Waiting for Humpty Dumpty
June 24, 2016·0 comments·europe
Markets have convinced themselves that central banks can contain any crisis. But the very interventions meant to prevent systemic collapse are becoming the evidence that one is building. Brexit itself isn't the breaking point. It's the warning that central banks are running out of ammunition to prevent one that is.
- Central banks are intervening at accelerating rates. The Fed is jawboning about neutral stances, FX markets are flooded with intervention, and rate cuts are being priced in where tightening was promised. Each new tool deployed suggests the previous toolkit wasn't enough.
- The parallel to 2008 is uncomfortable. After Bear Stearns collapsed, markets rebounded and the narrative shifted to "systemic risk is off the table." Lehman came seven months later. The pattern repeats: crisis, intervention, false confidence, larger collapse.
- EU leaders understand the game perfectly. They need to make an example of the UK to discourage France, Italy, and Spain from following. The economic punishment will be deliberate and severe, not accidental. It's rational deterrence, not spite.
- But deterrence only works if it scares people. If the EU's signal fails to convince other countries to stay, the entire structural logic of the Eurozone collapses. France's election or China's currency float could trigger the moment when central banks can't glue the pieces back together.
- The question isn't whether a breaking point exists, but when. Every patch applied now buys time but changes nothing about the underlying fragility. The systems that prevented Humpty Dumpty from falling are the same systems that will fail to put him back together.
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