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NB dans le premier envoi j’avais oublié la référence du graphique

Une fois n’est pas coutume, de tous les dirigeants européens réunis aujourd’hui à Bruxelles pour le sommet européen, le Premier ministre Gordon Brown est apparu le premier dans l’enceinte du Conseil, quasiment une heure avant ses homologues.

Rompant avec une tradition solidement établie côté britannique, qui veut que les “briefings” de presse organisés avant les sommets soient réservés aux seuls médias insulaires, il a convié journalistes étrangers et caméras pour délivrer le message suivant: une coordination sur le plan économique est nécessaire au plan mondial, imitant en celà les propositions de Nicolas Sarkozy.  “Nous avons besoin d’un système d’alerte précoce pour l’écomie globale” a déclaré Gordon Brown.
En revanche,

il a appelé à la conclusion d’un accord de libre échange,

rendue nécessaire selon lui par l’ampleur de la crise financière, ce qui va plutôt à l’encontre des thèses défendues à l’Elysée.

Enfin, il a estimé que son pays n’avait pas besoin d’être membre de l’Eurogroupe, puisqu’un siége lui avait été réservé lors de la réunion des Quinze du week-end dernier.

Bref, le “maître du monde” ne serait pas l’hôte de l’Elysée, mais le locataire du 10 Downing Street.
Depuis que le plan britannique visant à garantir les prêts interbancaires a servi de base au plan de l’Eurogroupe, “Gordon Brown ne touche plus terre”, racontent les familiers du Premier ministre.

Ce dernier se considère, en partie à juste titre, comme l’inspirateur des décisions prises par les membres de l’Eurogroupe, discutées aujourd’hui par les Vingt-Sept. Et souhaite pousser son avantage.

Pour sa part, le président de la commission, José Manuel Barroso, raconte qu’il a plaidé auprès de Nicolas Sarkozy pour que ce dernier convie son homologue britannique à Paris le week-end dernier, une invitation qui n’allait pas de soi. Pour le président de la commision toute initiative susceptible d’arrimer plus fermement le Royaume-Uni à l’Union européenne est bonne à prendre.

Sommet: Brown tente de voler la vedette à Sarkozy, Pierre Avril, http://blog.lefigaro.fr/presidence-francaise-UE/2008/10/sommet-brown-tente-de-voler-la.html

EU, US call for a global summit to reshape banking
By AOIFE WHITE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 15, 2008; 6:16 PM
BRUSSELS, Belgium—The Group of Eight major industrial nations announced Wednesday they will hold a global summit _ perhaps as early as November in New York _ to forge common action to prevent another economic meltdown.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said all European Union nations backed radical restructuring of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He called for a meeting “preferably in New York, where everything started” and said it should lead to “a new capitalism.”
Sarkozy said emerging economies such as China, India and others outside the G-8 should also participate because “no one should feel excluded from what we are recasting.”
EU leaders meeting in Brussels “all agreed that we don’t want the same causes to produce the same effects in future,” the French leader said. “We don’t want all this to start again; we want lessons to be learned.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the meeting would require vision similar to the creation of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods conference that laid out the post-World War II international financial and monetary system.
The G-8 leaders said in a joint statement released by the White House that they were united in their commitment to change the regulation of the world’s financial sector to restore confidence and “remedy deficiencies exposed by the current crisis.”
“We are confident that, working together, we will meet the present challenges and return our economies to stability and prosperity,” they said.
Brown, a longtime former Treasury chief widely seen as a leader in crafting policies to combat the financial crisis, said he wants a group of supervisors from major nations to monitor the world’s 30 largest financial institutions.
“I believe there is scope for agreement in the next few days that we will have an international meeting to take common action ... for very large and very radical changes,” Brown told reporters before meeting for talks on the financial crisis with other EU leaders, who on Wednesday endorsed a $2.3 trillion continentwide emergency bailout for the banking sector.
“We now have global financial markets but what we do not have is anything other than national and regional regulation and supervision,” Brown said. “The IMF has got to be rebuilt as fit for purpose for the modern world. We need an early warning system for the world economy.”
Sarkozy said a string of government bailout plans had “treated the immediate symptoms of the crisis without attacking the roots of the disease.”
“We need to found a new capitalism based on values that put finance at the service of companies and citizens and not the reverse,” he told EU leaders.
“This fundamental reform can’t stop at Europe. The economy is global; no country can protect itself alone,” he said. He demanded that new global rules cover all financial institutions _ including hedge funds.
The French leader said later that the European Union will back an overhaul of global financial system.
In a document given to EU leaders at a Wednesday summit and obtained by The Associated Press, Brown said he wants banks to rethink how they deal with risk, and called for rules that make banks hold enough funds to cover potential losses, improve transparency in the system and eliminate conflicts of interest. Brown also wants executives to take more responsibility and end a system that encouraged reckless risk-taking.
The current financial crisis began more than a year ago with heavy losses sustained by financial institutions in the United States on their investments in subprime mortgages.
“Urgent work is needed to prepare proposals that address executive compensation structures that encourage excessive and irresponsible risk-taking by financial institutions,” Brown wrote.
He also said governments need to try to close gaps in the “emerging shadow banking system.”
The financial boom saw many banks jump into largely unregulated areas _ such as complex securitized investments _ while high-risk investors like hedge funds operated in near-secrecy.
Brown’s paper urges “globally accepted standards of supervision and regulation applied equally and consistently in all countries.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G-8 _ the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia _ and emerging economies had to make decisions “so that something like this can never happen again.”
The G-8 leaders praised the actions taken by finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-7 countries last Friday when they adopted a five-point action plan to deal the current financial troubles. That plan pledged efforts to keep major financial institutions from failing and to unfreeze credit markets. The G-7 includes all the countries in the G-8 except Russia.
President Bush met with the G-7 officials on Saturday and then later in the day attended a session of the Group of 20 nations which includes the G-7 countries and major emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil.
Founded in the aftermath of World War II, the 185-nation International Monetary Fund became the international economy’s firefighter in the 1990s, providing loans to countries in financial trouble from Thailand to Turkey, while requiring dire belt-tightening measures in return.
It has faced an identity crisis in recent years because it has lent less to developing nations. The past week has changed that, with Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine now considering IMF bailouts.
___
Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Deb Reichmann in Washington and Constant Brand, Robert Wielaard and Laurent Pirot in Brussels contributed to this story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/15/AR2008101501753.html
October 15, 2008
British Prime Minister’s Stock Rises as His Bank Plan Lifts Stocks Worldwide
By LANDON THOMAS JR
LONDON — With his brooding aspect and sagging poll numbers, Prime Minister Gordon Brown had seemed to personify the bleak mood of a world traumatized by collapsing house prices, lost jobs and banks that would not lend.
But that was last week.
After devising a bank rescue plan that has now been endorsed by European and American officials — and has sent global stocks soaring — he is being celebrated worldwide and has revived a political career that the “commentariat,” as Mr. Brown disdainfully refers to the chattering classes, had predicted would soon be at an end.
While Mr. Brown, 57, has moved up in the polls, he still trails his younger conservative rival, the fresh-faced David Cameron, 42, whose months of deft parliamentary jabs helped define Mr. Brown as a leaden, out of touch leader.
But for all the troubles of the British economy, and after a 10-year apprenticeship as chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Brown is suddenly in his element, proudly pointing to his long experience.
“Now is not the time,” he said in a pointed jab at Mr. Cameron, “for a novice.”
Before a packed room of foreign journalists on Tuesday, the many aspects of Gordon Brown were on full display.
The son of a severe Presbyterian minister, he decried the culture of bonuses in finance and promised that high pay would be reined in at government-owned banks. As a student of international finance, he argued for the formation of a global body to oversee today’s complex capital flows.
And, forgetting for the moment his past enthusiasm for the free-wheeling global capitalism championed by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, whom Mr. Brown has called a mentor, he took full credit where he seemed to feel credit was due.
“We defined the problem as strengthening the banks so that they could deal with their bad assets,” he said of his plan of injecting money directly into banks in return for the government’s taking ownership shares. He argued that the issue was not only providing additional funds for the banking system but also getting banks themselves to lend again to their business customers and consumers alike.
Then he dropped the names of those that had fallen in line with the Brown approach: much of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and, on Tuesday, too late for him to name it, Hong Kong.
Not to mention the United States, he added, saying that he would soon speak to President Bush, who went on television Tuesday morning to endorse a remarkably similar plan from his Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr.
“I am pleased that countries around the world have moved to these proposals,” Mr. Brown concluded.
A British head of government does not typically attract the notice of his European and American counterparts. And that is particularly true of Mr. Brown, who takes pride in his flintiness and his sharp contrast to Mr. Blair.
He sat alone at a table, dressed in a loose-fitting suit and a featureless tie, more technocrat than politician as he gave a short lesson on the roots of the mortgage crisis, touching on topics including triple-A rated mortgage securities, the Bretton Woods agreement that established the post-World War II global economic framework, and the demand for oil in China and India.
But the more than 100 journalists in his audience were in no mood for lectures.
Would you call yourself a superhero? a reporter asked. What do you think of Paul Krugman, the Princeton professor and Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times, who was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics referring to you as the savior of the world? Are you planning to call a snap election?
He could not help but wallow a bit. The FTSE 100 stock index was up strongly from its recent lows, and even the British pound had reversed its downward trend.
In response to one awestruck question on Tuesday, Mr. Brown was characteristically cautious. “I’m grateful for your deep interest in my personal fate,” he said. “But politics is about ups and downs, and you need to treat them both with equanimity.”
Until the last few days, it was mostly down. Less than a year ago, during one particularly vicious round of parliamentary debate, an opposition party member said that Mr. Brown had gone from Stalin to Mr. Bean, the bumbling British comedian, creating chaos out of order instead of the reverse.
In interviews, Mr. Brown has compared his crisis management to that of Captain MacWhirr in Joseph Conrad’s “Typhoon,” who knowingly sailed his ship into the great storm before him. He was a man of “literal mind” and “dauntless temperament,” wrote Conrad, but who also had “just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day, and no more.”
Despite his powerful intellect — he entered college at 16 and has a Ph.D. in history — and his 10 years overseeing a once ascendant British economy, Mr. Brown has repeatedly suffered by comparison with Mr. Blair.
But now, in contrast to Mr. Blair’s decision to follow President Bush in the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Brown is hoping to achieve a greater stature for Britain by asserting his independence, coming up with a plan that veered from Washington’s approach but then was followed by the Bush administration almost to the letter.
Not content to stop there, however, Mr. Brown is calling for a supranational body to address the “lack of transparency, accountability and responsibility” that led to the crisis.
That may be fine talk, but regulatory specialists are not clear how it will actually happen.
“Mr. Brown has a good record on this topic,” said Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics and former chairman of Britain’s top regulator, the Financial Services Authority. “But I am not sure that you can turn the International Monetary Fund into a super regulator.”
At the moment, the combined efforts of Mr. Brown and Alistair Darling — his equally dyspeptic chancellor, who just two months ago was ridiculed for saying that Britain’s economic downturn could be the worst in 60 years — seem to be in tune with a revulsion that Britons express about their high-flying bankers.
Still, there is no doubt that Mr. Brown is more comfortable discussing reform of the International Monetary Fund than sipping tea with a middle-class couple in Birmingham who are overwhelmed by soaring electricity bills and mortgage payments.
Unlike Mr. Blair and Bill Clinton, he is not good at feeling other people’s pain, although he has had his share of suffering. A kick in the head during a rugby game when he was 16 caused him to lose sight in his left eye; he was forced to wait all those years before becoming prime minister; and most recently he lost his first child.
And no matter how much the international community may cheer him, Mr. Brown must ultimately face a deeply discontented British electorate before June 2010. But finally, things are looking up.
As the press conference came to an end, a Swedish journalist asked Mr. Brown if he was Flash Gordon. He made the quickest of smiles and his faced flushed an immediate red.
“No, just Gordon,” he said. “Just Gordon.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/world/europe/15brown.html?pagewanted=print

