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Sarkozy a effectivement recu une formation neo liberale americaine. Mais ca ne veut pas dire qu’il est devenu neoliberal.

Un homme qui est domine par une telle puissance psychologique ne saurait etre influence par une vulgaire reeducation pro imperiale. Il est completement determine par ce trop plein de psychologie qui l’entraine tel un amok.

Le reve americain de faire de Sarko un neo liberal ne restera qu’un reve.

US dollar set to be major casualty of Hank Paulson’s bailout
“This may prove to be the dollar’s epochal moment – the moment historians look back at as its major turning point.”
By Edmund Conway
Last Updated: 10:47PM BST 22 Sep 2008
Comments 112 | Comment on this article
The dollar could be at a major turning point Photo: AP
Whether or not tomorrow’s accounts of today’s turmoil prove David Owen of Dresdner Kleinwort right; whether or not this is the beginning of the end of the dollar’s pre-eminence in the world’s central banks and foreign exchanges, the economic landscape has undoubtedly changed forever.
The US taxpayer bail-out of America’s banking sector is an event whose significance will reverberate for many years. What it means for free markets, for the way Western economies are run, for the prosperity of the world economy, must remain to be seen.
But as investors scrambled to make sense of last week’s events, already one conclusion was all but irrefutable – the US dollar will have to take another major fall.
The dollar rally that began in July and pushed the pound’s value against the greenback significantly lower has come to an abrupt end as markets face up to the fact that the currency will have to absorb the effects of a sudden shocking increase in America’s budget deficit.
When Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced that the world’s biggest economy was about to embark on the world’s biggest bail-out for its financial sector, the first concern economists had was about the long-term prospects for the nation’s finances and its currency.
Might the dollar now be vulnerable to a run? In the longer term, might this signal the beginning of the end for the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency?
The US Treasury was already planning to borrow $438bn (£237bn) next year to shore up its budget deficit. That could now rise to $1 trillion or more after the cost of the $700bn mortgage rescue fund is taken into account. Budget deficits of that kind are usually enough to scare many foreign investors away, and indeed the dollar slumped 1.1 cents to $1.8441 against the pound yesterday, and in late trading was down almost two cents against the euro at $1.46880.
Ironically, despite the pound’s comparative strength against the dollar – having risen from just above $1.75 in the past few weeks – it remains extremely weak against other world currencies, due to investors’ fears about the UK’s own home-grown problems.
“The magic trillion-dollar deficit is within sight,” says Simon Derrick, of Bank of New York Mellon, “The combination of the fiscal position and loose monetary policy is likely to be significantly dollar-negative. With an expanding supply of US paper they might want to hold something else as their safe haven, which might mean other currencies and might just as easily mean commodities such as gold.”
When a government opens the spending taps and borrows more, investors invariably take flight, fearing that assets denominated in those currencies will lose their value as inflation rises and the currency weakens.
However, with the Treasury still reluctant to spell out precisely how the rescue package, modelled on the late 1980s’ Resolution Trust Corporation, will work, analysts are still unclear about how far the dollar has to fall.
It is likewise still unknown precisely what effect the quasi-nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have for the nation’s finances, though the implications will again almost certainly be negative.
According to Mr Derrick, “the sums have changed so quickly on the fiscal side within the space of two weeks, and clearly the outlook for the US economy relative to where people were forecasting before Freddie and Fannie. Investors will also have a radically different outlook for the future.”
The biggest question, however, is whether the reserve managers in central banks in China and elsewhere will treat this as a justification for selling off some of their massive mountain of dollar-denominated investments. If this were to happen, it could cause a catastrophic drop in the US currency, potentially compromising its status as the world’s reserve currency.
However, with the euro area facing its own economic and financial crises, it looks unlikely to be able to step into the breach. This helps explain the leap yesterday in gold and oil prices as investors seek to buy tangible commodities in place of currencies that may easily be devalued in the coming years.
What was perhaps even more worrying for investors was an item in the small print of Hank Paulson’s rescue plan. It said that, separate to the $700bn markets rescue package, the US Treasury would plunder the Exchange Stabilisation Fund – the US currency reserves, established in the 1930s – in order to pay for an insurance scheme for the money markets.
“The Treasury has committed the nation’s FX reserves to supporting the money market industry,” said Chris Turner, head of foreign exchange strategy at ING. “That suggests to us that the dollar has fallen down the list of the administration’s priorities – a worrying development for foreign investors in the US.”
The fund’s cash is being funnelled into a new scheme designed to protect money market mutual funds, which mirrors the Federal Deposit Insurance scheme for consumers’ bank savings. “What worries us is that the US Treasury has committed the nation’s FX reserves at a time when the dollar is exceptionally vulnerable,” said Mr Turner.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/3062121/US-dollar-set-to-be-major-casualty-of-Hank-Paulsons-bailout.html
—-
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives

February 15, 2006

The End of Dollar Hegemony
A hundred years ago it was called “dollar diplomacy.”  After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, that policy evolved into “dollar hegemony.”  But after all these many years of great success, our dollar dominance is coming to an end.
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

July-December 2008: The world plunges into the heart of the global systemic crisis

http://www.leap2020.eu/Global-systemic-crisis-September-2008-Phase-of-collapse-of-US-real-economy_a1298.html

Talks Falter on Bailout Deal
White House Summit Fails to Yield Accord as House GOP Floats New Plan
By Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 26, 2008; A01
A renegade bloc of Republicans moved to reshape a massive bailout of the U.S. financial system yesterday, surprising and angering Bush administration and congressional leaders who hours earlier announced agreement on the “fundamentals” of a deal.
At a meeting at the White House that included President Bush, top lawmakers and both presidential candidates, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) floated a new plan for addressing the crisis that has hobbled global markets.
Democrats accused Boehner of acting on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in trying to disrupt a developing consensus. The new proposal also displeased White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who chased after Democrats leaving the meeting and—half-jokingly—dropped to one knee and pleaded with them not to “blow up” the $700 billion deal, according to people present at the meeting.
Before the meeting broke up, President Bush had issued a stark warning about the impact on the nation’s economy if the measure did not pass. “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” Bush said, according to one person in the room.
Under the alternative Republican plan, the government would set up an expanded insurance system, financed by the banks, that would rescue individual home mortgages. The government would not have to buy up the toxic mortgage-backed assets that are weighing down financial institutions.
Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had already considered and discarded a similar idea, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. “I’m not convinced it does what needs to be done for the banking system, and neither is Secretary Paulson or Fed Chairman Bernanke,” he said.
Last night, after the White House meeting, Paulson shuttled back to the Capitol for a nearly two-hour meeting with Democrats and Senate Republicans, and the sides began drafting legislation based on the general agreement struck earlier in the day. That effort will continue this morning.
Democrats say they would not approve the legislation without a significant number of Republican votes to share in any political fallout from the controversial proposal, which comes just weeks before the November election. “We are working to try to get this bill ready, but if House Republicans continue to reject the president’s approach, then there’s no bill,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an architect of the bailout legislation. “We told Paulson the whole thing is at risk if the president can’t get his own party to participate.”
“We’ve not seen any way to getting majority [Republican] support,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), a leading Republican vote counter and co-author of the alternative House GOP plan, which would also cut taxes on dividends and capital gains.
The apparent breakdown yesterday followed a lunchtime declaration by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate banking and the House Financial Services committees that they had come to a general accord on many outstanding issues. During a nearly three-hour meeting, lawmakers reached an “agreement on principles.”
Under that agreement, the package would be broken into three parts. Paulson would receive $250 billion immediately and $100 billion more upon certification that the funds are necessary. The final $350 billion could be dispersed without additional congressional approval, but Congress would be given 30 days to object.
The agreement calls for strong oversight of the bailout program, including an independent inspector general and regular audits by the Government Accountability Office. It also would require the Treasury to set standards to ban “inappropriate or excessive” compensation for executives at participating firms and establish stronger protections for taxpayers, including a requirement that they receive equity in all participating companies. The latter provision ensures that the Treasury could recover the cash it invests in bad assets if the firms return to financial health.
If the nation profits from the program, the agreement calls for most of the cash to be dedicated to deficit reduction, though a portion would go to funding affordable housing.
Frank said the primary remaining point of contention between Democrats and Republicans is a proposal to give bankruptcy judges new power to modify mortgages for troubled homeowners, an idea that is widely viewed as a bargaining chip. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has said the provision, which is fiercely opposed by the banking industry, should not be included in the bill.
Meanwhile, House Democrats said they were still considering a separate plan to increase taxes to pay for a portion of the bailout, possibly by taxing stock transfers or levying a “surtax” on millionaires. But Democrats had agreed that any tax increase would not be included in the bailout bill.
Despite those stumbling blocks, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), the chief negotiator for Senate Republicans, said early in the day that he was optimistic. “I now expect we will indeed have a plan that will pass the House, pass the Senate and be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis,” Bennett said.
“We’ve reached fundamental agreement on a set of principles,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, adding that a bill could pass within days.
Less than 30 minutes later, however, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who had attended the meeting on behalf of House Republicans, denied that an agreement had been reached. While progress was made on peripheral issues, Bachus said, House Republicans remained adamantly opposed to the central point of the plan: purchasing bad assets from struggling firms.
“There’s not a deal. There’s not a deal made. There was progress on the issues,” Bachus told reporters. He said House Republicans “would prefer a loan where we fix an interest rate or we would prefer insurance” rather than having the government buy up bad assets.
Bachus said many of those ideas were supported by McCain, who returned to Washington yesterday to participate in the negotiations. Bachus said he spoke to McCain on Wednesday, had breakfast yesterday with two McCain advisers and spoke to McCain again immediately after the morning meeting.
But, Bachus said, “John’s not trying to call the shots for the House caucus, I can tell you that. He’s just opposed to the plan in its present form.”
Frank reacted angrily to Bachus’s remarks, saying lawmakers had been well on their way toward a bill they could put to a vote and accusing McCain of engineering a breakdown. “This is the presidential campaign of John McCain undermining what Hank Paulson tells us is essential for the country,” he said.
Frank was in a fury as he and other Democrats departed for the late-afternoon meeting at the White House, a remarkable event given Bush’s efforts to stay out of the presidential campaign.
Despite expectations that a deal was near, Boehner took off in a different direction during the meeting, saying the bailout plan was not gaining traction among rank-and-file House Republicans.
As Obama and Frank peppered Boehner with questions about the new proposal, Bush rejected the idea as a too-broad rewrite of his administration’s plan, according to the handwritten notes of one Democrat present.
“Don’t start over,” Bush said. “Don’t start over.”
Staff writers Binyamin Appelbaum, Jonathan Weisman and Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092500268.html?hpid=topnews
Away from Wall Street, Economists Question Basis of Paulson’s Plan
By Neil Irwin and Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 26, 2008; A01
The Bush administration’s pitch for a sweeping bailout of the financial system has centered on two simple premises: that the economy could suffer a crippling downturn if action is not taken very quickly and that this action should consist of the government buying troubled mortgage securities from banks and other institutions.
But many of the nation’s top economists disagree with one or both of those ideas, even as many top political leaders have swung behind them.
Wall Street economists have mostly endorsed Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.‘s plan, or a variation thereof.
But almost 200 academic economists—who aren’t paid by the institutions that could directly benefit from the plan but who also may not have recent practical experience in the markets—have signed a petition organized by a University of Chicago professor objecting to the plan on the grounds that it could create perverse incentives, that it is too vague and that its long-run effects are unclear. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, brandished that letter yesterday afternoon as he explained his opposition to the bailout outside a bipartisan summit at the White House. The petition did not advocate any specific plan, including that offered yesterday by House Republicans.
Economists tend to agree that the nation’s economy is at serious risk as the flow of credit threatens to freeze. Just yesterday, the interest rate at which banks lend to each other rose steeply, as it has every day this week, suggesting that lenders are hoarding cash. History shows that when this happens, a broad economic crisis can follow, for instance, the Great Depression and Japan’s decade-long recession in the 1990s.
“If nothing is done, the potential for these markets to seize up in a big way is definitely there,” said Frederic S. Mishkin, an economist at Columbia University who was a Federal Reserve governor until last month. “When you look at the history of these crises, when things spin out of control, the cost to fix it later goes up exponentially.”
But many others with a deep theoretical knowledge of finance and experience in government are skeptical of the structure of Paulson’s plan—and the speed with which it has been crafted.
The critics can be roughly divided into two camps. One group thinks money should be directly infused into banks, which should allow it to trickle down through the financial system to borrowers. A second group thinks the government should buy individual mortgages, thus helping ordinary Americans more directly, with the benefits trickling up to the banks.
The plan promoted by Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is somewhere in between: buying up packages of mortgages and hoping that the benefits spread both up to banks and down to households.
“The plan is a trickle-down approach from banks to Main Street,” said Alan S. Blinder, a professor at Princeton University. “But if you reduce the flood of foreclosures and defaults”—which he would have the government do by buying loans directly and then renegotiating the terms—“it will make mortgage-backed securities worth more.”
That might help ordinary Americans but would be extremely difficult to administer. The government would have to make decisions on the foreclosure and resale of individual houses all over the country. Still, many economists with left-of-center political views favor some variation of this approach to the plan endorsed by Bush.
“There is a kind of suggestion in the Paulson proposal that if only we provide enough money to financial markets, this problem will disappear,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. “But that does nothing to address the fundamental problem of bleeding foreclosures and the holes in the balance sheets of banks.”
Coming from the other direction, more conservative economists worry that by having the government buy mortgage securities, the Paulson plan would manipulate prices in that market without getting at the nub of the problem: that banks do not have enough capital and are having difficulty raising any on private markets.
In a sign of how the debate over the economy has shifted in recent weeks, some conservatives, even as they argue for a relatively limited government role, are calling on the government to invest public money in private banks.
“The root of the issue is recapitalizing banks,” said Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School and a former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “That could be done more efficiently through the government injection of preferred equity. Then the market could figure out the prices of the assets.”
Many of these critics don’t care for the assumption behind the administration’s plan that the market is now pricing these mortgage securities incorrectly, a problem that the government intervention aims to fix.
“The premise appears to be that the market is irrationally pessimistic,” wrote Greg Mankiw, a Harvard University economist and another former Bush economic adviser, on his blog this week. “That might be so. Nonetheless, one has to be at least a bit skeptical about the idea that government policymakers gambling with other people’s money are better at judging the value of complex financial instruments than are private investors gambling with their own.”
Some conservatives are now arguing, notably, that the government should be investing in banks.
Many economists fault the Bush administration and Congress for moving so quickly on the bailout package without allowing more time for debate. That sentiment was reflected in the petition organized by John Cochrane of the University of Chicago. (None of the economists quoted here were signatories.)
“I totally disagree that this needs to be done this week. It’s more important to get it right,” Blinder said.
Moreover, some economists said the proposed $700 billion may not be enough to address all the problems stretching across the financial landscape. “You only show up if you can win, and this is not that package,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “This cannot be the ultimate, decisive solution if you are not addressing the underlying cause.”
The plan is short on details, instead giving the Treasury secretary wide latitude to determine how to execute the purchases of mortgage securities.
“I’d like to see how they see the evolution of an end game. There are still many questions,” said Myron Scholes, a retired professor at Stanford University and Nobel Prize winner. He said how long the government holds the assets and how they are later resold would be the keys to determining whether the plan works.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504531.html?sid=ST2008092600233&s_pos=list
September 26, 2008
Talks Implode During a Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Remains Unresolved
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, CARL HULSE and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
This article was reported by David M. Herszenhorn, Carl Hulse and Sheryl Gay Stolberg and written by Ms. Stolberg.
WASHINGTON — The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support.
“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.
It was an implosion that spilled out from behind closed doors into public view in a way rarely seen in Washington.
By 10:30 p.m., after another round of talks, Congressional negotiators gave up for the night and said they would try again on Friday. Left uncertain was the fate of the bailout, which the White House says is urgently needed to fix broken financial and credit markets, as well as whether the first presidential debate would go forward as planned Friday night in Mississippi.
When Congressional leaders and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, the two major party presidential candidates, trooped to the White House on Thursday afternoon, most signs pointed toward a bipartisan agreement on a grand compromise that could be accepted by all sides and signed into law by the weekend. It was intended to pump billions of dollars into the financial system, restoring liquidity and keeping credit flowing to businesses and consumers.
“We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, “My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly.”
But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.
Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.
The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling news conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.
In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.
“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”
Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”
It was the very outcome the White House had said it intended to avoid, with partisan presidential politics appearing to trample what had been exceedingly delicate Congressional negotiations.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, denounced the session as “a rescue plan for John McCain,” and proclaimed it a waste of precious hours that could have been spent negotiating.
But a top aide to Mr. Boehner said it was Democrats who had done the political posturing. The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.
The day seemed to hold promise as it began. On Wednesday night, Mr. Bush had delivered a prime-time televised address to the nation, warning that “our country could experience a long and painful recession” if lawmakers did not act quickly to pass a huge Wall Street bailout plan.
After spending Thursday morning behind closed doors, senior lawmakers from both parties emerged shortly before 1 p.m. in the ornate painted corridors on the first floor of the Capitol to herald their agreement on the broad outlines of a deal.
They said the legislation, which would authorize unprecedented government intervention to buy distressed debt from private firms, would include limits on pay packages for executives of some firms that seek assistance and a mechanism for the government to take an equity stake in some of the firms, so taxpayers have a chance to profit if the bailout plan works.
“I now expect we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president, and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is still roiling in the markets,” said Robert F. Bennett, Republican of Utah, a member of the banking committee.
He made a point of describing that meeting as free of political maneuvering. “It was one of the most productive sessions in that regard that I have participated in since I have been in the Senate,” Mr. Bennett said.
But a few blocks away, a senior House Republican lawmaker was at a luncheon with reporters, saying his caucus would never go along with the deal. This Republican said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the chief deputy whip, was circulating an alternative course that would rely on government-backed insurance, not taxpayer-financed purchase of mortgage assets.
He said the recalcitrant Republicans were calculating that Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, would not want to leave her caucus politically exposed in an election season by passing a bailout bill without rank-and-file Republican support.
“You can have all the meetings you want,” this Republican said, referring to the White House session with Mr. Bush, the presidential candidates and Congressional leaders, still hours away. “It comes to the floor and the votes aren’t there. It won’t pass.”
House Republicans have spent days expressing their unease about a huge government intervention, which they regard as a step down the path to socialism.
Mr. Smith, the aide to Mr. Boehner, said the leader had directed a group of Republicans a few days ago to see whether they could come up with alternatives that relied less on tax funds in providing the rescue package; that led to Mr. Cantor’s mortgage-insurance approach. He said Mr. Boehner thought Mr. Cantor’s idea should be taken into consideration in the talks.
At 4 p.m., Mr. Bush convened his meeting at the White House; Mr. McCain had already met with House Republicans to hear their concerns. He later said on ABC that he had known going into the White House that “there never was a deal,” but he kept that sentiment to himself.
The meeting opened with Mr. Paulson, the chief architect of the bailout plan, “giving a status report on the condition of the market,” Tony Fratto, Mr. Bush’s deputy press secretary, said. Mr. Fratto said Mr. Paulson warned in particular of the tightening of credit markets overnight, adding, “that is something very much on his mind.”
Mr. McCain was at one end of the long conference table, Mr. Obama at the other, with the president and senior Congressional leaders between them. Participants said Mr. Obama peppered Mr. Paulson with questions, while Mr. McCain said little. Outside the West Wing, a huge crowd of reporters gathered in the driveway, anxiously awaiting an appearance by either presidential candidate, with expectations running high.
Instead, the first politician to emerge was Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, waving a sheet of paper that he said detailed his own concerns. “The agreement,” Mr. Shelby declared, “is obviously no agreement.”
The House Republicans’ revolt shocked Democrats; the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said later that he was under the impression that Mr. Boehner had been a strong advocate for moving forward with the Paulson plan.
Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, who attended the White House meeting, was shocked as well. “We were ready to make a deal,” Mr. Frank said later.
At 8 p.m., an exasperated Mr. Frank, the lead Democratic negotiator, walked back to the Rules Committee room on the second floor of the Senate side of the Capitol, with a pack of reporters on his heels. He was headed for another late-night meeting with Mr. Paulson and many other lawmakers to see whether they could restart the negotiations — and ward off a Friday morning bloodbath in the markets.
Ms. Pelosi told reporters that she was open to considering ideas proposed by the House Republicans. And Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama both said they held out hope that a deal could be reached soon.
At the White House, Mr. Bush was holding fast to the approach that Mr. Paulson has championed.
“In case there’s any confusion,” Mr. Fratto, the deputy press secretary, wrote in an e-mail message. “The president supports the core of Secretary Paulson’s plan.”
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/26bailout.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Plan de sauvetage de l’économie américaine : difficile accouchement
LE MONDE | 26.09.08 | 10h42
Washington, correspondante

