reestructurados bajo legislación estadounidense en los canjes de 2005 y 2010, decisión judicial que colocó al país en situación de default parcial.
Citibank, Euroclear y Cleastream habían presentado una "moción de aclaración" en el litigio por la deuda soberana argentina sobre el pago de unos bonos en sus manos.
Tras analizar la cuestión, y a pesar del pedido de los fondos especulativos para frenar la transferencia, Griesa resolvió que por única vez Citibank podía efectuar ese pago que incluye bonos reestructurados en dólares bajo legislación nacional y otros emitidos como parte del acuerdo con Repsol por la estatización de la petrolera YPF.
Según la orden, el banco deberá distinguir a partir del 30 de julio entre los títulos reestructurados y los emitidos como parte del acuerdo con Repsol, algo que Citibank no podía hacer en esta ocasión por no disponer de tiempo suficiente.

A change of power in the global financial system?

Here is an interesting article about a possible change of power in the global financial system. It is written by Mark Weisbrot, who has authored recently interesting articles about Argentina's struggle with the vulture funds (see, for example, the previous post of 24 June 2014). It was published by Aljazeera America on 18 July 2014.

BRICS’ new financial institutions could undermine US-EU global dominance

The IMF and the World Bank could have real competition for the first time

July 18, 2014 9:00AM ET

by Mark Weisbrot @MarkWeisbrot

During the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, when middle-income countries were hard hit by big capital outflows, there was an effort by China, Japan, Taiwan and other countries to put together an Asian Monetary Fund to offer balance of payments support. Washington vetoed the idea, insisting that all assistance had to go through the International Monetary Fund. The result was a mess, including an unnecessarily deep regional recession, as the IMF failed to act as a lender of last resort and then attached all kinds of harmful and unnecessary conditions to its lending.
But the world has changed a lot in the past 15 years. Last week the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) decided to form the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and the New Development Bank (NDB), and the United States will not have a veto this time. These new institutions could mark a turning point for the international financial system.
Western media coverage of these developments has been mostly dismissive, but that primarily reflects the concerns of Washington and its allies. They have had unchallenged sway over the decision-making institutions of global financial governance for 70 years, and the last thing they want to see is competition. But competition is exactly what the world needs here.
The IMF and the World Bank were created in 1944, when the United States was pretty much the only standing industrial power in the world. The institutions mirrored that unipolar reality. Today Washington still controls both institutions, with the subordinate partnership of a handful of rich allies; the same is true for the G-7, G-8 and G-20. In recent years, as the eurozone has become the recipient of most IMF lending, the European directors have, of course, been given the predominant voice on policies in this region, but it’s still the same group of countries in charge. And even in the World Trade Organization, which was formed in 1995 and has a different consensual process, the founding rules were written by the rich countries — and in this case, especially their corporations.

Although most economists and most of the major media have ignored it, the IMF’s loss of influence over economic policy in most middle-income countries is one of the most important developments in the international financial system in the past half-century.