Sommet UE
“Un nouveau Bretton Woods ”
Ch. Ly.
Mis en ligne le 16/10/2008
La débâcle des marchés financiers s’impose au sommet européen qui s’est ouvert hier à Bruxelles. Les Vingt-sept réclament la tenue d’une réunion internationale pour refondre le système financier. Comme Bretton Woods.
Les marchés financiers ont dicté l’agenda du sommet européen qui s’est ouvert mercredi après-midi à Bruxelles, sur fond de rechute des bourses.
La France, qui préside l’Union européenne, et le Royaume-Uni, emmené par un Gordon Brown très actif, ont demandé une refonte totale du système financier international et un accord similaire à ceux de Bretton Woods en vigueur après la fin de la guerre mondiale. Un sommet international est en préparation, appuyé par les pays du G8 (Allemagne, Canada, Etats-Unis, France, Grande-Bretagne, Italie, Japon et Russie).
Le constat franco-britannique ? Le plan de sauvetage des banques européennes de 2200 milliards d’euros (soit près de six fois le produit national brut de la Belgique), décidé dimanche, est nécessaire, mais insuffisant.
“Il faut passer à l’étape deux”, a plaidé hier le Premier ministre britannique, arrivé à Bruxelles beaucoup plus tôt que d’habitude. “Nous devons réformer le système pour restaurer la confiance des gens”.
Bretton Woods fut, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la clé de voûte du système financier actuel, basé sur le dollar américain. Il avait été mis en place en 1944 par quarante-quatre nations alliées et fut à l’origine du Fonds monétaire international (FMI) et de la Banque mondiale.
La France veut elle aussi “une refonte authentique et complète” de l’ordre financier international, selon le projet de communiqué final qui pourrait être diffusé, après accord, ce jeudi.
Un sommet du “G13”
Les Européens ne conçoivent pas une réforme sans le soutien des Etats-Unis, malgré la campagne présidentielle. Le président Bush, qui sera en fonction jusqu’au 20 janvier, doit recevoir samedi prochain à Camp David le président Nicolas Sarkozy et le patron de la Commission européenne José Manuel Barroso.
Le sommet de Bruxelles est l’occasion de lancer “la deuxième étape” prônée par Brown et d’y inclure, sous le parapluie, les pays d’Europe centrale et orientale qui ne sont pas dans la zone euro. La Hongrie - dont le forint, la monnaie nationale, a encore dévissé hier de 7 pc par rapport à l’euro - est en première ligne.
Les Occidentaux ne sont qu’au début de leurs réflexions sur la réforme du système financier. Tous les Etats membres sont “d’accord sur la nécessité à bref délai d’un sommet mondial”, a indiqué Nicolas Sarkozy à la presse, mercredi soir. Un sommet qui réunirait les pays du G8 et serait élargi aux pays émergents : la Chine, le Brésil, le Mexique, l’Afrique du Sud et l’Inde, les oubliés de Bretton Woods.
Les idées circulent, et les téléphones chauffent.
Sur la méthode, il y a un large soutien à l’idée qu’il faut une réponse systémique à une crise systémique. Un ancien ministre italien des Finances vient d’expliquer pourquoi. “Alors que l’UE tire un bénéfice de la monnaie unique, elle ne dispose pas des deux autres instruments de gestion des crises : le contrôle prudentiel (des banques) et l’action gouvernementale”, analyse Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa. “L’Europe est ainsi confrontée à un risque bien plus grand que les Etats-Unis d’Amérique : le risque de renationalisation du système financier intégré qui est né dans la zone euro et de désarticulation de son marché intérieur”.
Sur les moyens, les idées convergent. La France a repris dans le communiqué final l’idée d’“une cellule de crise financière” au niveau européen. Brown propose un “système de supervision global” et un système d’alerte.
“Eliminer les off-shore”
Ouvrant la séance hier, le président Sarkozy a été encore plus précis, parlant de discipliner les agences de notation, de surveiller les fonds spéculatifs “hedge funds” et même d’”éliminer” les zones d’ombre de l’économie internationale “en l’occurrence les centres off-shore”. Brown a rappelé les efforts britanniques pour cornaquer les paradis fiscaux.
Pour le conservateur Sarkozy, “il faut fonder un nouveau capitalisme sur des valeurs qui mettent la finance au service des entreprises et des citoyens, et non l’inverse”. Les dirigeants socialistes veulent eux qu’on travaille “à ce que la crise financière ne se mute pas dans une crise de l’emploi”.
Des idées qu’il faudra concrétiser ces prochains mois.
http://www.lalibre.be/actu/europe/article/453131/un-nouveau-bretton-woods.html