A la veille du premier débat de la campagne présidentielle, prévu en principe vendredi 26 septembre à Oxford, dans le Mississippi, le candidat républicain, John McCain, a pris le risque de contribuer à l’échec du plan de sauvetage du système bancaire américain en discussion depuis six jours au Congrès. Il s’est posé en défenseur des Américains moyens contre les puissances de l’argent. “Le plan qui a été présenté par l’administration ne bénéficie pas de la confiance des Américains, a-t-il estimé. Il ne protège pas les contribuables et il sacrifie Main Street (l’homme de la rue) au profit de Wall Street.” Malgré la mise en garde dramatique de George Bush, mercredi, contre le risque d’effondrement de l’économie, le plan de 700 milliards de dollars concocté par le secrétaire au trésor, Henry Paulson, n’a pas pu être adopté jeudi. Et ce, alors que M. Bush avait réuni les deux prétendants à sa succession John McCain et Barack Obama, pour un sommet historique à la Maison Blanche destiné à l’entériner collectivement. L’administration avait d’autant plus confiance qu’elle avait fait des concessions aux démocrates notamment sur l’indulgence envers les propriétaires immobiliers insolvables et la limitation des indemnités des dirigeants de banques.

Plutôt que le consensus, c’est la discorde qui s’est installée en ce que le New York Times a appelé un “jour de chaos”. Les responsables démocrates et républicains se sont accusés de chercher à utiliser la crise financière à des fins électoralistes. A la fin de la journée, les démocrates ont fini par se retrouver dans la position d’être ceux qui soutiennent George Bush alors qu’une partie des républicains s’oppose au plan du président.
Jeudi, la journée avait commencé sur une note d’optimisme. A midi, John McCain, qui avait annoncé la veille qu’il suspendait sa campagne devant l’urgence de la crise, est arrivé au Congrès, où on ne l’avait pas vu depuis le début avril. Immédiatement, il est allé entendre les représentants républicains, un groupe qui, à 40 jours d’une élection qui va renouveler la totalité de la Chambre, n’est pas pressé de voter un texte qu’une partie des électeurs juge extravagant (selon les premiers sondages, 30% sont contre, 30% sont pour et le dernier tiers ne sait pas quoi penser).
Comme pour lui couper l’herbe sous le pied, le sénateur démocrate Chris Dodd s’est dépêché d’annoncer qu’un accord avait déjà été arrêté sur des “principes fondamentaux”. Cela a suffi à Wall Street, qui a conclu en hausse de 1,82%. Mais le représentant de l’Alabama Richard Shelby et plusieurs autres républicains conservateurs ont démenti s’être ralliés, et leur entretien avec John McCain les a plutôt confortés dans leurs états d’âme. Comme l’a expliqué le consultant républicain Alex Castellanos, “il est culturellement plus facile aux démocrates de dépenser 700 milliards de l’argent du contribuable qu’aux républicains”.
A 16 heures, a eu lieu une réunion sans précédent à la Maison Blanche, dans la salle du conseil de cabinet. Malgré la pluie, plusieurs centaines de personnes manifestaient devant les grilles à l’appel d’organisations démocrates comme Campaign for America’s Future. Mot d’ordre : “pas de chèque en blanc pour le plan de sauvetage de Wall Street”. “Les mêmes personnes qui nous disaient il y a quelques semaines que tout allait bien et que nous avions simplement besoin de quelques réductions d’impôt supplémentaires, nous disent maintenant que l’économie va s’effondrer. Les gens ont l’impression qu’on leur a menti”, dit Roger Hickey, le directeur.
Jamais on avait vu deux rivaux présidentiels assis autour de la même table à la Maison Blanche, si près des élections. Barack Obama était arrivé de Floride où il se préparait depuis plusieurs jours au débat prévu dans le Mississippi. Le président Bush était encadré des leaders du congrès, puis des deux candidats, aux extrémités de la table. En face de lui, le vice-président Dick Cheney, et le secrétaire au Trésor. Moins d’une heure après le début de la discussion, le premier interlocuteur qui est sorti, le sénateur Shelby a dit sans détour que l’accord n’avait pas été conclu. “Nous avons beaucoup d’opinions différentes”. Il a montré aux caméras un texte signé par 200 professeurs d’économie mettant en doute la validité du plan Paulson.
Selon le récit fait par les démocrates, furieux, le chef des républicains à la chambre, John Boehner, qui n’avait pas manifesté de virulence jusque-là, a fait une contre-proposition qui a “tout fait sauter”. Celle-ci verrait le gouvernement promettre une assurance aux firmes qui conserveraient les emprunts gelés. Harry Reid, le chef de file démocrate au Sénat, a indiqué que M. McCain qui avait parlé le dernier s’était gardé de dire quoi que ce soit de “substantiel”. Les démocrates ont reproché au candidat républicain de venir souffler sur les braises aux seules fins de se poser ensuite en homme providentiel.
Sentant le piège, les démocrates ont souligné qu’ils n’entendaient pas faire passer un projet émanant de l’administration Bush sans un minimum de votes républicains. Selon le Washington Post, Henry Paulson a été vu, faisant mine de poser un genou à terre, pour supplier les démocrates de ne pas laisser tomber son plan. Quant au débat du Mississippi, dont M. McCain avait proposé le report tant que les parlementaires n’auraient pas statué, le suspense continuait à quelques heures de l’ouverture. “Le débat qui est le plus important est celui qui se déroule au Congrès”. a-t-il lancé. L’entourage de M. Obama était néanmoins confiant que le “maverick” (franc tireur) viendrait.