For decades there have been efforts to give the majority of the world’s nations a voice at the IMF and the World Bank, but progress has been glacial at best. The BRICS countries have more than 40 percent of the world’s population, and China is now the world’s largest economy, but they have almost no voice at either institution. To say that an alternative has been long overdue is an understatement.
The BRICS NDB has gotten the most attention, but the $100 billion currency reserve fund could prove a much bigger breakthrough. For most countries, one of the biggest constraints and sources of potential instability is the balance of payments. They must have enough dollars or other hard currency to finance imports and enough international reserves to insure against a panicked flight from their currency. Otherwise, their economies can fall into a crisis, a recession or other devastating economic imbalance. Most of the damage from the Asian financial crisis might have been prevented with timely balance of payments support.
But the harmful macroeconomic conditions attached to IMF lending have continued. Just look at Ukraine, where the economy is shrinking by 5 percent this year and the IMF is imposing austerity that will prolong and possibly deepen the recession. An examination of IMF policies during the global recession of 2009 showed that 31 of 41 countries with IMF agreements were subjected to pro-cyclical macroeconomic policies — that is, policies that could be expected to worsen an economic downturn or impede recovery. And although the IMF is only the junior partner in the troika, with the European Central Bank and European Commission, together they have dragged Europe through years of unnecessary recession and the collective punishment of mass unemployment, and that has hurt most of the global economy — including the BRICS and other developing countries.
The BRICS’ defection is part of a process that has been taking place over the past 15 years, in which middle-income countries have accumulated sufficient reserves to vote with their feet and break out of the IMF’s orbit. Although most economists and most of the major media have ignored it, the IMF’s loss of influence over economic policy in most middle-income countries is one of the most important developments in the international financial system in the past half-century. It has almost certainly contributed to the rebound of economic growth in most developing countries over the past decade. It is also, not coincidentally, a huge loss of influence for the U.S. government, which has traditionally used the IMF’s creditors’ cartel for its own imperial purposes.
The BRICS’ new CRA has the potential to break the pattern not only of U.S.-EU global dominance but also of the harmful conditions typically attached to balance of payments support. It could prove very important in the next few years: A lot of money has poured into emerging market government bonds since the Fed set short-term interest rates at zero more than five years ago. A lot of it could up and leave when the Fed decides to raise interest rates here. Such rate hikes were a major cause of the Mexican peso crisis in 1995 and hit other countries such as Brazil and Argentina a few years later. The BRICS countries have indicated that they are open to having other countries join. China has about $4 trillion in reserves, so it has the potential to contribute vastly more and probably still come out ahead, as most of its reserves will likely be losing money in U.S. Treasury bonds. There’s no telling how soon this new fund will be up and running or how big or inclusive it will grow to be. But the upside potential for the world economy is very big.

Mark Weisbrot is a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is also the president of Just Foreign Policy.

Capitalism is a Shame

The case of Argentina’s default shows it again: capitalism is a shame. Argentina has been declared in default, but the default is with them, the finance people ruling the world, supported by a judicial system that defends their interests.

Here is a report from Reuters:

Argentina braces for market reaction to second default in 12 years

By Sarah Marsh

BUENOS AIRES Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:58am EDT

0 CommentsinSha

A woman walks past a graffiti that reads ''No to the debt payment'' in Buenos Aires, July 28, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Marcos Brindicci

(Reuters) - Argentina defaulted for the second time in 12 years after hopes for a midnight deal with holdout creditors were dashed, setting up stock and bond prices for declines on Thursday and raising chances a recession could worsen this year.
After a long legal battle with hedge funds that rejected Argentina's debt restructuring following its 2002 default, Latin America's third-biggest economy failed to strike a deal in time to meet a midnight deadline for a coupon payment on exchange bonds.
Even a short default will raise companies' borrowing costs, pile more pressure on the peso, drain dwindling foreign reserves and fuel one of the world's highest inflation rates.
"It is going to complicate life for businesses like YPF which were going to look externally for financing," said Camilo Tiscornia, a former governor of Argentina's central bank. State-controlled energy company YPF (YPFD.BA) needs funds to develop Argentina's huge Vaca Muerta shale formation.
Argentina had sought in vain to win a last-minute suspension of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York to pay holdouts $1.33 billion plus interest. He ruled Argentina could not service its exchange debt unless it paid holdouts at the same time.
A proposal for Argentina banks to buy out the hedge funds' non-performing debt also fell through, sources told Reuters.
"This is a very particular default, there is no solvency problem, so everything depends on how quickly it is solved," said analyst Mauro Roca of Goldman Sachs.
As dire as it is, the situation is a far cry from the mayhem following the country's economic crash in 2001-2001 when the economy collapsed around a bankrupt government. Millions of Argentines lost their jobs.
This time the government is solvent. How much pain the default inflicts on Argentina, which is already in recession, will depend on how swiftly the government can extricate itself from its obligations.
Buenos Aires had argued that agreeing to the hedge funds' demands to pay them in full would break a clause barring it from offering better terms than those who accepted steep writedowns in the 2005 and 2010 swaps.
However, that clause expires on Dec. 31, after which the government would be able reach a deal with the funds. Many investors and economists still hope for a separate solution before then between the holdouts and private parties.
"Our base case is that a default would be cleared by January 2015," said Alberto Bernal, a partner at Miami-based Bulltick Capital Markets. He projected that a default would cause the economy to shrink 2 percent this year compared with a previous market consensus for a 1 percent contraction.
Failure to strike a deal will not cause financial turmoil abroad because Argentina has been isolated from global credit markets since its 2002 default on $100 billion, but domestic markets that had rallied on hopes of a deal in recent days will probably reverse course.
Yields on Argentina's key dollar bond due 2033 fell to the lowest level in about three and a half years on Wednesday, and the country's MerVal index .MERV hit a record.
"The correction will depend on perceptions of how long the default will take to solve," said Roca.
HOW DIRE A DEFAULT?
The default could get much messier and take longer to clear up if creditors force an "acceleration" for early payment on their bonds.
"How bad the outcome ends up being depends on whether bondholders accelerate," said Alejo Costa, strategy chief at local investment bank Puente.
"Acceleration would open a new legal battle for the government that could end up in a new restructuring."
Argentina has foreign currency restructured debt worth about $35 billion while its foreign exchange reserves stand at $29 billion.
U.S. ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Wednesday downgraded the country's long- and short-term foreign currency credit rating to "selective default". The default rating will remain until Argentina makes its overdue June 30 coupon payment on its discount bonds maturing in 2033, the agency said.
Holders of insurance against an Argentine credit default will have their eyes peeled for an announcement from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). If ISDA declares an Argentine default, the total amount of money that would be paid out is just over $1 billion.
After two days of talks with holdouts in New York, Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof on Wednesday evening told reporters that Argentina was not in default because it had made the June $539 million interest payment to holders of exchanged bonds - even if this had not reached creditors by July 30, at the end of the month-long grace period.
Judge Griesa called the payment illegal and blocked the funds' onward transfer to creditors. It remains in limbo in the Buenos Aires account of trustee agent Bank of New York Mellon.
Argentines were sanguine about news of the default.
"We have been in a similar situation before, and we will make it through," said a 27-year old employee at an automobile firm who declined to give his full name. "The sun rises each day. It will get resolved, be it next week, or next month."
(Additional Reporting by Richard Lough and Eliana Raszewski; Editing by Ken Wills)