Sommet de l’UE : Brown et Sarkozy veulent “refonder” le système financier international
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 15.10.08 | 19h19 •  Mis à jour le 15.10.08 | 19h40

A l’ouverture du sommet européen de Bruxelles, mercredi 15 octobre, Nicolas Sarkozy a réitéré sa proposition d’un sommet international “de préférence à New York, là où tout a commencé”, avant la fin 2008, pour la “refondation” du système financier international.
“Cette crise est la crise de trop. Il faut refonder le système. Cette refondation doit être globale”, a insisté le président français. “Aucune institution financière ne doit échapper à la régulation et à la surveillance (...) les règles doivent être revues, mises en cohérence (...) les acteur privés doivent être responsabilisés”, a-t-il ajouté. Nicolas Sarkozy doit évoquer cette proposition samedi, en compagnie du président de la Commission européenne José Manuel Barroso, lors d’une rencontre avec le président américain George W. Bush dans sa résidence de Camp David.
 

“Pour la première fois dans l’histoire financière, ce sont des plans élaborés dans l’Union européenne qui ont inspiré les mesures prises dans d’autres pays du monde, y compris aux Etats-Unis”, a insisté  le chef de l’Etat français devant ses partenaires européens, en faisant allusion au plan adopté dimanche par les quinze pays membres de la zone euro. “Nous devons aussi montrer ce leadership dans la réflexion pour l’avenir et nous avons commencé. Cette crise n’est pas d’origine européenne mais ce sont les Européens qui formulent, et parfois depuis longtemps, des propositions de réforme de notre système financier international”, a-t-il ajouté.
BROWN VEUT MODERNISER LE FMI
De son côté, le premier ministre britannique Gordon Brown a présenté une proposition visant à renforcer la supervision financière au niveau mondial. L’important est “de s’assurer que les problèmes qui sont apparus dans le système financier – problèmes qui nous le savons ont débuté aux Etats-Unis – ne se produisent plus”, a-t-il déclaré. “Le FMI doit être reconstruit afin de l’adapter au monde moderne”, a-t-il estimé.
Le premier ministre britannique propose également, pour améliorer la surveillance bancaire mondiale, que “les autorités nationales coopèrent de manière urgente en vue de former 30 collèges de supervision pour [contrôler] les 30 plus grands établissements financiers transnationaux” de la planète. Le chef du gouvernement britannique suggère enfin un encadrement plus strict de l’activité des agences de notation, accusées de ne pas avoir fait leur travail de “vigies” des marchés financiers.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/imprimer_element/0,40-0@2-3214,50-1107344,0.html

L’Europe s’accorde sur un plan de lutte contre la crise financière
LEMONDE.FR avec Reuters | 16.10.08 | 05h19 •  Mis à jour le 16.10.08 | 08h13

L’Union européenne dans son ensemble s’est ralliée, mercredi 15 octobre, à la stratégie face à la crise décidée par les pays de la zone euro dimanche et a appelé à un sommet mondial de refondation du capitalisme.
Lors du Conseil européen de Bruxelles, dont la première journée a été consacrée en grande partie à la crise financière, les Vingt-Sept se sont également ralliés à la proposition française de la création d’une cellule de crise. Ce “dispositif léger favorisa l’échange d’informations entre les Etats, apportera un conseil en cas de besoin, coordonnera les actions”, a déclaré Nicolas Sarkozy en conférence de presse. Cette cellule sera finalisée jeudi par les Etats membres et sera mis en place “dans les tous prochains jours”, a-t-il précisé.
 

“Face à une crise sans précédent, les vingt-sept pays de l’Europe ont maintenant une réponse unique, une réponse massive avec une doctrine d’emploi claire”, s’est-il félicité.
Le chef de l’Etat français, qui préside l’Union européenne jusqu’à la fin de l’année, a ajouté que la Commission avait approuvé, après accord du Parlement européen et approbation du Conseil, que le principe de “mark to market” cesse de s’appliquer aux actifs des banques européennes dès le troisième trimestre de l’exercice. Les règles de “mark to market” ou “fair value”, qui imposent une valorisation des actifs financiers à leur valeur de marché, ne doivent plus s’appliquer de manière “aveugle” et “absurde”, a poursuivi Nicolas Sarkozy, qui a précisé que cette modification serait applicable dès les résultats du troisième trimestre.
De manière plus générale, selon les termes du projet de déclaration finale consulté par Reuters mercredi, les Vingt-Sept s’engagent à prendre “en toutes circonstances” les mesures nécessaires pour “préserver la stabilité du système financier, soutenir les institutions financières importantes, éviter les faillites et assurer la protection des dépôts des épargnants”.
Le Conseil européen a également permis de dégager un consensus sur la réponse que les Vingt-Sept souhaitent apporter à la crise à plus long terme. “Nous sommes décidés à ce que les conséquences soient tirées sur le système financier, sur le système monétaire, sur une refondation du capitalisme. C’est une position unanime”, a déclaré Nicolas Sarkozy. “Tout le monde est d’accord sur la nécessité de la tenue, à brefs délais, d’un sommet mondial”, a-t-il dit, ajoutant que l’UE souhaitait que ce sommet ait lieu en novembre.
Cherchant à tirer partie de perspectives économiques difficiles, plusieurs pays ont par ailleurs souhaité que les discussions sur le paquet énergie-climat soient différées. Un groupe de huit pays, emmené par la Pologne, s’est ainsi réuni pour tenter d’obtenir un report des discussions autour de ce plan européen de lutte contre le changement climatique. Interrogé par Reuters, le secrétaire d’Etat polonais aux affaires européennes, Mikolaj Dowgielevicz, a répété que ce paquet énergie-climat pénalisait, en l’état, les économies de plusieurs des nouveaux Etats membres de l’UE. “Il n’y a pas de solution pour les pays comme la Pologne qui dépendent du charbon pour produire de l’énergie. Donc, il n’y a pas vraiment les conditions pour la conclusion d’un accord général en décembre”, a-t-il dit. Nicolas Sarkozy a néanmoins rappelé la détermination de la France à obtenir un accord d’ici à janvier et a estimé que la crise ne devait pas avoir pour conséquence de réduire les ambitions en matière de protection de l’environnement.
http://www.lemonde.fr/la-crise-financiere/article/2008/10/16/l-europe-s-accorde-sur-un-plan-de-lutte-contre-la-crise-financiere_1107364_1101386.html#ens_id=1107040