Corine Lesnes
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/imprimer_element/0,40-0@2-829254,50-1099862,0.html

Crise financière: la réunion à la Maison Blanche fait chou blanc
John McCain et Barack Obama entourent George W. Bush, hier à la Maison Blanche (Reuters).
George W. Bush avait réuni autour de lui John McCain, Barack Obama et des responsables du Congrès pour entériner le sauvetage des banques américaines. Las, aucun accord n’a été trouvé.
LIBERATION.FR (AVEC SOURCE AFP)
LIBERATION.FR : vendredi 26 septembre 2008
Ils étaient tous persuadés que l’accord était proche. Ils se trompaient. Malgré une réunion exceptionnelle des responsables du Congrès autour de George W. Bush et de John McCain et Barack Obama, le sauvetage du système bancaire américain n’est toujours qu’un vœu pieux.
«Je pense que nous finirons par avoir un accord mais il reste du travail à faire», a déclaré le candidat démocrate à la présidentielle, Barack Obama, à l’issue de la réunion à la Maison Blanche consacrée aux 700 milliards de dollars que l’administration Bush souhaite injecter dans le système bancaire.
Son adversaire républicain, qui a annoncé mercredi la suspension de sa campagne électorale pour se consacrer à la crise financière, a assuré qu’il n’y avait «jamais eu d’accord […] Mais je pense que la rencontre était importante pour faire avancer le processus». Le chef de la majorité démocrate du Sénat, Harry Reid, l’a accusé de n’avoir «fait que perturber le processus».
«Accord fondamental sur une série de principes»
A l’ouverture de la réunion, Bush avait indiqué qu’il espérait «parvenir à un accord très rapidement». «Nous faisons face à une grave crise économique, si nous n’adoptons pas une loi», avait-il dit, tout en se félicitant «de l’esprit de coopération au-delà des partis» qui a prévalu jusque-là. La perspective d’un accord imminent a pourtant soutenu jeudi les places financières en Europe et en Amérique.
Juste avant la rencontre, des parlementaires avaient annoncé les grandes lignes de l’accord auquel ils travaillent depuis près d’une semaine. Le président de la commission bancaire du Sénat, Christopher Dodd, a annoncé que les négociateurs des deux partis allaient soumettre le texte de leur accord à leurs collègues et aux responsables du département du Trésor. «Nous sommes arrivés à un accord fondamental sur une série de principes», a déclaré Christopher Dodd à la presse.
La présidente de la Chambre des représentants, Nancy Pelosi, a rapporté que la Maison Blanche avait donné son accord aux principes que les démocrates souhaitaient incorporer au plan, notamment l’indulgence envers les propriétaires immobiliers insolvables et la limitation des indemnités des dirigeants bancaires. Les démocrates ont dévoilé jeudi un projet de sauvetage de 56,2 milliards de dollars en faveur des familles frappées par la crise financière.
McCain souhaite toujours repousser le débat face à Obama
Mais l’influent sénateur républicain Richard Shelby a assuré qu’il n’y avait toujours pas d’accord, dénonçant «des failles» dans le plan présenté au Congrès par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson. «Même si le plan Paulson marchait parfaitement, ce dont doutent beaucoup de gens y compris près de 200 économistes, il ne stimulerait pas le crédit, il n’aiderait pas les propriétaires immobiliers et ne relancerait pas l’économie. […] Nous ne sommes pas tombés dans cette situation en quelques jours et nous n’en sortirons pas non plus en quelques jours», a-t-il asséné.
Intervenant solennellement mercredi soir à la télévision, George W. Bush n’avait pas hésité à parler d’«économie en danger» et de «période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine», dans l’espoir de convaincre le Congrès de s’entendre au plus vite.
McCain et Obama avaient de leur côté publié un communiqué commun mercredi, mettant de côté la campagne électorale pour appeler à l’union sacrée autour du plan de sauvetage. Le candidat démocrate insiste toutefois pour tenir comme prévu vendredi soir son premier débat télévisé l’opposant à John McCain, alors que ce dernier souhaite le reporter afin de se consacrer entièrement à la crise.

http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/354595.FR.php

Crise financière
Chaos à Washington : Bush trahi par les siens
JUREK KUCZKIEWICZ
vendredi 26 septembre 2008, 12:19
LORS D’UNE DRAMATIQUE réunion autour du président Bush, les républicains ont rejeté le plan de sauvetage du système financier.
Lire aussi l’édito “Ah ! Dieu, que les idéologies sont jolies !”/ Les cours du pétrole flanchent
EPA
Alors qu’un accord se profilait hier à Washington entre démocrates et républicains autour du plan de sauvetage financier élaboré par le secrétaire au Trésor Hank Paulson, il a volé en éclats sous les yeux mêmes du président Bush. Lors de la réunion au sommet à laquelle il avait convoqué les deux candidats à la présidentielle Obama et McCain, c’est le patron de la minorité républicaine de la Chambre, John Boehner, qui a provoqué le coup de théâtre : son groupe refusait de soutenir le plan Paulson, jugeant l’intervention de l’État démesurée, et proposant un plan alternatif. John McCain, le candidat républicain à la présidentielle, refusait de prendre position sur le plan. Dans une réunion tout aussi dramatique qui a suivi, toujours à la Maison Blanche, Hank Paulson s’est littéralement agenouillé devant la présidente de la Chambre, la démocrate Nancy Pelosi, la suppliant de lui maintenir son soutien : « Je ne savais pas que vous étiez catholique », a remarqué froidement Pelosi, Paulson étant en réalité scientiste. Et alors que Paulson la suppliait de « ne pas f… en l’air son plan », la parlementaire lui rétorquait : « Ce n’est pas moi qui le f… en l’air, ce sont les républicains. » « Je sais, je sais », a soupiré Paulson.
Le résultat est inouï : alors que la majorité démocrate du Congrès s’apprêtait à soutenir le plan Paulson, à la demande pressante du président Bush, c’est le parti même du président qui fait capoter tout le projet, laissant les marchés financiers, en manque de liquidités, dans l’incertitude.
Nouvelle victime de la crise, Washington Mutual, le géant hypothécaire, a dans les faits fait faillite : tous ses actifs bancaires ont été repris par la banque JP Morgan Chase, pour un montant de 1,9 milliard de dollars (1,3 milliard d’euros). Une transaction organisée par les autorités financières afin d’éviter de recourir à l’argent public pour sauver une institution privée en perdition.
Quelle issue à la crise politico-financière ? Tous les acteurs politiques vont poursuivre les négociations aujourd’hui, alors que les regards seront vissés sur Wall Street à l’ouverture des marchés, à 9 heures 30 (15 heures 30, heure belge), qui risquent de mal réagir le coup de théâtre survenu au moment où le plan Paulson, et le ballon d’oxygène qu’il représente, allait être adopté.
Politiquement, la situation est plus compliquée que jamais. Les démocrates, qui allaient approuver le plan, ne le feront pas si les républicains ne le soutiennent pas également : hors de question de jouer les utilités au président Bush sur un plan qui risque de coûter beaucoup d’argent au contribuable, tandis que les républicains, et surtout leur candidat John McCain, endossent le rôle de défenseur du portefeuille du citoyen.
L’inconnue reste du coup également totale sur la tenue du premier débat présidentiel prévu pour ce soir. John McCain y est opposé, tandis que Barack Obama et la commission indépendante des débats présidentiels veulent le maintenir. Motif avancé par le candidat républicain : il faut se consacrer à la résolution de la crise politico-financière. Les démocrates rétorquent que c’est précisément en suspendant sa campagne pour s’inviter dans la délicate négociation politique à Washington, que John McCain a fait capoter le plan Paulson.
Sur tous les fronts, politique comme financier, la journée s’annonce une fois de plus chahutée.
http://www.lesoir.be/dossiers/elections_us_2008/article_642828.shtml

Selling Out Taiwan To Finance The Bailout
  http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/09/selling-taiwan.html

With regard to the mother of all bailouts, my first question was:
Any future lenders will [..] ask for higher interest rates. Will they have additional conditions on top of those? 
[...]
Who will finance Paulson’s plan (or any other plan of this size) and under what conditions?

Today Bush called the prime lender to the U.S. and asked for the big loan. With polite language the Chinese revealed their ‘additional condition’.  It is a nice, small but productive island that Beijing wants to reunite with the fatherland for quite a while. Until now U.S. interests prevented that. But now things may have changed
——————————————-  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/22/content_10091587.htm——————-
Chinese, U.S. presidents talk over phone about ties, U.S. financial turmoil   
BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua)—Chinese President Hu Jintao and his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush discussed bilateral relations and the financial upheavals in the United States in a phone conversation on Monday morning Beijing time. 
[...]
Bush briefed Hu on the latest development of the U.S. financial market, saying his government was well aware of the scope of the problem, and had taken and would continue to take necessary measures to stabilize the domestic and world financial markets.
Hu hoped the measures would soon take effect and lead to a gradual recovery of the financial market, which he said not only serves the interests of the United States, but also those of China, and benefits the stability of the world financial market and the sound development of the world economy.
The Chinese president also praised the good momentum of the development of the Sino-U.S. ties in recent years in various areas.
He said China is ready to work with the U.S. side to intensify dialogue, exchanges and cooperation, and properly handle issues concerning mutual interests and of major concern, particularly the Taiwan question, in a bid to push forward the sustained and steady development of the Sino-U.S. constructive and cooperative ties.
————————————————
Translated from diplomatic-speech: “Give us Taiwan and you’ll get the loan.”
Taiwan will not be the only ‘additional condition’ in this deal but for China it is the premier one.
Taiwan’s GDP is some $700 billion, about the amount the U.S. needs for the current bailout. A good deal for Beijing even if the dollar falls and the big loans never gets repaid. A war over Taiwan would be more expensive.
Bush will now have to brief Congress leaders and will need to get some consensus within the U.S. foreign policy establishment on this issue. I doubt that China is dumb enough to hand the money over without having some bi-partisan guarantee.
Will the U.S. agree to the Chinese condition and sell out Taiwan for the big loan it needs?    My bet is yes.  Yours?

Un peu long mais tellement d’actualité

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=276

Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy
By Robert Kagan
Foreign Affairs, July/August 1996
William Kristol and Robert Kagan
July/August 1996

THE TEPID CONSENSUS

IN FOREIGN policy, conservatives are adrift. They disdain the Wilsonian multilateralism of the Clinton administration; they are tempted by, but so far have resisted, the neoisolationism of Patrick Buchanan; for now, they lean uncertainly on some version of the conservative “realism” of Henry Kissinger and his disciples. Thus, in this year’s election campaign, they speak vaguely of replacing Clinton’s vacillation with a steady, “adult” foreign policy under Robert Dole. But Clinton has not vacillated that much recently, and Dole was reduced a few weeks ago to asserting, in what was heralded as a major address, that there really are differences in foreign policy between him and the president, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. But the fault is not Dole’s; in truth, there has been little attempt to set forth the outlines of a conservative view of the world and America’s proper role in it.

Is such an attempt necessary, or even possible? For the past few years, Americans, from the foreign policy big-thinker to the man on the street, have assumed it is not. Rather, this is supposed to be a time for unshouldering the vast responsibilities the United States acquired at the end of the Second World War and for concentrating its energies at home. The collapse of the Soviet Empire has made possible a “return to normalcy” in American foreign and defense policy, allowing the adoption of a more limited definition of the national interest, with a commensurate reduction in overseas involvement and defense spending.

Republicans and conservatives at first tended to be wary of this new post-Cold War consensus. But they joined it rapidly after 1992, in the wake of the defeat of the quintessential “foreign policy president” by a candidate who promised to focus “like a laser” on the domestic economy. Now conservatives tailor their foreign and defense policies to fit the presumed new political reality: an American public that is indifferent, if not hostile, to foreign policy and commitments abroad, more interested in balancing the budget than in leading the world, and more intent on cashing in the “peace dividend” than on spending to deter and fight future wars. Most conservatives have chosen to acquiesce in rather than challenge this public mood.

In a way, the current situation is reminiscent of the mid-1970s. But Ronald Reagan mounted a bold challenge to the tepid consensus of that era – a consensus that favored accommodation to and coexistence with the Soviet Union, accepted the inevitability of America’s declining power, and considered any change in the status quo either too frightening or too expensive. Proposing a controversial vision of ideological and strategic victory over the forces of international communism, Reagan called for an end to complacency in the face of the Soviet threat, large increases in defense spending, resistance to communist advances in the Third World, and greater moral clarity and purpose in U.S. foreign policy. He championed American exceptionalism when it was deeply unfashionable. Perhaps most significant, he refused to accept the limits on American power imposed by the domestic political realities that others assumed were fixed.

Many smart people regarded Reagan with scorn or alarm. Liberal Democrats still reeling from the Vietnam War were, of course, appalled by his zealotry. So were many of Reagan’s fellow Republicans, especially the Kissingerian realists then dominant in foreign affairs. Reagan declared war on his own party, took on Gerald Ford for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination (primarily over issues of foreign policy), and trained his guns on Kissinger, whose stewardship of U.S. foreign policy, he charged, had “coincided precisely with the loss of U.S. military supremacy.” Although Reagan lost the battle to unseat Ford, he won the fight at the Republican convention for a platform plank on “morality in foreign policy.” Ultimately, he succeeded in transforming the Republican party, the conservative movement in America, and, after his election to the presidency in 1980, the country and the world.

