Showing posts with label Irish households. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish households. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

25/3/15: IMF on Irish household debt crisis


IMF on Irish household debt crisis (from today's Article IV paper):

"Household balance sheets are healing gradually, yet loan distress remains high and over half of arrears cases are prolonged. Households have cut nominal debts by 20 percent from peak through repayments primarily funded by a 4 percentage point rise in their trend savings rate. Debt ratio falls have been large by international standards but debt levels remain relatively high at 177 percent of disposable income. Household net worth has risen 25 percent
from its trough."


One note of caution: IMF statement ignores sales of household debt out of the Central Bank-covered statistics to vulture funds. Furthermore, repossessions, insolvencies, bankruptcies, voluntary surrenders and some mortgages restructurings have also contributed to the reduction in household debt. Thus, not all of the debt reduction is down to organic debt repayment by households.

It is also worth noting that per chart above, Irish household debt is currently at the levels of 2005-2006 - hardly a robust reduction on crisis-peak.

More from the IMF: "A recent survey finds household debts concentrated among families with mortgages, having 2 to 3 children, with the reference person aged 35 to 44, and in the two top income quintiles. Yet, their debt servicing burden is still similar to other groups, reflecting the high share of long-term “tracker” mortgages, with an average interest rate of 1.05 percent at end 2014."

The problem is that the recent survey IMF cites covers data through 2013 only! (http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/socialconditions/2013/hfcs2013.pdf).

Overall issues, therefore, are:

  1. Irish household debts remain extreme relative to disposable income;
  2. Distribution of household debts is adversely impacting the most productive segment of Irish population and the segment of population in critical years for pensions savings; and
  3. Deleveraging of the households is by no means completed and remains exposed to the risk of rising interest rates in the future.


All points I raised before and all points largely ignored by Irish policymakers.

Friday, December 12, 2014

12/12/2014: That Invisible Irish 'Trickle Down' Recovery: Consumers' View


In recent posts (see all five of them linked here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/12/12122014-qna-q3-2014-irish-external.html) I covered in detail the latest official stats on Irish economic recovery/growth. The picture these figures present is of basically static domestic economy, with questionable quality 'exports-led recovery'.

So what's can one add to the above? Ah, just a couple of recent surveys.

Remember, the political meme is that the recovery is charging ahead and is trickling down to ordinary families and into the real economy. Which, naturally, suggests that households should be feeling better. If not fully 'great', at the very least better… So do they?

We can look at consumer confidence indicators from the ESRI to check. Alas, these are bearing negative relation with actual domestic demand. Still, on a shorter note, core retail sales have been rising recently - in volume - and a starting to show some life in value. Chart below illustrates just how weak the 'real recovery' has been despite the sentiment - as measured by ESRI - has been allegedly at all time highs:


But there are other surveys to look at.

Based on Amarach data: in April 2014, 41% of Irish people thought Ireland is a great place to live in. By November 2014 this rose to 56%.But less than half of us felt that there are
opportunities in Ireland for those who are prepared to seek them out (49% in November, still, a rise on 42% in April 2014). So the 'recovery' is not exactly the one where opportunities for betterment are being presented, even if we control for effort.

Good news is - people are getting more optimistic: in November, 56% of surveyed felt that better times lie ahead for the Irish economy, up on 48% in April. Hopium is a powerful drug, especially when dispensed in massive doses of Government-paid-for PR via all channels of traditional media. Allegedly, quality of life in Ireland is ranked as being high by a rising proportion of people too: from 48% in April to 56% in November, although we have no idea what this means, really, this should translate into a feel-good factor of sorts. Right? Well, let's give it a pause and think - the above are all issues relating to 'us' as a collective. Let's see what surveys said about personal.

View: "I feel angrier about austerity now than I have ever felt before." If things are so good at collective levels, surely they should good at personal level too? In November 2014, 49% of surveyed agreed with the above statement and only 16% disagreed. Wow! All the recovery and the goodies from the Budget 2015 and those feeling angrier with the state of our policies is outstripping those who do not by more than 3:1.

Confirming the above, 59% of Irish people felt that economic pressures are making them  depressed. Only 24% disagreed. 39% of Irish people felt that the economy (not the economists) is having a negative impact on their personal health. 29% disagreed. When asked of they feel being successful/very successful in managing their finances, 56% of us agreed back in September 2013, 50% agreed in April 2014 survey and 50% in November 2014 survey. So things are not getting better in terms of our perceived financial health over time. They are getting worse.

