Thursday, 18 Nov 2010 01:30 PM
By David Skarica
Investors are worried about Ireland’s banks – and rightfully
so, with some estimates placing their bad debts at around $80
billion.
However, I think something that has recently occurred that no
one is talking about is the breakdown in California’s municipal
bonds. (I would like to thank a reader, Michael Kammen, who
first alerted me to this.)
We know that California has huge debt problems, with estimates
the deficit for 2010-2011 will be at $6.1 billion after a $6.9
billion deficit in 2009-2011.
However, this is going to explode in the 2011-2012 fiscal
year as revenue drops and expenditures climb — most estimates
have this at more than $25 billion.
California has done a lot of one-time measures in attempts to
keep the deficit down but these basically run out of gas in
2011-2012.
The performance of California muni bonds has reflected these
worries in recent months and especially in recent weeks.
Below is a chart of the CMF, or the iShares S&P California
Municipal Bond Fund. As we can see, this has fallen off a cliff
in recent weeks.
Story Continues Below
This should come to no surprise to anyone who has watched
California in recent years. The government has issued IOUs and
it has huge unfunded liabilities.
However, I don’t think California will default.
We must remember that pension funds and the like all own these
bonds.
In reality, there will be another federal guarantee put behind
these bonds.
The Fed will probably have to print money to fund this debt
along with the federal debt in order to save pension funds and
the like.
This means more money printing, more inflation and a lower U.S.
dollar going forward.
The media will continue to harp on Ireland but the coming
California crisis is going to much larger in both size and
scope.
California is a much larger economy than Ireland and the impacts
of its coming crisis will in turn be much larger.
About the Author:
David Skarica
David Skarica is a member of the Moneynews Financial Brain
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