BENEVOLENT HEGEMONY

TWENTY YEARS later, it is time once again to challenge an indifferent America and a confused American conservatism. Today’s lukewarm consensus about America’s reduced role in a post-Cold War world is wrong. Conservatives should not accede to it; it is bad for the country and, incidentally, bad for conservatism. Conservatives will not be able to govern America over the long term if they fail to offer a more elevated vision of America’s international role.

What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the “evil empire,” the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America’s security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world.

The aspiration to benevolent hegemony might strike some as either hubristic or morally suspect. But a hegemon is nothing more or less than a leader with preponderant influence and authority over all others in its domain. That is America’s position in the world today. The leaders of Russia and China understand this. At their April summit meeting, Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin joined in denouncing “hegemonism” in the post-Cold War world. They meant this as a complaint about the United States. It should be taken as a compliment and a guide to action.

Consider the events of just the past six months, a period that few observers would consider remarkable for its drama on the world stage. In East Asia, the carrier task forces of the U.S. Seventh Fleet helped deter Chinese aggression against democratic Taiwan, and the 35,000 American troops stationed in South Korea helped deter a possible invasion by the rulers in Pyongyang. In Europe, the United States sent 20,000 ground troops to implement a peace agreement in the former Yugoslavia, maintained 100,000 in Western Europe as a symbolic commitment to European stability and security, and intervened diplomatically to prevent the escalation of a conflict between Greece and Turkey. In the Middle East, the United States maintained the deployment of thousands of soldiers and a strong naval presence in the Persian Gulf region to deter possible aggression by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran, and it mediated in the conflict between Israel and Syria in Lebanon. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States completed the withdrawal of 15,000 soldiers after restoring a semblance of democratic government in Haiti and, almost without public notice, prevented a military coup in Paraguay. In Africa, a U.S. expeditionary force rescued Americans and others trapped in the Liberian civil conflict.

These were just the most visible American actions of the past six months, and just those of a military or diplomatic nature. During the same period, the United States made a thousand decisions in international economic forums, both as a government and as an amalgam of large corporations and individual entrepreneurs, that shaped the lives and fortunes of billions around the globe. America influenced both the external and internal behavior of other countries through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Through the United Nations, it maintained sanctions on rogue states such as Libya, Iran, and Iraq. Through aid programs, the United States tried to shore up friendly democratic regimes in developing nations. The enormous web of the global economic system, with the United States at the center, combined with the pervasive influence of American ideas and culture, allowed Americans to wield influence in many other ways of which they were entirely unconscious. The simple truth of this era was stated last year by a Serb leader trying to explain Slobodan Milosevic’s decision to finally seek rapprochement with Washington. “As a pragmatist,” the Serbian politician said, “Milosevic knows that all satellites of the United States are in a better position than those that are not satellites.”

And America’s allies are in a better position than those who are not its allies. Most of the world’s major powers welcome U.S. global involvement and prefer America’s benevolent hegemony to the alternatives. Instead of having to compete for dominant global influence with many other powers, therefore, the United States finds both the Europeans and the Japanese—after the United States, the two most powerful forces in the world—supportive of its world leadership role. Those who anticipated the dissolution of these alliances once the common threat of the Soviet Union disappeared have been proved wrong. The principal concern of America’s allies these days is not that it will be too dominant but that it will withdraw.

Somehow most Americans have failed to notice that they have never had it so good. They have never lived in a world more conducive to their fundamental interests in a liberal international order, the spread of freedom and democratic governance, an international economic system of free-market capitalism and free trade, and the security of Americans not only to live within their own borders but to travel and do business safely and without encumbrance almost anywhere in the world. Americans have taken these remarkable benefits of the post-Cold War era for granted, partly because it has all seemed so easy. Despite misguided warnings of imperial overstretch, the United States has so far exercised its hegemony without any noticeable strain, and it has done so despite the fact that Americans appear to be in a more insular mood than at any time since before the Second World War. The events of the last six months have excited no particular interest among Americans and, indeed, seem to have been regarded with the same routine indifference as breathing and eating.

And that is the problem. The most difficult thing to preserve is that which does not appear to need preserving. The dominant strategic and ideological position the United States now enjoys is the product of foreign policies and defense strategies that are no longer being pursued. Americans have come to take the fruits of their hegemonic power for granted. During the Cold War, the strategies of deterrence and containment worked so well in checking the ambitions of America’s adversaries that many American liberals denied that our adversaries had ambitions or even, for that matter, that America had adversaries. Today the lack of a visible threat to U.S. vital interests or to world peace has tempted Americans to absentmindedly dismantle the material and spiritual foundations on which their national well-being has been based. They do not notice that potential challengers are deterred before even contemplating confrontation by their overwhelming power and influence.

The ubiquitous post-Cold War question—where is the threat?—is thus misconceived. In a world in which peace and American security depend on American power and the will to use it, the main threat the United States faces now and in the future is its own weakness. American hegemony is the only reliable defense against a breakdown of peace and international order. The appropriate goal of American foreign policy, therefore, is to preserve that hegemony as far into the future as possible. To achieve this goal, the United States needs a neo-Reaganite foreign policy of military supremacy and moral confidence.

THREE IMPERATIVES

SETTING FORTH the broad outlines of such a foreign policy is more important for the moment than deciding the best way to handle all the individual issues that have preoccupied U.S. policymakers and analysts. Whether or not the United States continues to grant most-favored-nation status to China is less important than whether it has an overall strategy for containing, influencing, and ultimately seeking to change the regime in Beijing. Whether NATO expands this year or five years from now is less important than whether NATO remains strong, active, cohesive, and under decisive American leadership. Whether America builds 20 B-2 bombers or 3 is less important than giving its military planners enough money to make intelligent choices that are driven more by strategic than by budget requirements. But it is clear that a neo-Reaganite foreign policy would have several implications.

The defense budget. Republicans declared victory last year when they added $ 7 billion to President Clinton’s defense budget. But the hard truth is that Washington—now spending about $ 260 billion per year on defense—probably needs to spend about $ 60-$ 80 billion more each year in order to preserve America’s role as global hegemon. The United States currently devotes about three percent of its GNP to defense. U.S. defense planners, who must make guesses about a future that is impossible to predict with confidence, are increasingly being forced to place all their chips on one guess or another. They are being asked to predict whether the future is likely to bring more conflicts like the Gulf War or peacekeeping operations like those in Bosnia and Haiti, or more great-power confrontations similar to the Cold War. The best answer to these questions is: who can tell? The odds are that in the coming decades America may face all these kinds of conflict, as well as some that have yet to be imagined.

For the past few years, American military supremacy has been living off a legacy, specifically, the legacy of Ronald Reagan. As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell once noted, it was Reagan’s military, built in the 1980s to deter the Soviet Union, that won the war against Iraq. No serious analyst of American military capabilities today doubts that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace. The United States may no longer have the wherewithal to defend against threats to America’s vital interests in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, much less to extend America’s current global preeminence well into the future.

The current readiness of U.S. forces is in decline, but so is their ability to maintain an advantage in high-technology weapons over the coming decades. In the search for some way to meet extensive strategic requirements with inadequate resources, defense planners have engaged in strategic fratricide. Those who favor current readiness have been pitted against those who favor high-tech research and development; those who favor maintaining American forward deployment at bases around the world have been arrayed against those who insist that for the sake of economizing the job be accomplished at long range without bases. The military is forced to choose between army combat divisions and the next generation of bombers, between lift capacities and force projection, between short-range and long-range deterrence. Constructing a military force appropriate to a nation’s commitments and its resources is never an easy task, and there are always limits that compel difficult choices. But today’s limits are far too severe; the choices they compel are too dramatic; and because military strategy and planning are far from exact sciences, the United States is dangerously cutting its margin for error.

The defense budget crisis is now at hand. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General John Shalikashvili has complained that the weapons procurement budget has been reduced to perilously low levels, and he has understated the problem. Since 1985, the research and development budget has been cut by 57 percent; the procurement budget has been cut 71 percent. Both the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress have achieved budget savings over the next few years by pushing necessary procurement decisions into the next century. The Clinton administration’s so-called “Bottom-Up Review” of U.S. defense strategy has been rightly dismissed by Democrats like Senate Armed Services Committee member Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) as “already inadequate to the present and certainly to the future.” Both the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office have projected a shortfall of $ 50 billion to $ 100 billion over the next five years in funding just for existing force levels and procurement plans.

These shortfalls do not even take into account the development of new weapons, like a missile defense system capable of protecting American territory against missiles launched from rogue states such as North Korea or shielding, say, Los Angeles from nuclear intimidation by the Chinese during the next crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Deployment of such a system could cost more than $ 10 billion a year.

Add together the needed increases in the procurement budget called for by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the justifiable increases in funding for existing forces to make up the shortfalls identified by the GAO and the CBO, and it becomes obvious that an increase in defense spending by $ 60 billion to $ 80 billion is not a radical proposal. It is simply what the United States will require to keep the peace and defend its interests over the coming decades. If this number sounds like a budget-buster, it should not. Today, defense spending is less than 20 percent of the total federal budget. In 1962, before the Vietnam War, defense spending ran at almost 50 percent of the overall budget. In 1978, before the Carter-Reagan defense buildup, it was about 23 percent. Increases of the size required to pursue a neo-Reaganite foreign policy today would require returning to about that level of defense spending—still less than one-quarter of the federal budget.

These days, some critics complain about the fact that the United States spends more on defense than the next six major powers combined. But the enormous disparity between U.S. military strength and that of any potential challenger is a good thing for America and the world. After all, America’s world role is entirely different from that of the other powers. The more Washington is able to make clear that it is futile to compete with American power, either in size of forces or in technological capabilities, the less chance there is that countries like China or Iran will entertain ambitions of upsetting the present world order. And that means the United States will be able to save money in the long run, for it is much cheaper to deter a war than to fight one. Americans should be glad that their defense capabilities are as great as the next six powers combined. Indeed, they may even want to enshrine this disparity in U.S. defense strategy. Great Britain in the late 19th century maintained a “two-power standard” for its navy, insisting that at all times the British navy should be as large as the next two naval powers combined, whoever they might be. Perhaps the United States should inaugurate such a two- (or three-, or four-) power standard of its own, which would preserve its military supremacy regardless of the near-term global threats.

Citizen involvement. A gap is growing, meanwhile, between America’s professional military, uncomfortable with some of the missions that the new American role requires, and a civilian population increasingly unaware of or indifferent to the importance of its military’s efforts abroad. U.S. military leaders harbor justifiable suspicions that while they serve as a kind of foreign legion, doing the hard work of American-style “empire management,” American civilians at home, preoccupied with the distribution of tax breaks and government benefits, will not come to their support when the going gets tough. Weak political leadership and a poor job of educating the citizenry to the responsibilities of global hegemony have created an increasingly distinct and alienated military culture. Ask any mechanic or mess boy on an aircraft carrier why he is patrolling the oceans, and he can give a more sophisticated explanation of power projection than 99 percent of American college graduates. It is foolish to imagine that the United States can lead the world effectively while the overwhelming majority of the population neither understands nor is involved, in any real way, with its international mission.

The president and other political leaders can take steps to close the growing separation of civilian and military cultures in our society. They can remind civilians of the sacrifices being made by U.S. forces overseas and explain what those sacrifices are for. A clear statement of America’s global mission can help the public understand why U.S. troops are deployed overseas and can help reassure military leaders of public support in difficult circumstances. It could also lay the groundwork for reasserting more comprehensive civilian control over the military.

There could be further efforts to involve more citizens in military service. Perhaps the United States has reached the point where a return to the draft is not feasible because of the high degree of professionalization of the military services. But there are other ways to lower the barriers between civilian and military life. Expanded forms of reserve service could give many more Americans experience of the military and an appreciation of military virtues. Conservatives preach that citizenship is not only about rights but also about responsibilities. There is no more profound responsibility than the defense of the nation and its principles.

Moral clarity. Finally, American foreign policy should be informed with a clear moral purpose, based on the understanding that its moral goals and its fundamental national interests are almost always in harmony. The United States achieved its present position of strength not by practicing a foreign policy of live and let live, nor by passively waiting for threats to arise, but by actively promoting American principles of governance abroad—democracy, free markets, respect for liberty. During the Reagan years, the United States pressed for changes in right-wing and left-wing dictatorships alike, among both friends and foes—in the Philippines, South Korea, Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union. The purpose was not Wilsonian idealistic whimsy. The policy of putting pressure on authoritarian and totalitarian regimes had practical aims and, in the end, delivered strategic benefits. Support for American principles around the world can be sustained only by the continuing exertion of American influence. Some of that influence comes from the aid provided to friendly regimes that are trying to carry out democratic and free market reforms. However strong the case for reform of foreign aid programs, such programs deserve to be maintained as a useful way of exerting American influence abroad. And sometimes that means not just supporting U.S. friends and gently pressuring other nations but actively pursuing policies in Iran, Cuba, or China, for instance—ultimately intended to bring about a change of regime. In any case, the United States should not blindly “do business” with every nation, no matter its regime. Armand Hammerism should not be a tenet of conservative foreign policy.

FROM NSC-68 TO 1996

THIS SWEEPING, neo-Reaganite foreign policy agenda may seem ambitious for these tepid times. Politicians in both parties will protest that the American people will not support the burdens of such a policy. There are two answers to this criticism.