Argentina's debt restructuring attacked

Here is an interesting article in the New York Times about bondholders ('vulture funds') obstructing a reasonable restructuring of Argentina's debt.

The Debt Vultures' Fell Swoop

By MARK WEISBROT 

JUNE 22, 2014

WASHINGTON — Last week, the United States Supreme Court decided not to review a ruling in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals whose effect is that Argentina must pay “holdout” creditors who refused to participate in debt restructuring agreements that Argentina reached with the majority of bondholders following the 2001 default on its sovereign debt. Argentina’s lawyers warned that the court’s decision created “a serious and imminent risk” that the country would again be forced to default. But the ruling also has profound and disturbing implications for the functioning of the international financial system, and even the United States would most likely be adversely affected.

Parties as diverse as the International Monetary Fund and leading religious organizations wanted the Supreme Court to overturn the decision, and briefs supporting this position were filed by the governments of France, Brazil and Mexico, as well as by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. The I.M.F. — which has had mostly sour relations with Argentina since its involvement in that country’s 1998-2002 recession — was also planning to file a brief on Argentina’s side to the Supreme Court, but was blocked by the American government from doing so. This action may have influenced the court’s decision not to hear the case.

Argentina defaulted on its international debt at the end of 2001, following a deep recession. After years of negotiations, the government reached a restructuring agreement with its private creditors, in which the bondholders accepted a loss of about two-thirds of the value of their bonds. In 2005, 76 percent of the creditors had signed on; by the end of 2010, more than 90 percent had. Argentina has made all of its payments on the new, restructured bonds, on time.

The complication was over a group of “holdout” bondholders who did not agree to the restructuring. The plaintiffs in the New York case are widely known as “vulture funds,” because they bought the bonds after the default at a fraction of their value, hoping to use court rulings like this one to force payment at the bonds’ original face value.

The appellate court ruled that if Argentina was paying the holders of restructured bonds, it must also pay the holdout or vulture fund creditors in full — and its decision implies that the punishment for an attempted default could be never-ending. This raises the question of how many decades a people should be forced to suffer for the mistakes or transgressions of earlier leaders — whether elected or, as is often the case, unelected. (Much of the Argentine debt, in fact, was incurred by a dictatorship.)

Another key implication of the ruling is that governments that are bankrupt would now find it difficult or impossible to negotiate a settlement with their creditors. Who will take a haircut on their bonds if they can refuse the terms and sue for the full value?

