The ECB's Target2 Lies - Exposing The Real Capital Flight From Italy & Spain

Sep 25, 2017 5:00 AM Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, The ECB claims that Target2 does not represent capital flight. Evidence says the ECB is wrong, especially for Italy and Spain. I have discussed this previously, but let’s recap Target2 before taking a look at new charts. Project Syndicate writer, Hans-Werner Sinn, explains why the ECB’s asset purchases and Target2 imbalances constitute “Europe’s Secret Bailout”. Under the ECB’s QE program, which started in March 2015, eurozone members’ central banks buy private market securities for €1.74 trillion ($1.84 trillion), with more than €1.4 trillion to be used to purchase their own countries’ government debt. The QE program seems to be symmetrical because each central bank repurchases its own government debt in proportion to the size of the country. But it does not have a symmetrical effect, because government debt from southern European countries, where the debt binges and current-account deficits of the past occurred, are mostly repurchased abroad. For example, the Banco de España repurchases Spanish government bonds from all over the world, thereby deleveraging the country vis-à-vis private creditors. To this end, it asks other eurozone members’ central banks, particularly the German Bundesbank and, in some cases, the Dutch central bank, to credit the payment orders to the German and Dutch bond sellers. Frequently, if the sellers of Spanish government bonds are outside the eurozone, it will ask the ECB to credit the payment orders. Read more:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-24/ecbs-target2-lies-exposing-real-capital-flight-italy-spain In the latter case, this often results in triangular transactions, with the sellers transferring the money to Germany or the Netherlands to invest it in fixed-interest securities, companies, or company shares. Thus, the German Bundesbank and the Dutch central bank must credit not only the direct payment orders from Spain but also the indirect orders resulting from the Banca de España’s repurchases in third countries. The payment order credits granted by the Bundesbank and the Dutch central bank are recorded as Target claims against the euro system. For the GIPS countries [Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain], these transactions are a splendid deal. They can exchange interest-bearing government debt with fixed maturities held by private investors for the (currently) non-interest-bearing and never-payable Target book debt of their central banks – institutions that the Maastricht Treaty defines as limited liability companies because member states do not have to recapitalize them when they are over-indebted.