Five Reasons Weapons Spending Won’t Fall
(Source: Lexington Institute; issued October 14, 2008)
 
The Reagan Revolution has collapsed. Over the next eight years a resurgent Democratic Party will raise taxes, re-regulate the economy and rethink free trade. Judging from the size of the nation’s trade and budget deficits, these steps are overdue. But what about that other pillar of the Reagan agenda, national defense? Is it destined to suffer the same kind of decline seen under Carter and Clinton? Probably not, because both the Democrats and the times are different. In fact, there are at least five reasons why spending on weapons—as opposed to operations and personnel—might not decline at all.

First, economic forces don’t drive defense spending. Demand for defense goods is driven mainly by overseas threats and domestic politics. Military spending always spikes when threats arise, regardless of economic or fiscal conditions. Domestic politics—which party controls Congress and the White House—also influences the scale and composition of defense spending, but threats usually trump politics. That’s why Democrats presided over four of the five big weapons buildups in the last century.

Second, spending on operations and personnel will moderate. With the Iraq war winding down and Afghanistan claiming only a modest share of defense outlays, the cost of military operations is likely to ease. As operational tempo declines it will become apparent that the nation doesn’t really need more ground troops, just better training and utilization of the ones it already has. So there will be greater downward pressure on readiness accounts than weapons accounts, especially given the need to replace worn-out combat systems.

Third, it takes a long time to change military spending priorities. The Pentagon is already putting the finishing touches on a fiscal 2010 budget request that will drive military spending for the rest of the decade. New administrations take the better part of a year to get staffed, and once appointees are confirmed they need to get up to speed on programs. One thing they find out pretty fast is that the business plans for big weapons programs like the Joint Strike Fighter are so tightly wound that any changes increase costs. So it will take years to adjust current weapons plans.

Fourth, weapons programs will be fiercely defended. Big weapons programs generate so many jobs that they spawn potent political constituencies. Look at what happened this year when the Pentagon tried to kill its next-generation destroyer and a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. Both initiatives were blocked by members of Congress. The military services are just as tenacious in defending signature weapons. Is President Obama really going to get in a fight with the Army over whether it needs the Future Combat Systems?

Fifth, weapons spending stimulates the economy. Critics of weapons spending have long argued that it is a drag on the economy, but the exact opposite is true. When the government cuts taxes, many consumers use the money to buy products from overseas. But when it funds weapons programs, almost all the money gets spent in places like Colorado, Ohio and Virginia. And guess who does the work? Members of organized labor who are a core component of the Democratic electoral base!

If the new administration wants to sustain high-paying jobs, stimulate high-tech skills, and bolster American manufacturing, spending money on weapons works amazingly well. It even improves our sagging balance of trade.

Je m’intéresse et lis avec un grand intérêt ces articles que j’ai découverts début octobre.
Mais je suis perdu. Peut-être ai-je mal compris l’enchaînement :
- Paulson a réagit au nom du gouvernement américain, “trop tard et trop peu”, malgré le côté astronomique de la somme; il fait un flop plus retentissant que les scandaleuses conditions du vote.
- L’Europe n’a pas réagi, malgré l’insistance de Paulson, ce qui affirme la nullité de son influence internationale et de son organisation, mais avec une satisfaction toute réactionnaire
- Brown ouvre le bal des nationalisations en Europe, ce qui paraît cocasse pour un homme dans la droite ligne du néo-libéralisme britannique.
- quelques nations fondatrices de l’Europe se débattent pour répondre finalement (en shuntant les autres pays européens) à l’appel de Paulson; Lagarde promet que pas un centime n’ira aux banques françaises.
- ces mêmes pays annoncent finalement qu’ils claqueront des milliards dans le système financier. Les marchés ayant un don de préscience avec un rebond précédent l’annonce desdits pays, du coup “l’Europe des Nations” est victorieuse, les US sont humiliés, Brown est en fait un interventionniste qui cachait bien son jeu (donc un héros), et accessoirement on financera quand même les banques françaises.

Quelle est la logique dans tout ça ? Qu’ai-je raté ?

Concernant “L’homme face au système en crise” une analyse “historique” :

“... Pour le reste, c’est-à-dire l’essentiel,
on constatera qu’en maintenant une croissance forte, et,
en ce moment même, en évitant à l’Amérique la récession que l’explosion de la bulle du subprime aurait évidemment provoqué,
George Bush, puissamment aidé par Bernanke et Paulson, son remarquable ministre des Finances,
a rendu un service inégalé à l’Europe tout entière. “

La chronique d’Alexandre Adler, du 2 juillet http://www.lefigaro.fr/debats/2008/08/02/01005-20080802ARTFIG00182-les-bons-points-de-george-wbush-.php

What Went Wrong

How did the world’s markets come to the brink of collapse? Some say regulators failed. Others claim deregulation left them handcuffed. Who’s right? Both are.
This is the story of how Washington didn’t catch up to Wall Street.