In the United States, and most other countries, there are bankruptcy laws designed to allow for companies and individuals facing unpayable debt to make a new start. There is no such legal mechanism for countries, so these restructuring agreements are an important way of resolving problems of unpayable sovereign debt.

The court’s decision would make it difficult to issue the new bonds needed for restructuring, as well as further debt in the future. Just one holdout bondholder or vulture fund creditor could torpedo the process.

In addition, Argentina’s default and devaluation in 2001-2 is widely regarded as a success. The country’s economy shrank for just three months after the default, and then began a rapid-growth recovery. By the end of 2011, Argentina had achieved a record rate of employment, reduced poverty by nearly 70 percent and allowed for a tripling of social spending in real terms.

A decade after the devaluation, the Argentine economy has run into trouble — partly because the vulture funds have prevented it from borrowing on international markets — but there is no doubt that Argentines are vastly better off for the path that was taken. For comparison, look at Greece: After six years of austerity-driven recession, which included a 40 percent cut in health care spending, the unemployment rate stands at 26.8 percent (and more than double that rate for youth) and the net public debt has grown to 169 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Most experts agree that the appellate court ruling would have a destabilizing effect on international financial markets. There is economic justice to consider, too. Argentine bondholders were paid high interest rates on their bonds because there was risk. Capitalism is not supposed to be a “heads I win, tails you lose” bet — but the Second Circuit Court’s decision would make it that way for sovereign debt bondholders.

Argentina may find a way around the court’s decision, by issuing new bonds and making payments that are outside of the court’s jurisdiction. But this ruling in favor of the vulture funds will do continuing damage to ordinary people around the world that will show up in future debt crises.

Mark Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the president of Just Foreign Policy. 

You may also be interested in this interview.

March in London against austerity

Tens of thousands march in London against coalition's austerity measures

An estimated 50,000 people in London addressed by speakers, including Russell Brand, after People's Assembly march

• Kevin Rawlinson and agencies
• theguardian.com, Saturday 21 June 2014 20.45 BST
• Jump to comments (679)

Russell Brand told the marchers there will be a 'peaceful, effortless, joyful revolution' against austerity in the UK. Photograph: Rex Features

Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday afternoon in protest at austerity measures introduced by the coalition government. The demonstrators gathered before the Houses of Parliament, where they were addressed by speakers, including comedians Russell Brand and Mark Steel.
An estimated 50,000 people marched from the BBC's New Broadcasting House in central London to Westminster.
"The people of this building [the House of Commons] generally speaking do not represent us, they represent their friends in big business. It's time for us to take back our power," said Brand.
"This will be a peaceful, effortless, joyful revolution and I'm very grateful to be involved in the People's Assembly."
"Power isn't there, it is here, within us," he added. "The revolution that's required isn't a revolution of radical ideas, but the implementation of ideas we already have."
A spokesman for the People's Assembly, which organised the march, said the turnout was "testament to the level of anger there is at the moment".
He said that Saturday's action was "just the start", with a second march planned for October in conjunction with the Trades Union Congress, as well as strike action expected next month.
People's Assembly spokesman Clare Solomon said: "It is essential for the welfare of millions of people that we stop austerity and halt this coalition government dead in its tracks before it does lasting damage to people's lives and our public services."
Sam Fairburn, the group's national secretary, added: "Cuts are killing people and destroying cherished public services which have served generations." (...)

An international student call for pluralism in economics

"...it is time to reconsider the way economics is taught. We are dissatisfied with the dramatic narrowing of the curriculum that has taken place over the last couple of decades. This lack of intellectual diversity does not only restrain education and research. It limits our ability to contend with the multidimensional challenges of the 21st century - from financial stability, to food security and climate change. The real world should be brought back into the classroom, as well as debate and a pluralism of theories and methods."

The quote is from the international student call below. This is positive news, students who take the social science of economics more seriously than most of their teachers. I only copy the beginning of their Open Letter, you can read the rest here or by clicking on the links in the text below. The Press coverage of the student call is also encouraging.

