Unintended Consequences

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."

– Sigmund Freud

Let me introduce Mauldin's Rule of Thumb Concerning Unintended Consequences:

For every government law hurriedly passed in response to a current or recent crisis, there will be two or more unintended consequences, which will have equal or greater negative effects then the problem it was designed to fix. A corollary is that unelected institutions are at least as bad and possibly worse than elected governments. A further corollary is that laws passed to appease a particular group, whether voters or a particular industry, will have at least three unintended consequences, most of which will eventually have the opposite effect than the intended outcomes and transfer costs to innocent bystanders.

This week we wonder about the consequences of the European Central Bank (ECB) issuing over €1 trillion in short-term loans to try and postpone a banking credit crisis and lower sovereign debt costs for certain peripheral countries in Europe. What if, instead of holding the European Monetary Union (EMU or Eurozone) together, that actually makes a breakup more likely? That would certainly fall under the rubric of unintended consequences, and be worth our time to contemplate in this week's letter.

Further, what if the group that oversees credit default swaps declares an actual sovereign debt default not to be a technical default in order to avoid a credit crisis because CDSs would have to be paid? Could that actually undermine the ability of smaller countries to borrow money at lower cost, if they could even borrow it at all? Thus making the eventual outcome even worse? We will explore these perplexing questions and more as we once again turn our attention to Europe.

But first, and quickly, we are now ready to take reservations for the 9^th Annual Strategic Investment Conference, May 2-4, which this year will be in Carlsbad, California for the first time, at a venue that will allow us to take a few more attendees but still keep that intimate feeling. I host the conference, along with my partner Jon Sundt and his team at Altegris Investments.

Each year I wonder how we could make the conference any better, but I think we have done it. I must say that I do not think any conference anywhere has the quality speaking line-up that we do. It is the finest collection of top-notch raconteurs posing as economists assembled anywhere. Each speaker is a headliner in his own right, wherever they go. We have nothing but the best each year.

Look at this line-up: Dr. Woody Brock, Mohamed El-Erian, Marc Faber, Niall Ferguson, Jeff Gundlach, David Harding, Dr. Lacy Hunt, Paul McCulley, David McWilliams (from Ireland), David Rosenberg, Jon Sundt, and your humble analyst. Plus the surprise guests. Seriously, where else can you find all that talent under one roof? I design the conference each year to be the one that I would want to attend. And Sundt and team run as smooth and enjoyable a conference as you will find anywhere.

Signing up will also give you access to exclusive papers and webinars. For example, next week I'll be interviewing Winton Capital Management. For regulatory reasons, you will need to speak with Altegris to verify your accredited-investor status, prior to being allowed to attend. You can learn more and register by going to http://meetings.StrategicInvestmentConference.

I should note that the best feature of the conference is the attendees themselves. You will make new friends and meet old ones. And the speakers are very accessible. The price goes up considerably on March 15, so register early. We always sell out, and I get calls asking to get in at the last minute, and have no way to help. Don't procrastinate. Register now. We are way ahead of last year on the pace of registrations. Again, it will sell out. Do it now.

Unintended Consequences

The ECB injected (created? printed?) €529.5 billion for an annual cost of 1%, more than the €489 billion they issued just last December. This was called a long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO. The total now is over €1 trillion euros (around $1.3 trillion), which can only make Ben Bernanke jealous. That money was technically issued to the various national central banks, who in turn lent it to their various commercial banks for…