By Anthony Faiola, Ellen Nakashima and Jill Drew
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 15, 2008; A01
A decade ago, long before the financial calamity now sweeping the world, the federal government’s economic brain trust heard a clarion warning and declared in unison: You’re wrong.
The meeting of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets on an April day in 1998 brought together Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr.—all Wall Street legends, all opponents to varying degrees of tighter regulation of the financial system that had earned them wealth and power.
Their adversary, although also a member of the Working Group, did not belong to their club. Brooksley E. Born, the 57-year-old head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, had earned a reputation as a steely, formidable litigator at a high-powered Washington law firm. She had grown used to being the only woman in a room full of men. She didn’t like to be pushed around.
Now, in the Treasury Department’s stately, wood-paneled conference room, she was being pushed hard.
Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt had reacted with alarm at Born’s persistent interest in a fast-growing corner of the financial markets known as derivatives, so called because they derive their value from something else, such as bonds or currency rates. Setting the jargon aside, derivatives are both a cushion and a gamble—deals that investment companies and banks arrange to manage the risk of their holdings, while trying to turn a profit at the same time.
Unlike the commodity futures regulated by Born’s agency, many newer derivatives weren’t traded on an exchange, constituting what some traders call the “dark markets.” There were now millions of such private contracts, involving many of Wall Street’s top firms. But there was no clearinghouse holding collateral to settle a deal gone bad, no transparent records of who was trading what.
Born wanted to shine a light into the dark. She had offered no specific oversight plan, but after months of making noise about the dangers that this enormous market posed to the financial system, she now wanted to open a formal discussion about whether to regulate them—and if so, how.
Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt were determined to derail her effort. Privately, Rubin had expressed concern about derivatives’ unruly growth. But he agreed with Greenspan and Levitt that these newer contracts, often called “swaps,” weren’t exactly futures. Born’s agency did not have legal authority to regulate swaps, the three men believed, and her call for a discussion had real-world consequences: It would cast doubt over the legality of trillions of dollars in existing contracts and create uncertainty over how to operate in the market.
At the April meeting, the trio’s message was clear: Back off, Born.
“You’re not going to do anything, right?” Rubin asked her after they had laid out their concerns, according to one participant.
Born made no commitment. Some in the room, including Rubin and Greenspan, came away with a sense that she had agreed to cool it, at least until lawyers could confer on the legal issues. But according to her staff, she was neither deterred nor chastened.
“Once she took a position, she would defend that position and go down fighting. That’s what happened here,” said Geoffrey Aronow, a senior CFTC staff member at the time. “When someone pushed her, she was inclined to stand there and push back.”
Greenspan and Rubin maintained then, as now, that Born was on the wrong track. Greenspan, who left the Fed job in 2006 after an unprecedented three terms, also insists that regulating derivatives would not have averted the present crisis. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, a Senate committee opened hearings specifically on the role of financial derivatives in exacerbating the current crisis. Another hearing on the issue takes place in the House today.
The economic brain trust not only won the argument, it cut off the larger debate. After Born quit in 1999, no one wanted to go where she had already gone, and once the Bush administration arrived in 2001, the push was for less regulation, not more. Voluntary oversight became the favored approach, and even those were accepted grudgingly by Wall Street, if at all.
In private meetings and public speeches, Greenspan also argued a free-market view. Self-regulation, he asserted, would work better than the heavy hand of government: Investors had a natural desire to avoid self-destruction, and that served as the logical and best limit to excessive risk. Besides, derivatives had become a huge U.S. business, and burdensome rules would drive the market overseas.
“We knew it was a big deal [to attempt regulation] but the feeling was that something needed to be done,” said Michael Greenberger, Born’s director of trading and markets and a witness to the April 1998 standoff at Treasury. “The industry had been fighting regulation for years, and in the meantime, you saw them accumulate a huge amount of stuff and it was already causing dislocations in the economy. The government was being kept blind to it.”
Rubin, in an interview, said of Born’s effort, “I do think it was a deterrent to moving forward. I thought it was counterproductive. If you want to move forward . . . you engage with parties in a constructive way. My recollection was, though I truly do not remember the specifics of the meeting, this was done in a more strident way.”
Rarely does one Washington regulator engage in such a public, pitched battle with other agencies. Born’s failed effort is part of the larger story of what led to today’s financial chaos, a bipartisan story of missed opportunities and philosophical shifts in which Washington stood impotent as the risk of Wall Street innovation swelled, according to more than 60 interviews as well as transcripts of meetings, congressional testimony and speeches. (Born declined to be interviewed.)
Derivatives did not trigger what has erupted into the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. But their proliferation, and the uncertainty about their real values, accelerated the recent collapses of the nation’s venerable investment houses and magnified the panic that has since crippled the global financial system.
A New Chain of Risk
Futures contracts, one of the earliest forms of a derivative, have long been associated with big market failures. Harry Truman’s father was financially wiped out by agriculture futures, and rampant manipulation by speculators contributed to the market collapses of 1929. Regulators have long known that new trading instruments have a way of giving reassurance of stability in good times and of exacerbating market downturns in bad.
Futures—essentially, a promise to deliver cash or something of value at a later time—are traded on regulated exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, regulated by the CFTC. But Born was not questioning bets on pork bellies or wheat prices, the bedrock of futures trading in simpler times. Her focus was the arcane class of derivatives linked to fluctuations in currency and interest rates. She told a group of business lawyers in 1998 that the “lack of basic information” allowed traders in derivatives “to take positions that may threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy, without the knowledge of any federal regulatory authority.”
The future that Born envisioned turned out to be even riskier than she imagined. The real estate boom and easy credit of the past decade gave birth to more complex securities and derivatives, this time linked to the inflated value of millions of homes bought by Americans ultimately unable to afford them. That created a new chain of risk, starting with the heavily indebted homebuyers and ending in a vast, unregulated web of contracts worldwide.
By appearing to provide a safety net, derivatives had the unintended effect of encouraging more risk-taking. Investors loaded up on the mortgage-based investments, then bought “credit-default swaps” to protect themselves against losses rather than putting aside large cash reserves. If the mortgages went belly up, the investors had a cushion; the sellers of the swaps, who collected substantial fees for sharing in the investors’ risk, were betting that the mortgages would stay healthy.
The global derivatives market topped $530 trillion as of June 30 this year, including $55 trillion in the suddenly popular credit-default swaps; that $530 trillion represents all contracts outstanding. The total dollars at risk is much smaller, but still a hefty $2.7 trillion, according to an estimate by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
To make sense of those figures, compare them to the value of the New York Stock Exchange: $30 trillion at the end of 2007, before the recent crash. When the housing bubble burst and mortgages went south, the consequences seeped through the entire web. Some of those holding credit swaps wanted their money; some who owed didn’t have enough money in reserve to pay.
Instead of dispersing risk, derivatives had amplified it.
The Regulatory Rift
Born, after 30 years in Washington, found herself on President Bill Clinton’s short list for attorney general in 1992. The call never came. Approached about the CFTC job four years later, she took it, seeing a chance to make a public service mark, colleagues say.
For several years before Born’s arrival at the futures commission, Washington had been hearing warnings about derivatives. In 1993, Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) issued a 902-page report that urged “regulations to protect against systemic risk” as well as supervision by the SEC or Treasury. Sen. Donald W. Riegle (D-Mich.), while acknowledging that swaps helped manage risk, saw “danger signs, on the horizon” in their rapid growth. He and Rep. Henry Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat, introduced separate bills in 1994 that went nowhere. Mary Schapiro, Born’s predecessor, made her own run at the issue through enforcement actions.
In an earlier decade, President Ronald Reagan had described the CFTC as his favorite agency because it was small and it had allowed the futures industry to grow and prosper. Born swept into the agency, the least known of the four major regulators with primary responsibility for overseeing the nation’s financial markets, determined to enforce its rules and tackle hard issues.
“One theory at the time was she was so disappointed not to be running Justice—that she got this tiny agency as a consolation prize and was hell-bent to make it important. I’m not sure that was in her mind, but it was a point of criticism,” said John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association. Damgard disagreed with Born’s approach but said he respected her for fighting for her principles.
Daniel Waldman, Born’s law partner at Arnold and Porter and her general counsel at the futures commission, said Born let the industry know she meant business. “She got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with the Chicago Board of Trade over the delivery points for soybean contracts,” he recalled. “She believed it was her obligation under the statute to review decisions by the exchanges. If they didn’t meet agency requirements, she was going to say so, not look the other way.”
Born didn’t back off on derivatives, either. On May 7, 1998, two weeks after her April showdown at Treasury, the commission issued a “concept release” soliciting public comment on derivatives and their risk.
The response was swift and blistering. Within hours, Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt cited their “grave concerns” in an unusual joint statement. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers decried it before Congress as “casting a shadow of regulatory uncertainty over an otherwise thriving market.”
Wall Street howled. “The government had a legitimate interest in preserving the enforceability of the billions of dollars worth of swap contracts that were threatened by the concept release,” said Mark Brickell, a managing director at what was then J.P. Morgan Securities and former chairman of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
Although Born said new rules would be prospective, Wall Street was afraid existing contracts could be challenged in court. “That meant anybody on a losing side of a trade could walk away,” Brickell said.
He spent months shuttling between New York and Washington, working on Congress to block CFTC action. “I remember getting on an overnight train and arriving at Rayburn by 5:30 a.m.,” he said. “I watched the sun rise and then went to work on my testimony without a whole lot of sleep.”
Born, who testified before Congress at least 17 times, tried to counter the legal question by saying that regulation would apply only to new contracts, not existing ones. But she relentlessly reiterated her conviction that ignoring the risk of derivatives was dangerous.
In June 1998, Leach, who had become chairman of the House Banking committee, thrust himself into the regulatory rift. He herded Born, Rubin and Greenspan into a small room near the committee’s main venue at the Rayburn House Office Building, thinking he could mediate. “This is the most unusual meeting I’ve ever participated in,” Leach recalled. “I have never in my life been in a setting where three senior members of the U.S. government reflected more tension. Secretary Rubin and Chairman Greenspan were in concert in expressing frustration with the CFTC leadership. . . . She felt, I’m confident, outnumbered with the two against one.”