Do the people plan to 'vote' with their money for the recovery? Don't hold your breath, folks. Only 16% of us said they will loosen the purse strings a bit next year. 49% said they won't.

Here are some numbers on how we feel about the state of our financial affairs, not as a nation or as Troika



Well, the last line in the table above is telling.

But may be the above data is suspect? Well, why not check with the 'Optimists par excellence' from the ranks of Big 4 'consultancies'? Let's take a look at Deloitte. Surely they can see the optimism around?

Check out their H2 2014 Consumer Review. Here are the snapshots:

We feel, predominantly, no better about all major points of economic well-being today:


And we want to save more, spend less and borrow less:


So where's that 'trickle down' optimism contagion from all the feel-good policies the Government allegedly lavishing upon us all? Spot one beyond those jobs-for-life-and-pensions-for-free walls of the Government 'think tanks', if you can…

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

10/6/2014: Credit to Irish Households: Q1 2014

Having recently posted miraculous recovery in terms of yet another quarter of declines in lending to Irish private sector enterprise (see: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/06/662014-credit-to-irish-resident.html) repaired/restored/reformed Irish banking system coughed out another set of 'encouraging' data points… today's one coming on the side of credit advanced to Irish private [assuming this excludes Irish public - aka celebrity economists et al] households. And guess what… the aforementioned repaired/restored/reformed Irish banking system is shrinking in terms of household credit too, still…

Chart to start with:

And the above shows:

  • Total credit extended to Irish households falling 2.62% in Q1 2014 compared to Q1 2014 and down 0.54% q/q
  • Credit advanced for house purchases is down 1.21% y/y and basically flat (-0.03%) q/q.
  • SVR mortgages volumes are up (arrears restructuring and new mortgages extended adding to the pile of soon-to-be even more expensive loans, as the banks re-engage in margins rebuilding post-ECB rate cut); Trackers are down; Up to one year fixed rates mortgages are up, Fixed rate mortgages are down;
  • Other personal loans are down whooping 9.98% y/y and are down 5.82% q/q (with both Finance for investment and Finance for other purposes sub-categories down by more than 5% q/q).


Meanwhile, deposits (remember our 'gargantuan' savings rates that worry everyone from ESRI to DofF) well… deposits are down 1.78% y/y and down 0.14% q/q.

Remember our Government's talk about repairing the banking system? One of the core metrics for this was loans/deposit ratio. Chart below shows evolution of this:


Observe one interesting regularity: since Q4 2011, loans-deposit ration in terms of Irish households' balance sheets averaged 114.7% and in Q1 2014 this ratio was… err… 114.2%. In other words, things have not been improving when it comes to loans/deposit ratio for some 10 consecutive quarters now…

Since we are onto the topic of 2011, recall that in H1 2011 we have recapitalized Irish banks, which, ever since that time, been on a steady path of recovery. Even Wilbur Ross says as much, let alone our Ministers and Senior Officials. Numbers confirm… the opposite story: compared to H1 2011, q1 2014 levels of households' credit in the economy was down massive 18.2%, credit for house purchase down massive 15.5%, credit for other purposes down gargantuan [truly] 30.9%, while deposits are down 1.82%.

Clearly things have to be looking sunnier some day soon... of Wilbur will have to come back to help us repair the banking system once again...

Friday, May 9, 2014

9/5/2014: Irish Credit Conditions Worsened in Q1 2014


Latest data on interest rates (covered here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/05/952014-cost-of-credit-in-ireland-kept.html) and credit outstanding in the Irish banking system shows continued deleveraging in the economy:

At the end of Q1 2014,
-  Total volume of loans outstanding declined 5.6% y/y,
-  Loans to Households were down 1.54% y/y and
-  Loans to NFCs were down 9.29%.
-  Loans for house purchases were down EUR1.46bn,
-  Households' overdrafts rose EUR1.39bn, while
-  Consumer credit loans were down EUR1.43bn.
-  NFCs overdrafts fell EUR2.81bn and
-  Non-overdraft NFCs credit fell EUR5.2bn.

So credit available to enterprises and households in Ireland is still falling. More significantly, households are accumulating overdraft liabilities. And the cost of these facilities is rising.

Not a good sign, suggesting households and corporates are being squeezed on both ends of the debt deflation pump.


Sunday, May 9, 2010

Economics 09/05/2010: Abandonning the ship of fiscal reforms

Here is an unedited version of my current article in the latest edition of Business & Finance magazine.


