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| Now |
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| Then |
Assets
- x4.40 - Gold and gold receivables
- x1.08 - Claims on non-euro area residents denominated in foreign currency
- x5.94 - Claims on euro area residents denominated in foreign currency
- x2.50 - Claims on non-euro area residents denominated in euro
- x7.37 - Lending to financial sector counterparties of euro area (5 "then", 5+6 "now")
- x27.87 - Securities of euro area residents denominated in euro
- x0.50 - General government debt denominated in euro
- x3.47 - Other assets
Liabilities
- x2.62 - Banknotes in circulation
- x8.51 - Liabilities to euro area financial counterparties denominated in euro
- x∞ - Debt certificates issued ("now" €0)
- x5.05 - Liabilities to other euro area residents denominated in euro
- x16.04 - Liabilities to non-euro area residents denominated in euro
- x4.65 - Liabilities to euro area residents denominated in foreign currency
- x1.66 - Liabilities to non-euro area residents denominated in foreign currency
- x9.53 - Counterpart of special drawing rights allocated by the IMF
- x3.72 - Other liabilities
- x6.83 - Revaluation accounts (unrealised MTM asset gains/losses)
- x1.62 - Capital and reserves
Of note
- The balance sheet bottom line now is x4.27 what it was back then.
- Gold and gold receivables formed 15% of the balance sheet total both then and now.
- The leverage of total assets against gold and gold receivables, "then" was x6.88, "now" is x6.68.
- Between the revaluation accounts plus capital and reserves, the total equity in the Eurosystem balance sheet is now €492,988,000,000 or so. So I figure they could handle quite a lot of stress before they would have to worry about becoming insolvent.
Meanwhile the Fed's balance sheet is currently leveraged x55 or so (but if they brought the Treasury's gold fully onto the balance sheet at floating market valuation, MTM like the ECB does, they would find themselves with a very similar leverage ratio). It could be time to reconsider the way the Fed's accounting is done?
5 comments:
Between the revaluation accounts plus capital and reserves, the total equity in the Eurosystem balance sheet is now €492,988,000,000 or so. So I figure they could handle quite a lot of stress before they would have to worry about becoming insolvent.
Of course, if they did decide they were hitting problems and were short on equity... they could enter the market and bid up the price of gold. Which would increase the revaluation accounts and recapitalise their balance sheet.
Depending on the circumstances, they might choose to either bid with euros (devaluing their own euro) or with some of those €254billion or so of claims on non-euro area residents denominated in foreign currency (devaluing foreign currency). Which option was chosen may have wildly different effects on the global economy.
how can a CB become "insolvent" anyway?
Thanks to ESM, Target2, ELO, etc... there are plenty of "badbanks" arround, much better than any kind of gold for TPTB on whatever balance sheet. I dont see any problems to roll the debts over and over to infinity, so if it is x6 or x1000000 what's the difference at all anyway?
Since nobody, and I really mean NOBODY gives a sh!t. How many persons in real life do you know that actually are kind of reasonable have figured out the background? And I mean outside the AlexJones-Illuminati-Thin-Foil-Head-Idiots.
Greets, AD
It's true, I can only think of two people I have ever met IRL and thought they are even 1% interested in touching the topic. But neither of them really had a clue either, unfortunately (but at least they were quite receptive to what I had to say in response to their questions and appeared to find it of interest).
In the scheme of things, I'm probably blessed to have met such an abundance of real ordinary people, not at all internet-dwelling freaks like you and me, prepared to consider these topics for a few minutes. One of them even reads the Economist, realised right away that much of what I was saying was the opposite of the picture he gets from there, but at the same time what I was saying actually made a lot of sense to him - dare I say more sense? It's a shame he lives very far from me and I don't see him often.
how can a CB become "insolvent" anyway?
EXACTLY! Devalue and go. Simples.
so? and what difference would it have made in WeimarGermany, if the CB had one gold/platin/silver coin on its balance sheet to "devalue against"? I dont see any, but please explain.
IMHO, what matters is exclusively: WHO holds what tokens (debit,credit,gold) with what intention and WHO produces with what intentions.
It is not the volume of tokens, it is the distribution, that decide about their value.
Greets, AD
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