International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics

Argentina - Australia - Austria - Brazil - Canada - Chile - Denmark - France - Germany - India - Israel - Italy - Pakistan - Russia - Slovenia- Spain - Sweden - Switzerland - United Kingdom - USA - Uruguay

• Home
• Open Letter
• Member Groups
• Support Us
• Press
• Comic

français - deutsch - dansk - norsk - español - עברית - italiano
русский - polski - 日本の - svenska - português - 简体中文

---

An international student call

for pluralism in economics

 

It is not only the world economy that is in crisis. The teaching of economics is in crisis too, and this crisis has consequences far beyond the university walls. What is taught shapes the minds of the next generation of policymakers, and therefore shapes the societies we live in. We, over 65 associations of economics students from over 30 different countries, believe it is time to reconsider the way economics is taught. We are dissatisfied with the dramatic narrowing of the curriculum that has taken place over the last couple of decades. This lack of intellectual diversity does not only restrain education and research. It limits our ability to contend with the multidimensional challenges of the 21st century - from financial stability, to food security and climate change. The real world should be brought back into the classroom, as well as debate and a pluralism of theories and methods. Such change will help renew the discipline and ultimately create a space in which solutions to society’s problems can be generated. 

United across borders, we call for a change of course. We do not claim to have the perfect answer, but we have no doubt that economics students will profit from exposure to different perspectives and ideas. Pluralism will not only help to enrich teaching and research and reinvigorate the discipline. More than this, pluralism carries the promise of bringing economics back into the service of society. Three forms of pluralism must be at the core of curricula: theoretical, methodological and interdisciplinary.

(...)

Staggering news from the Netherlands - The bankruptcy of neoliberalism according to bankers and entrepreneurs

On November 14, 2013 there was a meeting in Amsterdam with interesting and surprising statements, coming from the financial and business community in the Netherlands and Europe. They advocated – in a confidential setting – for measures virtually no socialist party would dare to take on his behalf. In business circles one is surprised that people do not rebel against the state’s budget cuts. Here is a report.

Last night we had a special, baffling Gulf Group Evening about neoliberalism. One of the attendees had just returned from a meeting with Dutch bankers and entrepreneurs, employees of the European Commission and the Dutch Central Bank and some scientists.
Here is a brief account of the evening. The following was said by bankers and entrepreneurs, with additions of participants to the evening:
- The Dutch economic and financial policy is all wrong , the economy is hurt dramatically by the cuts;
- The multinationals have accumulated too much money and are not investing it productively;  so there is over-accumulation, a Marxist term used by the bankers;
- The corporate tax for companies should be dramatically and rapidly increased so that money flows back to the state and can redistribute it;
- The ratio between capital and labour is totally skewed and has grown at the expense of labor;
- The wages in the Netherlands for many years have been too low and should urgently be increased because people are not spending and small and medium businesses go bankrupt;
- The cuts in state expenditures are fragmenting and undermining society;
- It is astonishing that the Dutch do not revolt, said a surprised banker;
- The 3 % target for the government budget deficit relative to GDP, which makes people widely unemployed and unhappy (according to a recent newspaper article the suicide rate in the Netherlands has increased by 30 percent) is a randomly picked rate;
- The banks in the Netherlands are in a precarious situation, because when people want to get their money en masse from the bank, that money is not there and the government must intervene with much higher amounts than previously - which is probably impossible;
- The trade union movement in the Netherlands is very weak, they are wimps, they walk behind the government policy .

The participants to the Gulf Group Evening noted that the same austerity policies in the Netherlands and other European countries in the thirties had led to almost all political parties to look alike in their austerity drive, and that this had led to a mellow population that lost confidence in politics, and to the emergence of nationalist and fascist movements, in the Netherlands and elsewehere, but especially in Germany. And it had led to the Second World War.
Only after the devastating war in Europe Keynesian policies were put in place, with an important role for the state in the economic process, and a redistribution of power between capital and labour in favour of labour, and the welfare state was carefully built.
Participants also noted that it was strange and unfortunate that it first appeared the financial and economic crisis of 2008 would lead to a replacement of the global financial system – that with its derivatives and ever newer and incomprehensible financial products had become unmanageable - by a better system, but that nothing was done with the proposals of the international committees that were set up. The current financial (non)system just went on, and even deepened. A large part of the population of Europe goes along with it, and is part of it by home ownership and as co-holder of the pension system.

Aafke Steenhuis
Jan Joost Teunissen