First, it is already clear that, on the present course, Washington will find it increasingly impossible to fulfill even the less ambitious foreign policies of the realists, including the defense of so-called “vital” interests in Europe and Asia. Without a broad, sustaining foreign policy vision, the American people will be inclined to withdraw from the world and will lose sight of their abiding interest in vigorous world leadership. Without a sense of mission, they will seek deeper and deeper cuts in the defense and foreign affairs budgets and gradually decimate the tools of U.S. hegemony.

Consider what has happened in only the past few years. Ronald Reagan’s exceptionalist appeal did not survive the presidency of George Bush, where self-proclaimed pragmatists like James Baker found it easier to justify the Gulf War to the American people in terms of “jobs” than as a defense of a world order shaped to suit American interests and principles. Then, having discarded the overarching Reaganite vision that had sustained a globally active foreign policy through the last decade of the Cold War, the Bush administration in 1992 saw its own prodigious foreign policy successes swept into the dustbin by Clinton political adviser James Carville’s campaign logic: “It’s the economy, stupid.” By the time conservatives took their seats as the congressional opposition in 1993, they had abandoned not only Reaganism but to some degree foreign policy itself.

Now the common wisdom holds that Dole’s solid victory over Buchanan in the primaries constituted a triumphant reassertion of conservative internationalism over neoisolationism. But the common wisdom may prove wrong. On the stump during the Republican primaries this year, what little passion and energy there was on foreign policy issues came from Buchanan and his followers. Over the past four years Buchanan’s fiery “America First” rhetoric has filled the vacuum among conservatives created by the abandonment of Reagan’s very different kind of patriotic mission. It is now an open question how long the beleaguered conservative realists will be able to resist the combined assault of Buchanan’s “isolationism of the heart” and the Republican budget hawks on Capitol Hill.

History also shows, however, that the American people can be summoned to meet the challenges of global leadership if statesmen make the case loudly, cogently, and persistently. As troubles arise and the need to act becomes clear, those who have laid the foundation for a necessary shift in policy have a chance to lead Americans onto a new course. In 1950, Paul Nitze and other Truman administration officials drafted the famous planning document NSC-68, a call for an all-out effort to meet the Soviet challenge that included a full-scale ideological confrontation and massive increases in defense spending. At first, their proposals languished. President Truman, worried about angering a hostile, budget-conscious Congress and an American public which was enjoying an era of peace and prosperity, for months refused to approve the defense spending proposals. It took the North Korean invasion of South Korea to allow the administration to rally support for the prescriptions of NSC-68. Before the Korean War, American politicians were fighting over whether the defense budget ought to be $ 15 billion or $ 16 billion; most believed more defense spending would bankrupt the nation. The next year, the defense budget was over $ 50 billion.

A similar sequence of events unfolded in the 1970s. When Reagan and the “Scoop” Jackson Democrats began sounding the alarm about the Soviet danger, the American public was not ready to listen. Then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the seizure of American hostages in Iran. By the time Jimmy Carter professed to have learned more about the Soviet Union than he had ever known before, Reagan and his fellow conservatives in both parties had laid the intellectual foundation for the military buildup of the 1980s.

AN ELEVATED PATRIOTISM

IN THEORY, either party could lay the groundwork for a neo-Reaganite foreign policy over the next decade. The Democrats, after all, led the nation to assume its new global responsibilities in the late 1940s and early 1950s under President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. It is unlikely, however, that they are prepared to pursue such a course today. Republicans may have lost their way in the last few years, but the Democrats are still recovering from their post-Vietnam trauma of two decades ago. President Clinton has proved a better manager of foreign policy than many expected, but he has not been up to the larger task of preparing and inspiring the nation to embrace the role of global leadership. He, too, has tailored his internationalist activism to fit the constraints of a popular mood that White House pollsters believe is disinclined to sacrifice blood and treasure in the name of overseas commitments. His Pentagon officials talk more about exit strategies than about national objectives. His administration has promised global leadership on the cheap, refusing to seek the levels of defense spending needed to meet the broad goals it claims to want to achieve in the world. Even Clinton’s boldest overseas adventures, in Bosnia and Haiti, have come only after strenuous and prolonged efforts to avoid intervention.

Republicans are surely the genuine heirs to the Reagan tradition. The 1994 election is often said to have represented one last victory for Ronald Reagan’s domestic agenda. But Reagan’s earlier successes rested as much on foreign as on domestic policy. Over the long term, victory for American conservatives depends on recapturing the spirit of Reagan’s foreign policy as well. Indeed, American conservatism cannot govern by domestic policy alone. In the 1990s conservatives have built their agenda on two pillars of Reaganism: relimiting government to curtail the most intrusive and counterproductive aspects of the modern welfare state, and reversing the widespread collapse of morals and standards in American society. But it is hard to imagine conservatives achieving a lasting political realignment in this country without the third pillar: a coherent set of foreign policy principles that at least bear some resemblance to those propounded by Reagan. The remoralization of America at home ultimately requires the remoralization of American foreign policy. For both follow from Americans’ belief that the principles of the Declaration of Independence are not merely the choices of a particular culture but are universal, enduring, “self-evident” truths. That has been, after all, the main point of the conservatives’ war against a relativistic multiculturalism. For conservatives to preach the importance of upholding the core elements of the Western tradition at home, but to profess indifference to the fate of American principles abroad, is an inconsistency that cannot help but gnaw at the heart of conservatism.

Conservatives these days succumb easily to the charming old metaphor of the United States as a “city on a hill.” They hark back, as George Kennan did in these pages not long ago, to the admonition of John Quincy Adams that America ought not go “abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” But why not? The alternative is to leave monsters on the loose, ravaging and pillaging to their hearts’ content, as Americans stand by and watch. What may have been wise counsel in 1823, when America was a small, isolated power in a world of European giants, is no longer so, when America is the giant. Because America has the capacity to contain or destroy many of the world’s monsters, most of which can be found without much searching, and because the responsibility for the peace and security of the international order rests so heavily on America’s shoulders, a policy of sitting atop a hill and leading by example becomes in practice a policy of cowardice and dishonor.

And more is at stake than honor. Without a broader, more enlightened understanding of America’s interests, conservatism will too easily degenerate into the pinched nationalism of Buchanan’s “America First,” where the appeal to narrow stir-interest masks a deeper form of stir-loathing. A true “conservatism of the heart” ought to emphasize both personal and national responsibility, relish the opportunity for national engagement, embrace the possibility of national greatness, and restore a sense of the heroic, which has been sorely lacking in American foreign policy—and American conservatism in recent years. George Kennan was right 50 years ago in his famous “X” article: the American people ought to feel a “certain gratitude to a Providence, which by providing [them] with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.” This is as true today—if less obviously so—as it was at the beginning of the Cold War.

A neo-Reaganite foreign policy would be good for conservatives, good for America, and good for the world. It is worth recalling that the most successful Republican presidents of this century, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, both inspired Americans to assume cheerfully the new international responsibilities that went with increased power and influence. Both celebrated American exceptionalism. Both made Americans proud of their leading role in world affairs. Deprived of the support of an elevated patriotism, bereft of the ability to appeal to national honor, conservatives will ultimately fail in their effort to govern America. And Americans will fail in their responsibility to lead the world.

Copyright 1996 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

Un sacré “coup”
lire:
...“David I. Levine, a professor of economics at University of California-Berkeley, says the current plan being discussed has the wrong structure.

Erik Brynjolfsson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School, said his main objection “is the breathtaking amount of unchecked discretion it gives to the Secretary of the Treasury. It is unprecedented in a modern democracy.”

“I suspect that part of what we’re seeing in the freezing up of lending markets is strategic behavior on the part of big financial players who stand to benefit from the bailout,” said David K. Levine, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies liquidity constraints and game theory.
Strategic Game Playing At Taxpayer Expense

Read that last paragraph above carefully. It is critical so I will repeat it “I suspect that part of what we’re seeing in the freezing up of lending markets is strategic behavior on the part of big financial players who stand to benefit from the bailout,” said David K. Levine, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies liquidity constraints and game theory.

Tonight Washington Mutual went under. There have been 7 bank failures announce this year, all of them on a Friday. This one is on a Thursday. Game playing to create a sense of urgency? You tell me. What I will tell you is there is no need to rush into a $700 billion package when 190 economists, a current Fed governor, and a former Fed Governor all perceive the bailout for what it is: A bailout of Wall Street that will cost at a bare minimum $2,000 for every man woman and child in the United States.”

C’est dans :
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Careful historical analysis reveals a pattern to Bush’s presidential vacuity.

There’s an algorithm at work here: the level of intelligence he displays is always in inverse proportion to the grand vileness of the plot he is hatching. The greater the evil, the dumberer he acts. I’m saying that George W. Bush may be stupid, but he’s no fool. In a humble, folksy twist on Machiavelli, he uses his stupidity for political gain. And that’s precisely what’s going on right now.

... There’s always a plan behind the W dumb-show. So what is this telltale spike in presidential tomfoolery telling us this time?
Simple. It’s the Republicans trying to buy a nice big set of handcuffs for President Obama—or anyone else, for a long time to come. When the funds transfers are complete, be it in installments or one spectacular $700 billion tranche, there will be virtually no new social spending possible. There will be no way to lower taxes on the middle class. There will be no way to enact health care reform. There will be no means for the federal government to effectively run many existing programs, which will lend luster to the Republican calls for privatization of Social Security. All of the potential good that could come from finally jettisoning the anti-New Deal Party (because, let’s face it, that’s all the Republican platforms have amounted to from Goldwater to Reagan to Gingrich to W) will be lost in the tranches of capital diverted to those who need it least. The Gilded Age will come to look like Sweden by comparison. Tranche Warfare—the elite vs. everyone else. That, my fellow Americans, is the Plan. Bush is playing dumb so we won’t notice that his final stroke in office will be to make the Republican Revolution permanent and impossible to repeal for decades to come.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-cenedella/bush-may-be-stupid-but-he_b_129228.html

The Bubble: A Poem by Jonathan Swift, January 1721
“victime” de l’éclatement de la bulle de la “South Sea Company” à Londres ... comme Isaac Newton.

Cette société capitalisée par la meilleure société anglicane,
monopolisait le traffic des “nègres” vers la côte est des colonies d’amérique.
Cette bulle a ruiné une majorité, mais enrichi les gerfauts politico-financiers.

Je n’ai “traduit” que les premier et dernier quatrains de ce long poème en vieil anglais.

Ye wise Philosophers explain             Nous les malins Raisonneurs expliquons
What Magick makes our Money rise,    Quelle magie fait se multiplier notre argent,
When dropt into the Southern Main;      Quand il est jeté dans les Mers du sud; (Southern Main : avenue de Trinidad & Tobaggo)
Or do these Juglers cheat our Eyes?      Ou ces Passe-passes ont ils abusés nos yeux ? 

... 59 quatrains ...

The Nation too too late will find,          La nation ne découvrira que bien trop tard,
Computing all their Cost and Trouble,    En compilant tous ses coûts et problèmes,
Directors Promises but Wind,            Que les promesses des managers ne sont que du vent,
South-Sea at best a mighty Bubble.      La Cie des Mers du Sud n’était au mieux qu’une gigantesque bulle.

http://www.networkers.org/userfiles/Jonathan%20Swift%20The%20Bubble.doc

“The additional rise above the true capital will only be imaginary; one added to one, by any stretch of vulgar arithmetic will never make three and a half, consequently all fictitious value must be a loss to some person or other first or last. The only way to prevent it to oneself must be to sell out betimes (sic), and so let the Devil take the hindmost.”

