Saturday, November 6, 2010

Economics 6/11/10: Private sector response to DofF estimates

Yesterday’s morning note from Eurointelligence.com – a politically neutral economics site read: “A really bad day for European peripheral bond markets, as market participants realise that the Irish recovery plan is a pile of baloney, based on wishful thinking and unrealistic forecasts (which are shocking also believed by private sector forecasters in Ireland). The assumption is essentially that the crisis has no real GDP effect. This is the Irish government’s official forecast for the growth, inflation and unemployment for the next four years, contained in the Irish budget plan."

Summary here:

Their analysis is illustrated by a chart from Calculated Risk showing scary dynamics:


But the ‘happy-to-parrot DofF’ quasi-official analysts of IRL Inc took a different view of the numbers. So was Eurointelligence right in being sarcastic about ‘private sector forecasters’ misfiring in their enthusiasm for DofF numbers?

Per one ‘research note’ Irish deficit problems are attributable, at least this year, to things like ‘decrease in GDP’ (apparently, something no one could have foreseen). And palatable comparisons are being made between the UK adjustments planned ahead (less than 6% of GDP over next 5 years) and Irish adjustments envisioned by DofF (9.5% of GDP through 2014), without actually bothering to check what’s happening between Euro and Sterling lately, or possibly worse – without understanding the relationship between currency value and deficits.

One of our most cheerleading ‘analysts’ remarked that markets “may take some consolation from the depth of next year's adjustment, which is at the high end of expectations” obviously confusing their own sales pitch to the clients with the market view. Markets promptly corrected this by bidding up our bond yields.

Defending DofF ‘forecasts’ was done on a reference to a single figure that almost matches this broker’s view and a claim that we can’t really tell much about their realism because there isn’t enough detail provided by DofF. It sounds like an argument that famines are caused by the lack of food. The entire point of the DofF 'forecasts' was to provide certainty. The fact that the Department failed to do so escaped the broker.

Funny thing – the same broker lauded the details provided on interest payments from the recapitalization promissory notes. “The general government balance will reflect no promissory interest charge until 2013, when the charge will be €1.75bn for two years, reducing thereafter. Alleviating uncertainty around these charges is a positive but also reinforces the reality of a challenging fiscal situation.” Alleviating uncertainty? Did anyone notice the fact that DofF is projecting forward 4.7% interest rate – the average for 2009 – despite the fact that the entire universe expects ECB rates to rise by 2013? You’d expect the brokers to understand that no yield curve in this world remains flat for 5 years. Then again, may be this is not something our official ‘economists’ are aware of.

Another broker produced an equally priceless analysis: “The revised forecast [of 1.75% real growth next year] is below the median projection of 2.0% growth in the latest Reuters monthly Irish economists’ poll.” Oh, mighty, that wouldn’t be the same economists’ poll that missed the Great Recession and predicted soft landing for the property markets, failed to detect the beginning of collapse in Exchequer revenues and spot a market crash. Oh, and just in case you still doubt the powers of the Reuters ‘Irish economists’ poll’ – the poll covers only the 'economists' who thought Irish banks shares back in 2007 were not overvalued and Anglo was a great little bank besieged by bad short-sellers…

About the only research note on Irish Government announcement that didn’t cause a severe tooth-ache like reaction when I read them was NCB’s note.

The prize for the least readable (and least informative) commentary goes to Goodbody’s note, which spots a host of typos, grammatical errors, confusion and absolutely ludicrous assertions that “recent bond market jitters have been caused by factors outside of Ireland’s control, namely the fear that some European nations are considering a mechanism for restructuring of euro-area member’s sovereign debt at some stage in the future.” I mean what can you make of an ‘economics’ analysis that claims that ‘factors outside’ country control can override the fact that we have 32% deficit this year?! To me, it looks like a worldview which would miss a nuclear blast for a match strike.

1 comment:

ottogunsche said...

This article reiterates (not that it needs to be reiterated) the need for independent economic analysis and commentary.

It would seem that the views of bodies like Eurointelligence and the bond markets, are directly opposite to the views (and commentaries) put forward by some domestic economists and analysts.

Given the fact that preactically every single number issued by the MoF and the DofF has been wrong (soft landings, unemployment rate, budget deficit, cost of the bank bailout), I know which set of arguments holds sway in my mind!