Leach thought the futures commission lacked the professional bench to handle oversight. He pressed Born not to proceed until the Treasury and the Fed could agree which agency was best suited to the role. “I tried to take the perspective of, ‘I hope we can work this out,’ ” he said. “Both sides—neither side, gave in.”
Rubin said, in the recent interview, that he had his own qualms about derivatives, going back to his days as a managing partner at Goldman Sachs. He later wrote in a 2003 book that “derivatives, with leverage limits that vary from little to none at all, should be subject to comprehensive and higher margin requirements,” forcing dealers to put up more capital to back the swaps. “But that will almost surely not happen, absent a crisis.”
Asked why he didn’t suggest stricter capital requirements as an alternative in 1998, Rubin said, “There was no political reality of getting it done. We were so caught up with other issues that were so pressing. . . . the Asian financial crisis, the Brazilian financial crisis. We had a lot going on.”
Crisis and Ice Cream
When the warring parties faced off next, in the Senate Agriculture committee’s hearing room July 30, 1998, it was not a neutral battleground to air their differences. Chairman Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican, wanted to extract a public promise from Born to cease her campaign. Otherwise, Congress would move forward on a Treasury-backed bill to slap a moratorium on further CFTC action.
The committee had to switch to a larger room to accommodate the expected crowd of lobbyists representing banks, brokerage firms, futures exchanges, energy companies and agricultural interests, according to a Lugar aide. A dubious Lugar opened the hearing by telling Born: “It is unusual for three agencies of the executive branch to propose legislation that would restrict the activities of a fourth.”
Born would not yield. She portrayed her agency as under attack, saying the Fed, Treasury and SEC had already decided “that the CFTC’s authority should instead be transferred to and divided among themselves.”
Greenspan shot back that CFTC regulation was superfluous; existing laws were enough. “Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary,” he said. “Regulation that serves no useful purpose hinders the efficiency of markets to enlarge standards of living.”
The stalemate persisted. Then, in September a crisis arose that gave credence to Born’s concerns.
Long Term Capital Management, a huge hedge fund heavily weighted in derivatives, told the Fed that it could not cover $4 billion in losses, threatening the fortunes of everyone from tycoons to pension funds. After Russia, swept up in the Asian economic crisis, had defaulted on its debt, Long Term Capital was besieged with calls to put up more cash as collateral for its investments. Based on the derivative side of its books, Long Term Capital had an astoundingly high debt-to-capital ratio. “The off-balance sheet leverage was 100 to 1 or 200 to 1—I don’t know how to calculate it,” Peter Fisher, a senior Fed official, told Greenspan and other Fed governors at a Sept. 29, 1998, meeting, according to the transcript.
Two days later, Born warned the House Banking committee: “This episode should serve as a wake-up call about the unknown risks that the over-the-counter derivatives market may pose to the U.S. economy and to financial stability around the world.” She spoke of an “immediate and pressing need to address whether there are unacceptable regulatory gaps.”
The near collapse of Long Term Capital Management didn’t change anything. Although some lawmakers expressed new fervor for addressing the risks of derivatives, Congress went ahead with the law that placed a six-month moratorium on any CFTC action regarding the swaps market.
The battle left Born politically isolated. In April 1999, the President’s Working Group issued a report on the lessons of Long Term Capital’s meltdown, her last as part of the group. The report raised some alarm over excess leverage and the unknown risks of the derivative market, but called for only one legislative change—a recommendation that brokerages’ unregulated affiliates be required to assess and report their financial risk to the government.
Greenspan dissented on that recommendation.
By May, Born had had enough. Although it was customary at the agency for others to organize an outgoing chairman’s going-away bash, she personally sprang for an ice cream cart in the commission’s beige-carpeted auditorium. On a June afternoon, employees listened to subdued, carefully worded farewells while serving themselves sundaes.
In November, Greenspan, Rubin, Levitt and Born’s replacement, William Rainer, submitted a Working Group report on derivatives. They recommended no CFTC regulation, saying that it “would otherwise perpetuate legal uncertainty or impose unnecessary regulatory burdens and constraints upon the development of these markets in the United States.”
Toward Self-Regulation
Throughout much of 2000, lobbyists were flying in and out of congressional offices. With Born gone, they saw an opportunity to settle the regulatory issue and perhaps gain even more. They had a sympathetic ear in Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, the influential Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and a sympathetic bill: the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
Gramm opened a June 21 hearing with a call for “regulatory relief.” Peering through his wire-rimmed glasses, he drawled: “I think we would do well to remember the Lincoln adage that to ask a society to live under old and outmoded laws—and I think you could say the same about regulation—is like asking a man to wear the same clothes he wore when he was a boy.”
Greenspan and Rubin’s successor at the Treasury, Larry Summers, still held sway on keeping the CFTC out of the swaps market. But Treasury officials saw an opportunity to push forward on a self-regulation idea from the Working Group’s November 1999 report: an industry clearinghouse to hold pools of cash collected from financial firms to cover derivatives losses. But the report had also called for federal oversight to ensure that risk-management procedures were followed.
The swaps industry generally supported the clearinghouse concept. One amended version of the bill made federal oversight optional. Treasury officials scrambled to act, and a provision introduced by Leach requiring oversight prevailed.
The House passed the bill Oct. 19, but then the legislation stalled. Gramm was holding out for stronger language that would bar both the CFTC and the SEC from meddling in the swaps market. Alarmed, SEC lawyers argued that the agency at least needed to retain its authority over fraud and insider trading. What if a trader, armed with inside knowledge, engaged in a swap on a stock? Treasury Undersecretary Gary Gensler brokered a compromise: The SEC would retain its antifraud authority but without any new rulemaking power.
On the night of Dec. 15, with the nation still focused on the Supreme Court decision three days earlier that settled the 2000 presidential election in George W. Bush’s favor, the act passed as a rider to an omnibus spending bill. The clearinghouse provision remained. At the time, it seemed like a breakthrough.
A clearinghouse would have created layers of protections that don’t exist today, said Craig Pirrong, a markets expert at the University of Houston. “An industry-backed pool of capital could have cushioned against losses while discouraging risky bets.”
But afterward, the clearinghouse idea sat dormant, with no one in the industry moving to put one in place.
‘An Absolute Siege’
In 2004, the SEC pursued another voluntary system. This one, too, didn’t work out quite as hoped.
For years, Congress had allowed a huge gap in Wall Street oversight: the SEC had authority over the brokerage arms of investment banks such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, but were in the dark about deals made by the firms’ holding companies and its unregulated affiliates. European regulators, demanding more transparency given the substantial overseas operations of U.S. firms, were threatening to put these holding companies under regulatory supervision if their American counterparts didn’t do so first.
For the SEC, this was deja vu. In 1999, the SEC had sought such authority over the holding companies and failed to get it. Late in the year, Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, dismantling the walls separating commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies since the Great Depression. But the act did not provide for any SEC oversight of investment bank holding companies. The momentum was all toward deregulation.
“I remember saying at the time, people don’t get it—the level of missed opportunities to address some of these problems,” said Annette Nazareth, then the SEC’s head of market regulation. “It was an absolute siege on regulation.”
Five years later, the European regulators were forcing the issue again. Restricted by Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the SEC proposed a voluntary system, which the big investment banks opted to join. The holding companies would be permitted to follow their own computer models to assess how much risk they were taking; the SEC would get access to make sure the complex capital and risk-management models were up to the job.
At an April 28 SEC meeting, commissioner Harvey Goldschmid expressed caution. “If anything goes wrong, it’s going to be an awfully big mess,” said Goldschmid, who voted for the program.
Last month, the SEC’s inspector general concluded that the program had failed in the case of Bear Stearns, which collapsed in March. SEC overseers had seen Bear Stearns’s heavy focus on mortgage-backed securities and over-leveraging, but “did not take serious action to limit these risk factors,” the inspector general’s report said.
SEC officials say the voluntary program limited what they could do. They checked to make sure Bear Stearns was adhering to its risk models but did not count on those models being fundamentally flawed.
On Sept. 26, with the economic meltdown in full swing, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox shut down the program. Cox, a longtime champion of deregulation, said in a statement posted on the SEC’s Web site, “the last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.”
It was too late. All five brokerages in the program had either filed for bankruptcy, been absorbed or converted into commercial banks.
Second Thoughts
On Sept. 15, 2005, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Timothy F. Geithner gathered senior executives and risk-management officers from 14 Wall Street firms in the Fed’s 10th-floor conference room in lower Manhattan for another discussion about a voluntary mechanism. Also arrayed around the wood rectangular table, covered by green-felt tablecloths, were European market supervisors from Britain, Switzerland and Germany.
E. Gerald Corrigan, managing director of Goldman Sachs and one of Geithner’s predecessors at the New York Fed, had reported in July that the face value of credit-default swaps had soared ninefold in just three years. Without an automated, electronic system for tracking the trades or collateral to back them, the potential for systemic risk was increasing. “The growth of derivatives was exceeding the maturity of the operational infrastructure, so we thought we would try to narrow the gap,” Geithner said in an interview.
Talks have continued on a range of issues, including how to set up a clearinghouse with reserves in case of default—the same concept in the 2000 legislation—and what kind of government oversight would be allowed. But three years later, there is no system in place. Some major dealers have preferred to go it alone, and no one in the government told them they couldn’t.
With last month’s death spiral of American International Group, the world’s largest private insurance company until it was seized by the government, regulators saw their fears play out. AIG had sold $440 billion in credit-default swaps tied to mortgage securities that began to falter. When its losses mounted, the credit-rating agencies downgraded AIG’s standing, triggering a clause in its credit-default swap contracts to post billions in collateral that it didn’t have. The government swooped in to prevent AIG’s default, hoping to ward off another chain reaction in the already shaky financial system.
The economic crisis has added momentum to the Fed’s attempts to organize a voluntary clearinghouse. Geithner held two meetings last week with several firms and major dealers interested in setting up such a mechanism. Last week, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced it would team with Citadel Investment Group, a large hedge fund, to launch an electronic trading platform and clearinghouse for credit-default swaps. Other private companies and exchanges are working on their own systems, seeing opportunities for profit in becoming a shock absorber for the system.
The crisis has prompted second thoughts. Goldschmid, the former SEC commissioner and the agency’s general counsel under Levitt, looks back at the long history of missed opportunities and sighs: “In hindsight, there’s no question that we would have been better off if we had been regulating derivatives—and had a clearinghouse for it.”
Levitt, too, thinks about might-have-beens. “In fairness, while Summers and Rubin and I certainly gave in to this, we were not in the same camp as the Fed,” he said. “The Fed was really adamantly opposed to any form of regulation whatsoever. I guess if I had to do it over again, I certainly would have pushed for some way to give greater transparency to products which turned out to be injurious to our markets.”