Bush Calls Bailout Vital to Economy, Will Meet With McCain and Obama
Proposal Takes Shape in Congress, but Broad Support Is Lacking
By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 25, 2008; A01
President Bush said yesterday that the credit crisis that has seized world markets could devastate the U.S. economy unless Congress acts quickly to approve a $700 billion bailout plan for the nation’s financial system, a message aimed at reluctant lawmakers as much as a deeply skeptical public.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” Bush said in an address from the White House, emphasizing that the massive bailout was not targeted at “any individual company or industry. It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.”
Warning that “America could slip into a financial panic,” Bush blamed the crisis on “easy credit” in the housing market and “the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise.” As mortgage loans went bad and borrowers defaulted, he said, investors have succumbed to a “widespread loss of confidence” that threatens to shut down consumer lending, decimate the stock market, cause businesses and banks to fail—and cost millions of Americans their jobs.
“Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession,” Bush said. “Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen.”
Bush delivered the prime-time speech, his first in over a year, after a clamor on Capitol Hill for him to acknowledge the most serious financial crisis in decades and to personally make the case for the government intervention his administration has proposed.
Five days after unveiling the bailout plan, which seeks to purchase troubled assets from faltering financial institutions, administration officials were still struggling to line up support among lawmakers appalled by its cost, doubtful of its methods and outraged by the speed with which they were being pushed to act. While the usually fractious Senate seemed to be coming together behind a version of the proposal, the administration had big trouble in the House, particularly among mistrustful Republicans who said the White House had failed to make a case for the bailout in terms ordinary people could understand.
“I’m seeking answers to two fundamental questions: Why this? And why now?” Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) said before Bush delivered his remarks. “You can’t make a move this large without the approval of the American people. And we don’t have it, yet.”
Despite such skepticism, top members of the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees are slated to sit down this morning in an effort to draft the final details of a bipartisan bill. Bush also invited congressional leaders as well as presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to meet with him at the White House today.
The president’s top economic advisers were lobbying hard yesterday for passage of the bill. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said the White House would drop its resistance to lawmakers’ demands for limits on executive compensation at companies that accept taxpayer money. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the committee’s chairman, called that a “big step forward” and said he would push next year to apply those limits more broadly.
Frank said Democrats in the House and Senate had reached agreement on a bill that would include an oversight board to monitor the bailout program, requirements that taxpayers share in future profits of companies that seek assistance and new powers for bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages for distressed borrowers. Lawmakers also discussed doling out the money in segments, Frank said, adding, “It’s not going to be a straight $700 billion.”
Democrats will present that bill this morning to Republican lawmakers in hopes of reaching a final agreement, Frank said. He said the biggest sticking points are likely to be the bankruptcy provision and a proposal by Senate Democrats to dedicate to affordable housing some of the proceeds from the eventual sale of the assets.
Hours before Bush’s speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a joint statement saying they were “working in a bipartisan manner” and had “made progress” on a bill. But even as the substance of a deal began to take shape, the politics were in turmoil. McCain declared that he did “not believe that the plan on the table will pass” and announced he was leaving the campaign trail to return to Capitol Hill to lead negotiations, a move panned by Democrats as a political stunt. Meanwhile, with less than six weeks until the November election, Democratic leaders said they would approve the plan only if a majority of Republicans in both chambers endorsed it as well.
House Republicans have emerged as the most difficult bloc of votes, with moderates fearful of the price tag and conservatives opposed to the rejection of free-market principles implicit in the plan. A meeting Tuesday morning with Vice President Cheney only increased their defiance.
“The Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction required to complete this process by the end of the week,” said Rep. Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.), the third-ranking Republican in the House.
Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tried to change that yesterday during appearances before two congressional committees. But the former Wall Street dealmaker and the former economics professor struggled to paint a vivid picture of the harm that would befall the economy if the bailout was not approved.
At one point, Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio) pleaded with them to explain the crisis in terms a factory worker relaxing on his couch could understand.
“In order to accept this plan, he needs to be more scared,” LaTourette said. If Congress doesn’t act, “I need you to tell this guy on the couch what happens to him. Is he going to be out of a job? Is his credit card going to work? Can he buy a car? Is his daughter going to go to college?”
Paulson replied that the guy on the couch should be scared. “But I think right now he’s angrier than he is scared.
“It puts us in a difficult position,” Paulson continued, “because no one likes to be painting an overly dire picture and scaring people. But the fact is, the financial markets are not stable, and the situation can be very severe as it relates not just to his current situation, but to keeping his job” and preserving his retirement accounts.
By midday, it became clear that Paulson and Bernanke were not getting the job done; the president would have to deliver the message in person.
In his national address, Bush used the sort of everyday terms that lawmakers had been seeking to describe the potential collapse.
He warned that community “banks could fail,” that another stock market plunge would “reduce the value of your retirement account,” that farmers would not get credit and that parents would not be able to “send your children to college.”
In addition to easy credit, the president blamed mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for contributing to the crisis by borrowing “enormous sums of money” and fueling the market for questionable investments.
“With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all,” Bush said, noting that under usual circumstances his conservative ideology would have allowed markets to work their will.
“These are not normal circumstances,” he said.
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Neil Irwin contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400771.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=new
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NYTIMES

September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent.
As Democrats and the administration negotiated details of the package late into the night, the presidential candidates of both major parties planned to meet Mr. Bush at the White House on Thursday, along with leaders of Congress. The president said he hoped the session would “speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.”
Mr. Bush used a prime-time address to warn Americans that “a long and painful recession” could occur if Congress does not act quickly.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats said that progress toward a deal had come after the White House had offered two major concessions: a plan to limit pay of executives whose firms seek government assistance, and a provision that would give taxpayers an equity stake in some of the firms so that the government can profit if the companies prosper in the future. Details of those provisions, and many others, were still under discussion.
Mr. Bush’s televised address, and his extraordinary offer to bring together Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Senator John McCain, the Republican, just weeks before the election underscored a growing sense of urgency on the part of the administration that Congress must act to avert an economic collapse.
It was the first time in Mr. Bush’s presidency that he delivered a prime-time speech devoted exclusively to the economy. It came at a time when deep public unease about shaky financial markets and the demise of Wall Street icons such as Lehman Brothers has been coupled with skepticism and anger directed at a government bailout that could become the most expensive in American history.
The administration’s plan seeks to restore liquidity to the market and restore the economy by buying up distressed securities, many of them tied to mortgages, from struggling financial firms.
The address capped a fast-moving and chaotic day, in Washington, on the presidential campaign trail and on Wall Street.
On Capitol Hill, delicate negotiations between Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Congressional leaders were complicated by resistance from rank-and-file lawmakers, who were fielding torrents of complaints from constituents furious that their tax money was going to be spent to clean up a mess created by high-paid financial executives.
On Wall Street, financial markets continued to struggle. The cost of borrowing for banks, businesses and consumers shot up and investors rushed to safe havens like Treasury bills — a reminder that credit markets, which had recovered somewhat after Mr. Paulson announced the broad outlines of the bailout plan last week, remain under severe stress, with many investors still skittish.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said a deal could come together as early as Thursday. “Working in a bipartisan manner, we have made progress,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative John A. Boehner, the Republican leader, said in a joint statement.
“We agree that key changes should be made to the administration’s proposal. It must include basic good-government principles, including rigorous and independent oversight, strong executive compensation standards and protections for taxpayers.”
Mr. Bush used his speech to signal that he was willing to address lawmakers’ concerns, including fears that tax dollars will be used to pay Wall Street executives and that the plan would put too much authority in the hands of the Treasury secretary without sufficient oversight.
“Any rescue plan should also be designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected,” Mr. Bush said. “It should welcome the participation of financial institutions, large and small. It should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars. It should establish a bipartisan board to oversee the plan’s implementation. And it should be enacted as soon as possible.”
The speech came after the White House, under pressure from Republican lawmakers, opened an aggressive effort to portray the financial rescue package as crucial not just to stabilize Wall Street but to protect the livelihoods of all Americans.
But the White House gave careful thought to the timing; aides to Mr. Bush said they did not want to appear to have the president forcing a solution on Congress.
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Paulson, facing a second day of questioning by lawmakers, this time before the House Financial Services Committee, tried to focus as much on Main Street as Wall Street.
“This entire proposal is about benefiting the American people because today’s fragile financial system puts their economic well being at risk,” Mr. Paulson said. Without action, he added: “Americans’ personal savings and the ability of consumers and business to finance spending, investment and job creation are threatened.”
But it was the comments of Mr. Paulson, a former chief of Goldman Sachs, about limiting the pay of executives that signaled the biggest shift in the White House position and the urgency that the administration has placed in winning Congressional approval as quickly as possible.
“The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightly so,” he said. “No one understands pay for failure.”
Officials said the legislation would almost certainly include a ban on so-called golden parachutes, the generous severance packages that many executives receive on their way out the door, for firms that seek government help. The measure also is likely to include a mechanism for firms to recover any bonus or incentive pay based on corporate earnings or other results that later turn out to have been overstated.
Democrats were also working to include tax provisions that would cap the amount of an executive’s salary that a company could deduct to $400,000 — the amount earned by the president.
At the same time, Congressional Democrats said they were prepared to drop one of their most contentious demands: new authority for bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of first mortgages. That provision was heavily opposed by Senate Republicans.
In addition, Democrats also are leaning toward authorizing the entire $700 billion that Mr. Paulson is seeking but disbursing a smaller amount, perhaps only $150 billion, to start the program, with future funds dependent on how well it is working.
Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead negotiator for Congressional Democrats, said they also planned to insert a tax break to aid community banks that have suffered steep losses on preferred stock that they own in the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That change is in addition to others that already have been accepted by Mr. Paulson that would create an independent oversight board and require the government to do more to prevent foreclosures.
Mark Landler and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/economy/25bush.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222336998-e6kR6n75KL+ftXME3LCOXw

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Les Etats-Unis à la recherche de l’union sacrée pour faire face à la crise
LE MONDE | 25.09.08 | 08h53 •  Mis à jour le 25.09.08 | 09h25
Washington, correspondante

Dans une atmosphère d’urgence nationale, le président George Bush s’est adressé aux Américains, mercredi 24 septembre, pour les avertir que “l’économie entière est en danger”. Il a convié en même temps les chefs de la majorité et de l’opposition, dont les candidats démocrate, Barack Obama, et républicain, John McCain, jeudi à la Maison Blanche pour mettre au point un plan d’action susceptible d’épargner à l’économie américaine une “récession longue et douloureuse”. Les deux rivaux de l’élection présidentielle ont publié un communiqué commun et accepté la proposition.

“Sans une action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait plonger dans une panique majeure”, a mis en garde M. Bush, dans une allocution retransmise par les chaînes de télévision. M. Bush avait jusqu’à présent évité d’apparaître en première ligne. Selon ses conseillers, il ne voulait pas risquer de renvoyer des signaux alarmistes aux marchés.
Il ne voulait probablement pas non plus insister sur la situation de l’économie alors que les démocrates bénéficient d’un avantage électoral dans ce domaine. Selon les sondages, la crise financière est en train de permettre à M. Obama de creuser l’écart. Le dernier sondage Washington Post/ABC News, publié mercredi, lui donne neuf points d’avance (52 % à 43 %) sur M. McCain.
Les réserves de la Maison Blanche ont été balayées au deuxième jour des auditions au Congrès des deux architectes du plan de “bail out” - renflouage - des banques, le secrétaire au Trésor, Henry Paulson, et le président de la Réserve fédérale, Ben Bernanke.
“LES AMÉRICAINS SONT FURIEUX”
Comme la veille, il est apparu que les parlementaires, notamment républicains, étaient plus que sceptiques sur le plan de stabilisation de 700 milliards de dollars (476 milliards d’euros) présenté par l’administration, l’intervention la plus massive de l’Etat depuis les années 1930.
Les élus ont indiqué être inondés de coups de téléphone de leurs administrés en colère. “Soyons clairs, a dit le sénateur démocrate Charles Schumer. Les Américains sont furieux.”
Dans son intervention à la Maison Blanche, la première de cette nature depuis plus d’un an, M. Bush a été contraint d’expliquer que, bien que son “instinct naturel” de républicain soit de “s’opposer à l’intervention du gouvernement”, il avait décidé de ne pas laisser “les actes irresponsables de quelques-uns compromettre la sécurité financière de tous”.
Il a décrit en termes très explicites les conséquences potentielles d’une crise qui reste très immatérielle pour la plupart des Américains, même si le sénateur républicain Judd Greg l’a comparée au 11 septembre 2001 et à l’ouragan Katrina : “D’autres banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse plonger encore, ce qui réduirait la valeur de votre retraite. Des entreprises fermeraient leurs portes et des millions d’Américains pourraient perdre leur emploi”.
La journée a été une succession de rebondissements. Avant le discours de George Bush, John McCain a tenté un nouveau “coup”. Comme il l’avait fait avec le choix de Sarah Palin pour son “ticket”, ou l’annulation de la première journée de la convention républicaine pour cause de cyclone, il a annoncé qu’il suspendait sa campagne pour retourner au Sénat et tenter d’arracher un compromis sur le plan Paulson.
Cette initiative a été immédiatement décriée par les démocrates, qui y ont vu une “politisation” des négociations sur les modalités du plan, lesquelles d’ailleurs n’étaient pas, selon eux, au point mort comme M. McCain le prétendait.
HENRY PAULSON DÉCRIÉ
Le candidat républicain a aussi annoncé qu’il ne se rendrait pas au débat de vendredi avec Barack Obama, le premier des trois débats officiels de la campagne, tant que le sauvetage des marchés financiers ne serait pas assuré. M. Obama a fait savoir qu’un président était censé pouvoir “mener deux tâches à la fois” et qu’il ne voyait pas la nécessité de reporter le débat – prévu sur la politique étrangère – alors que les Américains avaient plus que jamais besoin de connaître les positions des candidats.
Plus que la panique, l’atmosphère dans le pays est à la rébellion populiste. “Respect est le mot qui manque le plus”, a dit le promoteur Donald Trump, qui, après avoir soutenu Hillary Clinton, penche maintenant du côté de John McCain. Henry Paulson est largement décrié (il a été transformé en Frankenstein par l’humoriste Jon Stewart). “Il a perdu toute crédibilité”, a jugé le sénateur républicain Jim Demint.
Il lui est reproché de réclamer les “pouvoirs spéciaux” par le biais de la clause 8 du plan de sauvetage, qui stipule que “les décisions du secrétaire ne sont pas révisables ni susceptibles d’être revues par une cour de justice ou une agence administrative”. Ce que la gauche s’est mis à appeler le “Patriot Act financier”, en référence à la loi antiterroriste de 2001. Pour l’analyste démocrate Steve Clemons, George Bush utilise une nouvelle fois “la politique de la peur”.