After two years of frantic crisis management by default and piece-meal recapitalizations, last month, the Irish state has fully committed to an outright dumping of public and banks debts onto the shoulders of the ordinary taxpayers. Since the onset of the crisis in 2008 through 2014, based on the latest Budgetary projections and banks recapitalization plans, the Government will consign ca €221 billion liabilities onto Irish workers, businesses and entrepreneurs. This figure, adding to a whooping €234,000 of new debt per average household with two working parents, is the toxic legacy of our crony corporatism.

Consider the banks. Minister Lenihan’s announcement made on Super Tuesday in March means that over the next two years, the Irish taxpayers will foot a bill of some €37 billion in direct capital injections to the banks. The interest on this bankers’ loot will add up to another €12 billion over 10 years. Nama will contribute the net loss of up to €30 billion to our woes. This comprises the costs of loans purchases, bonds financing and Nama management and operations, less the expected recovery of assets and the cash flow from the undertaking. When all is said and done, Irish people will be left with a gargantuan bill of almost €80 billion for rescuing the banks, not counting tens of billions of written-down loans and ruined businesses.

If you doubt this figure, look no further than the numbers released to accompany Tranche 1 transfer of assets from the banks to Nama. These show that having paid €8.5 billion for the first instalment of loans, Nama financial wizards managed to overpay €1.2-3.1 billion compared to the actual value of the loans. On day one of its operations, therefore, Nama has managed to put the taxpayers billions deep into the negative equity. Minister Lenihan’s choice of the cut-off date of November 30, 2009 for Nama valuations implies that Irish taxpayers stand to lose over €1.5 billion on top of all other previously forecast Nama losses. This addition is a pure waste, as there is absolutely no logistical or economic reason for setting such a date in the first place.

In the mean time, taxpayers’ representatives – from our ‘public interest’ banks’ directors to legislators – continue to insist that Nama is a profit-making opportunity for the state. In a recent encounter with myself on a national radio programme, Darragh O’Brien TD who acts as a Vice-Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has gone so far as to claim that under Nama, the state will be borrowing money from the ECB at 1% and lending it to the banks at 3%, thereby earning an instant gain of 2% on the transaction. The fact is according to Nama own documentation it will be the state who will owe the banks an annual coupon payment at the rate of euribor (currently just over 1.2% for a 12 month contract). This rate will be resettable every 6 months, so looking back at historical data, Nama cost of borrowing can easily go to 4.9% - the euribor level back in 2007 or even higher. Since the banks will be holding the bonds they, not the Exchequer, will be collecting the interest payments. The Irish taxpayers, therefore, can potentially be on the hook for an additional €2.6 billion subsidy to the banks in the form of coupon payments on the bonds.

My estimates of the overall debt burden imposed by the banks onto the taxpayers are erring on a conservative side. The latest figures from the Central bank show that the entire Irish banking sector, inclusive of non-Guaranteed institutions, holds a balance of just €226 billion in customers deposits. Assuming that some 10-15% of these deposits are subject to customer demand in any two weeks period, risk-adjusted customer deposit base of Irish banking sector is roughly €192-203 billion. This is offset but loans to customers amounting to €609 billion, plus bonds in the amount of €73 billion, and short-term ECB deposits of €78 billion. Thus, the ratio of debt and short-term obligations relative to customer deposits in the Irish banking sector currently stands at more than 323%. Liquidity risk-adjusted, this figure rises to 400%. In comparison, UK’s Northern Rock had 306% loans to customer deposits ratio at the peak of its solvency crisis in 2008.

So the entire recapitalization fiasco, coupled with the continued stream of disastrous news from the Anglo and the spectacular collapse of the INBS, should have taught us one simple lesson – people who are in charge of the banking crisis management in this country are either unaware of facts or are willingly distorting the reality.


However, for all of its publicity, the banking crisis pales in comparison with the fiscal meltdown we face. As of the time of going to press, Irish workers and small businesses – the lifeline of our economy – are being held hostage by the ‘deal brokering’ between the Trade Unions and the Government. The likeliest outcome of these talks will be a public sector ‘reforms’ package which will see a deferred reversal of Government intentions to cut wasteful spending. Freezing future pay cuts in the public sector, while pushing forward a naïve (if not deceptive) agenda of ‘improved productivity’ means that while in theory we might get more for each euro we spend, in practice, the overall spending bill will remain well out of touch with our tax receipts. The structural deficit simply cannot be corrected by plastering the expenditure gap over with new work practice rules. Only a dramatic cut in overall spend, plus a significant cut in the numbers employed in the public sector will save this country from becoming Greece-sur-Atlantique.