Researchers Brady Dennis and Robert Thomason contributed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101403343_pf.html

Pour faire une anticipation mesquine, à l’image du système d’ailleurs, ça m’étonnerait pas que les banques travaillent rapidement leur image en piètre état actuellement, en sponsorisant des oeuvres caritatifs, des “causes nobles” etc, jusqu’à maintenant les banques communiquaient sur les performances sportifs.

Néanmoins, plus fondamentalement le système se justifiait par le progrès qu’il apportait, qui dit progrès dit stabilité, or ce système avec la crise actuelle s’est montré particulièrement instable, donc non crédible, situation qu’aucune campagne publicitaire ne pourra sauver.

Le progrès implique que le système proposé soit le meilleur, le néo-libéralisme a échoué, les Etats anglo-saxons (champions de ce mode de fonctionnement politique et économique) avec, quoique les Britanniques retournent très rapidement leur veste, quel sera le système qui le remplacera, quels en seront les champions ?

C’est vrai que la période que nous vivons est très importante.

Je trouve beaucoup d’exagération dans cet article:
Et de un dans votre vision du rôle de Sarkosy
Et de deux dans votre vision de l’Europe.

Il y a beaucoup trop d’illigétimités dans cette Euroligarchie:
La commission, la BCE mais aussi le Conseil.

Je ne saurais avoir votre optimisme, sur les changements apportés par cette crise.

Quels sont les changements positifs que l’on peut attendre de la part de ceux qui sont responsables de cet aveuglement dogmatique?

Surtout, lorsque toute cette énergie est placée pour sauver un système létal qui occasionne toutes sortes de dérèglements catastrophiques sur le vivant, les espèces, les ressources et les sociétés.

Dans le grand bluff du WE, j’y vois plutôt une manière supplémentaire d’aggraver ces dérèglements et de nous entraîner toujours plus dans leur tourbillon de la mort.

Je serai moins optimiste. La France a simplement profité d’un climat d’hébétude psychologique pour généraliser une solution préventive de sauvetage du système bancaire. Cette hébétude donne, par défaut, une impression d’unité en Europe. La solution se veut technique et adaptée, chacun s’en félicite. Hélas, le problème demeure. Le gros de la crise financière, puis plus généralement économique, est à venir. Sur les 2000 milliards de dollars que les banques dites “occidentales” devraient provisionner (un peu plus donc que les 1400 milliards annoncés par le FMI il y a dix jours) “seuls” …580 milliards avaient été dépréciés dans les bilans début octobre 2008. 2000 milliards seraient d’ailleurs plutôt un plancher. Le plafond est encore non connu puisque dépendant d’un marché immobilier étasunien qui ne cesse de s’effondrer d’un mois sur l’autre (les créances immobilières détenues par les banques continuent de se déprécier à mesure). Sarko et Fillon font le pari salutaire que l’impact psychologique des mesures annoncées lundi (360 milliards d’euros tout de même) éviteront de verser ces fonds aux banques. C’est un pari qui sera perdu car c’est de la pensée magique. L’Etat devra effectivement tenir sa promesse (il est désormais lié jusqu’à la fin 2009), injecter une partie des sommes garanties et accroître encore une pression fiscale pourtant déjà à 55% du PIB. Laminer fiscalement les classes moyennes ne contribuera pas à sortir de la récession. Aux effets de la crise financière vont se cumuler, et se cumulent déjà, les effets de la récession sur les bilans des banques, tout particulièrement et avant tout aux Etats-Unis. Les plans gigantesques, pharaoniques, adoptés des deux côtés du grand océan, ne font que consolider le squelette des banques, leur ossature. Mais la matière vivante de ces banques (les flux issus de l’activité économique qui les traversent) à commencé à se dégrader aux Etats-Unis, en quantité et en qualité (explosion des impayés, des contentieux, des clients insolvables). Pour faire simple, le gigantisme des sommes en cause rend illusoire toute solution technique de renflouement et de dénouement de la crise car celle-ci est d’abord l’effondrement de tout un système économique fondé sur la création d’une richesse virtuelle, factice, dans des volumes encore jamais vus. Richesse factice généreusement vendue au “reste du monde”. Quand un château de cartes de cette ampleur commence à s’effondrer, la seule “solution” envisageable c’est d’attendre le complet effondrement avant de reconstruire autre chose.