Corine Lesnes
http://www.lemonde.fr/elections-americaines/article/2008/09/25/les-etats-unis-a-la-recherche-de-l-union-sacree-pour-faire-face-a-la-crise_1099216_829254.html

Bush: «Toute l’économie américaine est en danger»
(Reuters)
Le président américain a tenté de convaincre cette nuit le Congrès d’adopter son plan de sauvetage. Il reçoit aujourd’hui à la Maison Blanche les deux candidats à sa succession, une première.
AFP
LIBERATION.FR : jeudi 25 septembre 2008
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que “toute notre économie est en danger”. “Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave”, a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette “période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine”.
Toute notre économie est en danger”, a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à “se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (...) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan”.
“Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration”, s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était “assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave”, rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter “les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier”.
“Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général”, a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme “un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise”. “Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement”, a-t-il dit, “je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre”.
“Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales”, a-t-il martelé. “Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber”, a-t-il poursuivi.
“Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux”, a encore prévenu Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
“Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites”, a-t-il dit aux Américains, “plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (...) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse”.
“Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver”, a-t-il scandé. “Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là”, a-t-il promis.
•
Accéder au forum «Obama-McCain, dernière ligne droite»

http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/economie_terre/354293.FR.php

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Bush : « L’économie américaine en danger »
Rédaction en ligne
jeudi 25 septembre 2008, 09:37
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que « toute notre économie est en danger ».
Lire aussi l’édito de Jurek Kuczkiewicz: “Citoyens cherchent leaders désespérément” / Bush invite McCain et Obama à la Maison blanche / La crise financière s’immisce entre McCain et Obama
AP

« Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave », a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette « période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine ».
« Toute notre économie est en danger », a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à « se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (…) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan ».
« Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration », s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était « assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave », rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter « les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier ».
« Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général », a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme « un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise ». « Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement », a-t-il dit, « je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre ».
« Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales », a-t-il martelé. « Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber », a-t-il poursuivi.
« Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux », a encore prévenu M. Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
« Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites », a-t-il dit aux Américains, « plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (…) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse ».
« Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver », a-t-il scandé. « Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là », a-t-il promis.
(d’après AFP)
http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/monde/bush-toute-l-economie-2008-09-25-642285.shtml

Bush Calls Bailout Vital to Economy, Will Meet With McCain and Obama
Proposal Takes Shape in Congress, but Broad Support Is Lacking
By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 25, 2008; A01
President Bush said yesterday that the credit crisis that has seized world markets could devastate the U.S. economy unless Congress acts quickly to approve a $700 billion bailout plan for the nation’s financial system, a message aimed at reluctant lawmakers as much as a deeply skeptical public.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” Bush said in an address from the White House, emphasizing that the massive bailout was not targeted at “any individual company or industry. It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.”
Warning that “America could slip into a financial panic,” Bush blamed the crisis on “easy credit” in the housing market and “the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise.” As mortgage loans went bad and borrowers defaulted, he said, investors have succumbed to a “widespread loss of confidence” that threatens to shut down consumer lending, decimate the stock market, cause businesses and banks to fail—and cost millions of Americans their jobs.
“Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession,” Bush said. “Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen.”
Bush delivered the prime-time speech, his first in over a year, after a clamor on Capitol Hill for him to acknowledge the most serious financial crisis in decades and to personally make the case for the government intervention his administration has proposed.
Five days after unveiling the bailout plan, which seeks to purchase troubled assets from faltering financial institutions, administration officials were still struggling to line up support among lawmakers appalled by its cost, doubtful of its methods and outraged by the speed with which they were being pushed to act. While the usually fractious Senate seemed to be coming together behind a version of the proposal, the administration had big trouble in the House, particularly among mistrustful Republicans who said the White House had failed to make a case for the bailout in terms ordinary people could understand.
“I’m seeking answers to two fundamental questions: Why this? And why now?” Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) said before Bush delivered his remarks. “You can’t make a move this large without the approval of the American people. And we don’t have it, yet.”
Despite such skepticism, top members of the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees are slated to sit down this morning in an effort to draft the final details of a bipartisan bill. Bush also invited congressional leaders as well as presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to meet with him at the White House today.
The president’s top economic advisers were lobbying hard yesterday for passage of the bill. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said the White House would drop its resistance to lawmakers’ demands for limits on executive compensation at companies that accept taxpayer money. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the committee’s chairman, called that a “big step forward” and said he would push next year to apply those limits more broadly.
Frank said Democrats in the House and Senate had reached agreement on a bill that would include an oversight board to monitor the bailout program, requirements that taxpayers share in future profits of companies that seek assistance and new powers for bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages for distressed borrowers. Lawmakers also discussed doling out the money in segments, Frank said, adding, “It’s not going to be a straight $700 billion.”
Democrats will present that bill this morning to Republican lawmakers in hopes of reaching a final agreement, Frank said. He said the biggest sticking points are likely to be the bankruptcy provision and a proposal by Senate Democrats to dedicate to affordable housing some of the proceeds from the eventual sale of the assets.
Hours before Bush’s speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a joint statement saying they were “working in a bipartisan manner” and had “made progress” on a bill. But even as the substance of a deal began to take shape, the politics were in turmoil. McCain declared that he did “not believe that the plan on the table will pass” and announced he was leaving the campaign trail to return to Capitol Hill to lead negotiations, a move panned by Democrats as a political stunt. Meanwhile, with less than six weeks until the November election, Democratic leaders said they would approve the plan only if a majority of Republicans in both chambers endorsed it as well.
House Republicans have emerged as the most difficult bloc of votes, with moderates fearful of the price tag and conservatives opposed to the rejection of free-market principles implicit in the plan. A meeting Tuesday morning with Vice President Cheney only increased their defiance.
“The Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction required to complete this process by the end of the week,” said Rep. Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.), the third-ranking Republican in the House.
Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tried to change that yesterday during appearances before two congressional committees. But the former Wall Street dealmaker and the former economics professor struggled to paint a vivid picture of the harm that would befall the economy if the bailout was not approved.
At one point, Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio) pleaded with them to explain the crisis in terms a factory worker relaxing on his couch could understand.
“In order to accept this plan, he needs to be more scared,” LaTourette said. If Congress doesn’t act, “I need you to tell this guy on the couch what happens to him. Is he going to be out of a job? Is his credit card going to work? Can he buy a car? Is his daughter going to go to college?”
Paulson replied that the guy on the couch should be scared. “But I think right now he’s angrier than he is scared.
“It puts us in a difficult position,” Paulson continued, “because no one likes to be painting an overly dire picture and scaring people. But the fact is, the financial markets are not stable, and the situation can be very severe as it relates not just to his current situation, but to keeping his job” and preserving his retirement accounts.
By midday, it became clear that Paulson and Bernanke were not getting the job done; the president would have to deliver the message in person.
In his national address, Bush used the sort of everyday terms that lawmakers had been seeking to describe the potential collapse.
He warned that community “banks could fail,” that another stock market plunge would “reduce the value of your retirement account,” that farmers would not get credit and that parents would not be able to “send your children to college.”
In addition to easy credit, the president blamed mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for contributing to the crisis by borrowing “enormous sums of money” and fueling the market for questionable investments.
“With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all,” Bush said, noting that under usual circumstances his conservative ideology would have allowed markets to work their will.
“These are not normal circumstances,” he said.
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Neil Irwin contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400771.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=new
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NYTIMES

September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent.
As Democrats and the administration negotiated details of the package late into the night, the presidential candidates of both major parties planned to meet Mr. Bush at the White House on Thursday, along with leaders of Congress. The president said he hoped the session would “speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.”
Mr. Bush used a prime-time address to warn Americans that “a long and painful recession” could occur if Congress does not act quickly.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats said that progress toward a deal had come after the White House had offered two major concessions: a plan to limit pay of executives whose firms seek government assistance, and a provision that would give taxpayers an equity stake in some of the firms so that the government can profit if the companies prosper in the future. Details of those provisions, and many others, were still under discussion.
Mr. Bush’s televised address, and his extraordinary offer to bring together Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Senator John McCain, the Republican, just weeks before the election underscored a growing sense of urgency on the part of the administration that Congress must act to avert an economic collapse.
It was the first time in Mr. Bush’s presidency that he delivered a prime-time speech devoted exclusively to the economy. It came at a time when deep public unease about shaky financial markets and the demise of Wall Street icons such as Lehman Brothers has been coupled with skepticism and anger directed at a government bailout that could become the most expensive in American history.
The administration’s plan seeks to restore liquidity to the market and restore the economy by buying up distressed securities, many of them tied to mortgages, from struggling financial firms.
The address capped a fast-moving and chaotic day, in Washington, on the presidential campaign trail and on Wall Street.
On Capitol Hill, delicate negotiations between Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Congressional leaders were complicated by resistance from rank-and-file lawmakers, who were fielding torrents of complaints from constituents furious that their tax money was going to be spent to clean up a mess created by high-paid financial executives.
On Wall Street, financial markets continued to struggle. The cost of borrowing for banks, businesses and consumers shot up and investors rushed to safe havens like Treasury bills — a reminder that credit markets, which had recovered somewhat after Mr. Paulson announced the broad outlines of the bailout plan last week, remain under severe stress, with many investors still skittish.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said a deal could come together as early as Thursday. “Working in a bipartisan manner, we have made progress,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative John A. Boehner, the Republican leader, said in a joint statement.
“We agree that key changes should be made to the administration’s proposal. It must include basic good-government principles, including rigorous and independent oversight, strong executive compensation standards and protections for taxpayers.”
Mr. Bush used his speech to signal that he was willing to address lawmakers’ concerns, including fears that tax dollars will be used to pay Wall Street executives and that the plan would put too much authority in the hands of the Treasury secretary without sufficient oversight.
“Any rescue plan should also be designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected,” Mr. Bush said. “It should welcome the participation of financial institutions, large and small. It should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars. It should establish a bipartisan board to oversee the plan’s implementation. And it should be enacted as soon as possible.”
The speech came after the White House, under pressure from Republican lawmakers, opened an aggressive effort to portray the financial rescue package as crucial not just to stabilize Wall Street but to protect the livelihoods of all Americans.
But the White House gave careful thought to the timing; aides to Mr. Bush said they did not want to appear to have the president forcing a solution on Congress.
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Paulson, facing a second day of questioning by lawmakers, this time before the House Financial Services Committee, tried to focus as much on Main Street as Wall Street.
“This entire proposal is about benefiting the American people because today’s fragile financial system puts their economic well being at risk,” Mr. Paulson said. Without action, he added: “Americans’ personal savings and the ability of consumers and business to finance spending, investment and job creation are threatened.”
But it was the comments of Mr. Paulson, a former chief of Goldman Sachs, about limiting the pay of executives that signaled the biggest shift in the White House position and the urgency that the administration has placed in winning Congressional approval as quickly as possible.
“The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightly so,” he said. “No one understands pay for failure.”
Officials said the legislation would almost certainly include a ban on so-called golden parachutes, the generous severance packages that many executives receive on their way out the door, for firms that seek government help. The measure also is likely to include a mechanism for firms to recover any bonus or incentive pay based on corporate earnings or other results that later turn out to have been overstated.
Democrats were also working to include tax provisions that would cap the amount of an executive’s salary that a company could deduct to $400,000 — the amount earned by the president.
At the same time, Congressional Democrats said they were prepared to drop one of their most contentious demands: new authority for bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of first mortgages. That provision was heavily opposed by Senate Republicans.
In addition, Democrats also are leaning toward authorizing the entire $700 billion that Mr. Paulson is seeking but disbursing a smaller amount, perhaps only $150 billion, to start the program, with future funds dependent on how well it is working.
Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead negotiator for Congressional Democrats, said they also planned to insert a tax break to aid community banks that have suffered steep losses on preferred stock that they own in the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That change is in addition to others that already have been accepted by Mr. Paulson that would create an independent oversight board and require the government to do more to prevent foreclosures.
Mark Landler and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/economy/25bush.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222336998-e6kR6n75KL+ftXME3LCOXw

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Les Etats-Unis à la recherche de l’union sacrée pour faire face à la crise
LE MONDE | 25.09.08 | 08h53 •  Mis à jour le 25.09.08 | 09h25
Washington, correspondante

Dans une atmosphère d’urgence nationale, le président George Bush s’est adressé aux Américains, mercredi 24 septembre, pour les avertir que “l’économie entière est en danger”. Il a convié en même temps les chefs de la majorité et de l’opposition, dont les candidats démocrate, Barack Obama, et républicain, John McCain, jeudi à la Maison Blanche pour mettre au point un plan d’action susceptible d’épargner à l’économie américaine une “récession longue et douloureuse”. Les deux rivaux de l’élection présidentielle ont publié un communiqué commun et accepté la proposition.

