Spain Plunders 90% Of Social Security Fund To Buy Its Own Debt

Zero Hedge
Jan 4, 2013

With Spanish 10Y yields hovering at a ‘relatively’ healthy 5%, having been driven inexorably lower on the promise of ECB assistance at some time in the future, the market has become increasingly unsure of just who it is that keeps bidding for this stuff. Well, wonder no longer. As the WSJ notes, Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds – with at least 90% of the €65 billion ($85.7 billion) fund has been invested in increasingly risky Spanish debt. Of course, this is nothing new, the US (and the Irish) have been using quasi-government entities to fund themselves in a mutually-destructive circle-jerk for years – the only difference being there are other buyers in the Treasury market, whereas in Spain the marginal buyer is critical to support the sinking ship. The Spanish defend the use of pension funds to buy bonds as sustainable as long as it can issue bonds – and yet the only way it can actually get the bonds off in the public markets is through using the pension fund assets. The pensioners sum it up perfectly “We are very worried about this, we just don’t know who’s going to pay for the pensions of those who are younger now,” or those who are older we would add.

Via Wall Street Journal: Spain Drains Pension Fund In Borrowing Spree

Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds, raising questions about the fund’s role as guarantor of future pension payouts.

Now the scarcely noticed borrowing spree, carried out amid a prolonged economic crisis, is about to end, because there is little left to take. At least 90% of the €65 billion ($85.7 billion) fund has been invested in increasingly risky Spanish debt, according to official figures, and the government has begun withdrawing cash for emergency payments.

Although the trend has drawn little public attention or controversy, it has become a matter of concern for the relatively few independent financial analysts who study the fund, which is used to guarantee future payments of pensions.

And in other news, and completing the picture, if not the circle jerk, is news from Libremercadothat according to the Spanish Confederantion of Employer Organizations, some 60% of the Spanish companies are now losing money. Via Google translate:

The President of the Spanish Confederation of Employer Organizations (CEOE) has estimated that “60 percent of the companies are in losses. Thing is that entrepreneurs are more thoughtful and went outside.”

Joan Rosell responds well after being asked if he receives “Spanish citizens too negative” in an interview with the newspaper La Razon, who heads a special titled “2013, the recovery begins,” and says that “social unrest is evident and business world is no exception. ”

The president of the CEOE has considered that the private sector “has already made ??all the restructuring that had to do and the decline in employment in the private sector has virtually stopped. now is the restructuring of the public sector.”

After defining the first year of Mariano Rajoy in government as a year of shock, Rosell has considered that the Spanish economy remains “superfluous fat by many sides.’s Central government, regional and local. Avoid duplication. We are a country hiperregulado “.

It is not exactly clear why google translate had a problem with that last word…

This article was posted: Friday, January 4, 2013 at 6:40 am

---

---

---

---

Infowars.com Videos:

Comment on this article

Comments are closed.