Looking at the Government own projections for future deficits and factoring in the cost of borrowing, Ireland Inc will have to find some €92 billion from now through 2014. Factoring in deficits cumulated between January 1 2008 and December 31 2009 adds another €37.3 billion, plus interest to the above figure. All in, 2008-2014 fiscal deficits are likely to cost Irish taxpayers some €139 billion based on Government own figures. How realistic these Government projections are is a matter for another debate, but the recent revision of our 2009 deficit from the Government-published 11.7% to 14.3% of GDP by the Eurostat shows that the above estimate of the total deficits-related costs can be even higher. Either way, the fiscal crisis we face is clearly much more significant than the banks crisis.

Having invited the Unions back to the bargaining table, the Government has ex ante turned taxpayers into a bargaining chip that it can (and will) use to appease the intransigent interest groups.

Which brings us back to that top line figure of €221 billion in liabilities that Messrs Cowen and Lenihan have decided to offload from the banks and public sector and onto the shoulders of the ordinary taxpayers. Per CSO’s latest data there are 1,887,700 people in employment in Ireland today. Everyone of these workers – no matter whether currently covered by the tax net or not – will be facing an average bill of some €117,000 for the mistakes made by our past Governments’ public expenditure policies, bankers, regulators and developers.

This is, put simply, an unsustainable mountain of public and quasi-public liabilities. Something will have to give.

Back in 2008, Ireland’s top 11,714 earners (those who earned more than €275,000 in a year), paid almost 18% of all income tax. Forget the fact that many of these individuals are now broke. Doubling their tax rates would deliver less than €10 billion in tax revenue over the next 5 years – hardly a drop in the sea of new public debt being created. Quadrupling taxes on Irish median earners – those with income around €25,000 mark – will yield no more than €5 billion in new revenue through 2014. A full one third of all income earners back in 2008 were outside the tax net. These workers, with incomes below €17,000 per annum, are about to be thrown to the wolves by our policies as the Government sets out to plug the twin budget and the banks black holes. Taxed at the standard rate, they will be in for some €0.9 billion tax burden annually. So where will the rest of €205 billion come from?

In reality, the Government simply cannot avoid hiking taxes on businesses. Budget 2010 forecasts corporation tax revenue to reach €3.16 billion. Doubling the rate of tax to 25% can be expected to yield no more than €12-14 billion through 2014. So even this amount will not correct for the public sector and banks’ debts.

Super Tuesday’s announcements by the Minister for Finance signalled the beginning of an end for the dreams for a better future for this and several subsequent generations of Irish people. Remember when Mr Lenihan asked us to be patriotic in his Budget 2009 speech?

Since July 2007, the Government has shown itself incapable of understanding the nature of the crises we face. The banks, we were told, were suffering shortage of liquidity. This means that replacing dead-weight loans on their balancesheets with bankable quasi-Government bonds will do the job of restarting lending. We now know that the real problem the banks face is that of insolvency, with their balancesheets destroyed by worthless loans offset by hefty liabilities. We were told that the collapse in the Exchequer tax revenue not the excessive permanent spending habits of our State were to be blamed for the fiscal crisis. Now we can see the truth – the Irish Exchequer and economy are facing a problem of insolvency, for not even a restoration of tax revenue to its pre-crisis long-term trend will resolve the problem of excessive deficits.


Box-out
Over the recent weeks, the heated debate about Irish banks’ liabilities has shifted its attention to the elusive bond holders. “Who are, these captains of speculation armada? The sharks of the international financial markets?” some demanded to know. Well, we can’t quite tell you who all of them are, but at least for some of the three big banks’ bond holdings we can tell. These arch-capitalists are… you, me, and the Irish Exchequer. That’s right. Per NTMA own figures, our National Pension Reserve Fund – the pot of gold at the end of the public sector employment rainbow – designed to shore up Exchequer pensions deficit has managed to get its snout deep into the Irish banks bonds feeding trough. In the 12 months between December 2007 and December 2008, NPRF has bought itself into a long position in AIB variable rate bonds - €155 million, Bank of Ireland fixed coupon bonds €205 million, Bank of Ireland variable bonds €35.5 million, hiking its overall exposure to Irish banks’ bonds from €89.2 million in 2007 to €461.7 million in 2008. Given that these long positions withstood the wholesale collapse in banks bonds prices in 2008, this was an incredibly risky bet. Then again, adding up NPRF’s balance sheet exposures to low liquidity, higher risk investment classes, such as unquoted property investments, commodities and private equity, corporate debt in Greece, plus almost €74 million worth of Greek Government bonds, etc, NPRF’s higher risk investments accounted for almost 13% of the entire investment portfolio in 2008, up from 11% in 2007 and 6.3% in 2006.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Economics 14/11/2009: Irish Insitituional Accounts 2008