Pourquoi le dollar est-il parvenu à reprendre 15% depuis la mi-juillet si les Etats-Unis sont à ce point laminés économiquement (et diplomatiquement) ?

... face à la débâcle des plus grandes institutions financières des Etats-Unis, la seule solution consistait ... à revendre les actifs détenus dans tous les pays dont la devise venait de prendre 30%, 40% ou 50% face au dollar.
Dans le vaste mouvement de liquidation des positions spéculatives amorcé à la mi-juillet, le pétrole à 148 $ est également apparu comme une cible de choix ; ce fut ensuite au tour du cuivre, du nickel, de l’argent métal, des céréales, etc. Même l’or a rechuté vers 725 $ ...

... face à l’absence de liquidités auquel ils se retrouvent confrontés, les fonds d’investissement anglo-saxons soldent leurs positions dans l’urgence pour combler les trous aux Etats-Unis via la City londonienne.
La perte de valeur des couvertures en titres entraîne encore plus de ventes de titres (ce que les spécialistes appellent le de-leveraging). Les ventes informatisées liées à des cassures de seuil font le reste : le marché perd sa capacité à fixer des prix, lesquels ne sont plus que le reflet de l’épaisseur des carnets d’ordre.
** Dans ce genre d’environnement technique, aucune bonne nouvelle ne peut endiguer la spirale baissière. ...

Extrait de Philippe Béchade, http://www.la-chronique-agora.com/articles/20081013-1260.html

Les Nations ont les institutions quelles veulent.
La commission et ses commissaires sont soigneusement choisis par les Nations.
La commission n’est qu’une “commission” par la volonté des Nations.
Barroso est le plus petit commun représentant choisis par les Nations.
Les Nations ne veulent pas d’élection à ce niveau.
Ce sont les Nations par leurs propres ministres qui font le Conseil de l’europe et la décision.
Les Nations les plus critiques sont souvent les moins présentes.

La BCE a sauvé l’euro et les Nations associées (pas d’Islandes) :
- la BCE a agit avec la FED à égalité de taille et de crédiblité (imaginez les quinzes francs, peso, lires, drachmes ...)
- la BCE a évité l’habituelle série de dévaluations concurrentes de ses ex-monnaies Nationales.
- la conscience, les décisions, la rapidité et les montants concernés dépassent toutes ces Nations.
- la BCE est venue fréquemment au secours de nations dont le PIB n’était qu’une fraction de leur risque financier.
- la BCE a apporté des “économies d’erreurs coûteuses” aux finances de ses Nations.

Par contre
- ce sont les Nations qui ont fait et font la BCE, chaque Nation peut la quitter : il suffit d’un référendum par exemple et tout ira mieux !
- la BCE sera détruite par ses Nations dans la suite de cette crise globale. Non seulement à cause des déficits nationaux répétés au mépris de leurs traités mais aussi aux divergences concurrentielles des politiques Nationales économiques, budgétaires, fiscales, sociales… La difficulté est toujours dans l’étendue et l’adaptation des subsidiarités. Pays du Club Med versus pays Rhénan et Nordiques : il n’y a pas photo, l’allemagne ne veut plus être le dindon de la farce ... la PAC tue l’UE.
- Des procès Nationaux longs et couteux vont pleuvoir paralysants des circuits financiers. Les conflits de compétence et de juridiction des Nations vont être particulièrement délétères. Pensons au Crédit Lyonnais, Kerviel etc. mais à l’échelle continentale comme l’Islande, FORTIS par exemple.
- Les politiciens des Nations vont multiplier les divisions en exploitant les émotions et l’ignorance, ils vont continuer à accuser de leur incurie et de leurs erreurs les institutions efficaces.

Ainsi les Nations resteront égales à leurs déficits car c’est la faute des autres, par définition.

Les anglo-saxons nous vendent une bonne partie de leurs dettes et dérivés toxiques mais n’arrivent pas à sauver leur système financier modèle et ultra-libéral gavé à longueur d’années de dettes pourries de toutes natures.

L’angleterre concocte après un an de paniques diverses un plan de sauvetage massif de ses banques (et surtout pas de leurs produits toxiques distribués mondialement) et cela en taxant ses citoyens alors qu’elle a des revenus pétroliers énormes pour longtemps encore !

L’Angleterre propose alors “son modèle de sauvetage” aux Nations du continent tout en continuant à leur distribuer ses produits toxiques (qu’elle a pris grand soin de ne pas couvrir contrairement à ses banques) et dont les banques du continent sont déjà obèses.

Les Nations du continent qui financent, elles, toute leur énergie (gaz, pétrole) en dollar, et donc déjà doublement déficitaires, établissent alors un plan de refinancement encore bien plus gigantesque en euro (please sir) ... pour sécuriser des produits toxiques anglo-saxons dont la distribution n’est pas arrêtée légalement, ni même en tentative de recensement !

Aucune Nation n’imagine le retour des déchets toxiques à l’expéditeur ! Tout est resservis, refinancé gratis aux anglos-saxons, aristocrates mondiaux des pollutions de toute nature !

Sauf pour nous, sauf surtout pour le tiers monde : les vrais pauvres ! Je rêve.

Ah oui encore merci pour la “défaite anglo-saxonne”, le “rapprochement” et tout ça.
Et vivement la défaite suivante alors ?

Je lis tous les jours vos analyses qui donnent toujours un angle intéressant des sujets traités et qui sont très agréables à lire.
Je lis aussi d’autres sites qui sont tout aussi intéressants et sérieux. Parmi eux le Réseau Voltaire de Thierry Meyssan, qui traite des mêmes sujets mais sous un angle un peu différent et je suis sûr que vous tomberiez d’accord sur la plupart des sujets traités ici.
Cependant, il y a un point où vos analyses sont antagonistes. Il s’agit de Nicolas Sarkozy. Que pensez-vous de cet article : http://www.voltairenet.org/article158181.html
ou de celui-ci:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article157210.html ?

Je ne suis pas, loin de là, un Sarkozyste inconditionnel. Je trouve quand même un peu excessif que Brown et ses médias s’attribuent la responsabilité du retour de l’Europe sur la scène politique. En fait, Brown était venu à Canossa, chercher l’aval de l’Eurogroup, dont il savait bien qu’il ne pouvait pas se passer.
Si Sarkozy ne s’appuie pas sur les tendances colbertistes manifestées par de plus en plus de membres de l’Eurogroup,  pour transformer un premier succès en victoire, il retombera sous l’emprise du libéralisme anglo-saxon. Mais pour cela, il doit proposer un véritable programme social-démocrate.  Il en est loin encore.