Sunday, February 21, 2010

First Dubai, Now Kuwait

There is probably no country on earth that can insulate itself from the next phase of the credit crunch. Witness the case of Kuwait, in Kuwaiti bankers' own words:



Most of Kuwait’s multibillion-dollar investment company industry could be wiped out by debt repayments on the finance houses’ leveraged investments made before the recession, senior bankers have warned.
(snip)

While bankers said the investment company woes were largely contained in Kuwait and should not spread, they could lead to distressed sales of overseas assets and were weighing on the exposed local banking sector.



I love the mention of "distressed sales of overseas assets." Take a guess where those assets are located. If you have trouble, just look out your window at the nearest shuttered shopping mall. While you're at it, let your neighbors know that they should slash the asking prices for their homes right now if they want any hope of selling. That's the only way they'll get ahead of the coming CRE debt crash.

These observations are tantamount to an admission that Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds will be too preoccupied with their own solvency problems to fund any more debt-fueled stimulus in the Anglo-West. The U.S. can forget about a second fiscal stimulus. I blogged about all of this in 2009. Nobody listened to me and that's okay. My historical record is there for anyone to search.

That cloud you see on the horizon is a swarm of Black Swans. You do see it, don't you?