CSO is not the quickest of institutions when it comes to timely release of data, so when it comes to Institutional Accounts, all we have to go for now is 2008 end of year data released earlier this week. Here is my take on it.
Chart above shows broad GDP composition. The decline in GDP in 2008 is pronounced and it is relatively clear that Non-Financial Corporations lead the way in driving down our gross domestic product. To see this in more details, consider the decomposition below:
Absent real growth in private sectors, public sector becomes more pronounced. In other words, as overall economy decline, public spending picks up in relative terms. Everything else is tanking. Not surprising, really. But in percentage terms, this is throwing some additional insights (below):Now, the story of our economic downturn is very much in full view - productive part of domestic economy (non-financial corporations and households and financial sector) is in deep retreat. Non-productive public deficit financing of state consumption is swinging into positive. Also, note that household contribution fall off is pretty much in line with financial sector fall off. This is indicative of the fact that (as I have argued consistently before) our financial crisis was not caused by external forces of credit crunch, but by internal mountains of bad debts accumulated by corporates and households.

Another point from above is just how dire are the conditions in non-financial corporate sector. Only a fool would believe that this precipitous collapse in the relative share of GDP accruing to non-financial companies in Ireland can be repaired by injection of more debt into the system.
Chart above shows that Net National Income (NNI=GNI-depreciation, GNI=GDP+net receipts from abroad of wages and salaries and of property income), which by its definition nets out along with depreciation some of the effects of transfer pricing has fared pretty much in line with GDP. Interestingly, households contribution to NNI is in excess of their contribution to GNP, suggesting lower depreciation and potentially rising inflows of income from abroad when it comes to Irish households. It also reflects the outflow of foreign workers (either out of Ireland or onto unemployment benefits), reducing income outflow out of the country. General Government line shows clearly that net income multiplier of government spending is negative - which is logical when you consider the fact that the Government borrows from abroad to finance current spending at home.
Percentage contributions to NNI are equally revealing of the fact that Government spending cannot be seen as income-additive when it comes to net income accruing to this country. Remember - per earlier slides, Government spending was a positive contributor to GDP, but a negative contributor to NNI.
Gross operating surplus in the economy fell in 2008 across all private sectors and rose for Government sector. Why? Because while talking about the need to correct deficit, to cut spending and to take tough measures necessary to rebuild exchequer finances, our leaders were all too keen to actually pre-borrow as much as possible before 2009 hit. 'Do as I say, not as I do' is the motto...And thus net savings collapsed for Irish Exchequer as net borrowing soared. In contrast, households - scared first by rising joblessness and tanking stock markets and collapsed house prices, then by Leni's VAT measures and Government's inability to act - have moved early on into precautionary savings. Good for them - Irish non-financial corporations, in contrast decided to cut their savings - a sign of debt overhang in a recession. This means that overall, Irish corporations will emerge from this crisis with no spare cash to sustain restart of capital investment. This might be a good thing, given that over the last 10 years, most of Irish corporate 'investment' involved buying up competitors' firms at peak market valuations in a hope that if you make your company bigger, it will grow faster.

External balance has improved, but underlying it, trade flows to and from Ireland have come under pressure:
To nobody's surprise, net worth fell off the cliff in 2008 for the entire economy, although household savings allowed for a rise in their net worth position. 2008 marked the first year in modern history when Irish households net worth exceeded that of the Irish Government. Just think about it: the state dependent on taxpayers has had higher net worth than those who financed it... Spot anything here? How about 'fairness' idea our political leaders love waving around.Net lending positions (above) are also self-explanatory. But here is an interesting angle on CSO's data:
While Government share of GDP rose, its share of Net National Income declined. Even more dramatically, Government share of net disposable income fell even faster than that of NNI. Why? Because as Government deficit went through the roof, net disposable income fell -4.66% which is even faster than GDP (-4.18%). How? One word: Taxes!