“Sans une action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait plonger dans une panique majeure”, a mis en garde M. Bush, dans une allocution retransmise par les chaînes de télévision. M. Bush avait jusqu’à présent évité d’apparaître en première ligne. Selon ses conseillers, il ne voulait pas risquer de renvoyer des signaux alarmistes aux marchés.
Il ne voulait probablement pas non plus insister sur la situation de l’économie alors que les démocrates bénéficient d’un avantage électoral dans ce domaine. Selon les sondages, la crise financière est en train de permettre à M. Obama de creuser l’écart. Le dernier sondage Washington Post/ABC News, publié mercredi, lui donne neuf points d’avance (52 % à 43 %) sur M. McCain.
Les réserves de la Maison Blanche ont été balayées au deuxième jour des auditions au Congrès des deux architectes du plan de “bail out” - renflouage - des banques, le secrétaire au Trésor, Henry Paulson, et le président de la Réserve fédérale, Ben Bernanke.
“LES AMÉRICAINS SONT FURIEUX”
Comme la veille, il est apparu que les parlementaires, notamment républicains, étaient plus que sceptiques sur le plan de stabilisation de 700 milliards de dollars (476 milliards d’euros) présenté par l’administration, l’intervention la plus massive de l’Etat depuis les années 1930.
Les élus ont indiqué être inondés de coups de téléphone de leurs administrés en colère. “Soyons clairs, a dit le sénateur démocrate Charles Schumer. Les Américains sont furieux.”
Dans son intervention à la Maison Blanche, la première de cette nature depuis plus d’un an, M. Bush a été contraint d’expliquer que, bien que son “instinct naturel” de républicain soit de “s’opposer à l’intervention du gouvernement”, il avait décidé de ne pas laisser “les actes irresponsables de quelques-uns compromettre la sécurité financière de tous”.
Il a décrit en termes très explicites les conséquences potentielles d’une crise qui reste très immatérielle pour la plupart des Américains, même si le sénateur républicain Judd Greg l’a comparée au 11 septembre 2001 et à l’ouragan Katrina : “D’autres banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse plonger encore, ce qui réduirait la valeur de votre retraite. Des entreprises fermeraient leurs portes et des millions d’Américains pourraient perdre leur emploi”.
La journée a été une succession de rebondissements. Avant le discours de George Bush, John McCain a tenté un nouveau “coup”. Comme il l’avait fait avec le choix de Sarah Palin pour son “ticket”, ou l’annulation de la première journée de la convention républicaine pour cause de cyclone, il a annoncé qu’il suspendait sa campagne pour retourner au Sénat et tenter d’arracher un compromis sur le plan Paulson.
Cette initiative a été immédiatement décriée par les démocrates, qui y ont vu une “politisation” des négociations sur les modalités du plan, lesquelles d’ailleurs n’étaient pas, selon eux, au point mort comme M. McCain le prétendait.
HENRY PAULSON DÉCRIÉ
Le candidat républicain a aussi annoncé qu’il ne se rendrait pas au débat de vendredi avec Barack Obama, le premier des trois débats officiels de la campagne, tant que le sauvetage des marchés financiers ne serait pas assuré. M. Obama a fait savoir qu’un président était censé pouvoir “mener deux tâches à la fois” et qu’il ne voyait pas la nécessité de reporter le débat – prévu sur la politique étrangère – alors que les Américains avaient plus que jamais besoin de connaître les positions des candidats.
Plus que la panique, l’atmosphère dans le pays est à la rébellion populiste. “Respect est le mot qui manque le plus”, a dit le promoteur Donald Trump, qui, après avoir soutenu Hillary Clinton, penche maintenant du côté de John McCain. Henry Paulson est largement décrié (il a été transformé en Frankenstein par l’humoriste Jon Stewart). “Il a perdu toute crédibilité”, a jugé le sénateur républicain Jim Demint.
Il lui est reproché de réclamer les “pouvoirs spéciaux” par le biais de la clause 8 du plan de sauvetage, qui stipule que “les décisions du secrétaire ne sont pas révisables ni susceptibles d’être revues par une cour de justice ou une agence administrative”. Ce que la gauche s’est mis à appeler le “Patriot Act financier”, en référence à la loi antiterroriste de 2001. Pour l’analyste démocrate Steve Clemons, George Bush utilise une nouvelle fois “la politique de la peur”.

Corine Lesnes
http://www.lemonde.fr/elections-americaines/article/2008/09/25/les-etats-unis-a-la-recherche-de-l-union-sacree-pour-faire-face-a-la-crise_1099216_829254.html

Bush: «Toute l’économie américaine est en danger»
(Reuters)
Le président américain a tenté de convaincre cette nuit le Congrès d’adopter son plan de sauvetage. Il reçoit aujourd’hui à la Maison Blanche les deux candidats à sa succession, une première.
AFP
LIBERATION.FR : jeudi 25 septembre 2008
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que “toute notre économie est en danger”. “Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave”, a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette “période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine”.
Toute notre économie est en danger”, a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à “se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (...) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan”.
“Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration”, s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était “assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave”, rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter “les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier”.
“Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général”, a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme “un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise”. “Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement”, a-t-il dit, “je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre”.
“Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales”, a-t-il martelé. “Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber”, a-t-il poursuivi.
“Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux”, a encore prévenu Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
“Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites”, a-t-il dit aux Américains, “plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (...) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse”.
“Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver”, a-t-il scandé. “Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là”, a-t-il promis.
•
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http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/economie_terre/354293.FR.php

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Bush : « L’économie américaine en danger »
Rédaction en ligne
jeudi 25 septembre 2008, 09:37
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que « toute notre économie est en danger ».
Lire aussi l’édito de Jurek Kuczkiewicz: “Citoyens cherchent leaders désespérément” / Bush invite McCain et Obama à la Maison blanche / La crise financière s’immisce entre McCain et Obama
AP

« Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave », a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette « période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine ».
« Toute notre économie est en danger », a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à « se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (…) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan ».
« Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration », s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était « assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave », rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter « les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier ».
« Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général », a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme « un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise ». « Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement », a-t-il dit, « je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre ».
« Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales », a-t-il martelé. « Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber », a-t-il poursuivi.
« Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux », a encore prévenu M. Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
« Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites », a-t-il dit aux Américains, « plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (…) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse ».
« Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver », a-t-il scandé. « Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là », a-t-il promis.
(d’après AFP)
http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/monde/bush-toute-l-economie-2008-09-25-642285.shtml

Que ce passe t-il?
Civil unrests - à quoi s’attend le gouvernement?....

Army deploys combat unit in US for possible civil unrest

By Bill Van Auken
25 September 2008
For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.
Beginning on October 1, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Army’s component of the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US “homeland” and aiding federal, state and local authorities.
The unit—known as the “Raiders”—is among the Army’s most “blooded.” It has spent nearly three out of the last five years deployed in Iraq, leading the assault on Baghdad in 2003 and carrying out house-to-house combat in the suppression of resistance in the city of Ramadi. It was the first brigade combat team to be sent to Iraq three times.
While active-duty units previously have been used in temporary assignments, such as the combat-equipped troops deployed in New Orleans, which was effectively placed under martial law in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this marks the first time that an Army combat unit has been given a dedicated assignment in which US soil constitutes its “battle zone.”
The Pentagon’s official pronouncements have stressed the role of specialized units in a potential response to terrorist attack within the US. Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, attended a training exercise last week for about 250 members of the unit at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The focus of the exercise, according to the Army’s public affairs office, was how troops “might fly search and rescue missions, extract casualties and decontaminate people following a catastrophic nuclear attack in the nation’s heartland.”
“We are at war with a global extremist network that is not going away,” Casey told the soldiers. “I hope we don’t have to use it, but we need the capability.”
However, the mission assigned to the nearly 4,000 troops of the First Brigade Combat Team does not consist merely of rescuing victims of terrorist attacks. An article that appeared earlier this month in the Army Times (“Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1”), a publication that is widely read within the military, paints a different and far more ominous picture.
“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” the paper reports. It quotes the unit’s commander, Col. Robert Cloutier, as saying that the 1st BCT’s soldiers are being trained in the use of “the first ever nonlethal package the Army has fielded.” The weapons, the paper reported, are “designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.” The equipment includes beanbag bullets, shields and batons and equipment for erecting roadblocks.
It appears that as part of the training for deployment within the US, the soldiers have been ordered to test some of this non-lethal equipment on each other.
“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” Cloutier told the Army Times. He described the effects of the electroshock weapon as “your worst muscle cramp ever—times 10 throughout your whole body.”
The colonel’s remark suggests that, in preparation for their “homefront” duties, rank-and-file troops are also being routinely Tasered. The brutalizing effect and intent of such a macabre training exercise is to inure troops against sympathy for the pain and suffering they may be called upon to inflict on the civilian population using these same “non-lethal” weapons.
According to military officials quoted by the Army Times, the deployment of regular Army troops in the US begun with the First Brigade Combat Team is to become permanent, with different units rotated into the assignment on an annual basis.
In an online interview with reporters earlier this month, NorthCom officers were asked about the implications of the new deployment for the Posse Comitatus Act, the 230-year-old legal statute that bars the use of US military forces for law enforcement purposes within the US itself.
Col. Lou Volger, NorthCom’s chief of future operations, tried to downplay any enforcement role, but added, “We will integrate with law enforcement to understand the situation and make sure we’re aware of any threats.”
Volger acknowledged the obvious, that the Brigade Combat Team is a military force, while attempting to dismiss the likelihood that it would play any military role. It “has forces for security,” he said, “but that’s really—they call them security forces, but that’s really just to establish our own footprint and make sure that we can operate and run our own bases.”
Lt. Col. James Shores, another NorthCom officer, chimed in, “Let’s say even if there was a scenario that developed into a branch of a civil disturbance—even at that point it would take a presidential directive to even get it close to anything that you’re suggesting.”
Whatever is required to trigger such an intervention, clearly Col. Cloutier and his troops are preparing for it with their hands-on training in the use of “non-lethal” means of repression.
The extreme sensitivity of the military brass on this issue notwithstanding, the reality is that the intervention of the military in domestic affairs has grown sharply over the last period under conditions in which its involvement in two colonial-style wars abroad has given it a far more prominent role in American political life.
The Bush administration has worked to tear down any barriers to the use of the military in domestic repression. Thus, in the 2007 Pentagon spending bill it inserted a measure to amend the Posse Comitatus Act to clear the way for the domestic deployment of the military in the event of natural disaster, terrorist attack or “other conditions in which the president determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”
The provision granted the president sweeping new powers to impose martial law by declaring a “public emergency” for virtually any reason, allowing him to deploy troops anywhere in the US and to take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of state governors in order to “suppress public disorder.”
The provision was subsequently repealed by Congress as part of the 2008 military appropriations legislation, but the intent remains. Given the sweeping powers claimed by the White House in the name of the “commander in chief” in a global war on terror—powers to suspend habeas corpus, carry out wholesale domestic spying and conduct torture—there is no reason to believe it would respect legal restrictions against the use of military force at home.
It is noteworthy that the deployment of US combat troops “as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters”—in the words of the Army Times—coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Justified as a response to terrorist threats, the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America’s borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability.
Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, the unprecedented social chasm separating the country’s working people from the obscenely wealthy financial elite becomes unsustainable within the existing political framework.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/mili-s25.shtml

Bush Calls Bailout Vital to Economy, Will Meet With McCain and Obama
Proposal Takes Shape in Congress, but Broad Support Is Lacking
By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 25, 2008; A01
President Bush said yesterday that the credit crisis that has seized world markets could devastate the U.S. economy unless Congress acts quickly to approve a $700 billion bailout plan for the nation’s financial system, a message aimed at reluctant lawmakers as much as a deeply skeptical public.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” Bush said in an address from the White House, emphasizing that the massive bailout was not targeted at “any individual company or industry. It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.”
Warning that “America could slip into a financial panic,” Bush blamed the crisis on “easy credit” in the housing market and “the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise.” As mortgage loans went bad and borrowers defaulted, he said, investors have succumbed to a “widespread loss of confidence” that threatens to shut down consumer lending, decimate the stock market, cause businesses and banks to fail—and cost millions of Americans their jobs.
“Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession,” Bush said. “Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen.”
Bush delivered the prime-time speech, his first in over a year, after a clamor on Capitol Hill for him to acknowledge the most serious financial crisis in decades and to personally make the case for the government intervention his administration has proposed.
Five days after unveiling the bailout plan, which seeks to purchase troubled assets from faltering financial institutions, administration officials were still struggling to line up support among lawmakers appalled by its cost, doubtful of its methods and outraged by the speed with which they were being pushed to act. While the usually fractious Senate seemed to be coming together behind a version of the proposal, the administration had big trouble in the House, particularly among mistrustful Republicans who said the White House had failed to make a case for the bailout in terms ordinary people could understand.
“I’m seeking answers to two fundamental questions: Why this? And why now?” Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) said before Bush delivered his remarks. “You can’t make a move this large without the approval of the American people. And we don’t have it, yet.”
Despite such skepticism, top members of the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees are slated to sit down this morning in an effort to draft the final details of a bipartisan bill. Bush also invited congressional leaders as well as presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to meet with him at the White House today.
The president’s top economic advisers were lobbying hard yesterday for passage of the bill. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said the White House would drop its resistance to lawmakers’ demands for limits on executive compensation at companies that accept taxpayer money. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the committee’s chairman, called that a “big step forward” and said he would push next year to apply those limits more broadly.
Frank said Democrats in the House and Senate had reached agreement on a bill that would include an oversight board to monitor the bailout program, requirements that taxpayers share in future profits of companies that seek assistance and new powers for bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages for distressed borrowers. Lawmakers also discussed doling out the money in segments, Frank said, adding, “It’s not going to be a straight $700 billion.”
Democrats will present that bill this morning to Republican lawmakers in hopes of reaching a final agreement, Frank said. He said the biggest sticking points are likely to be the bankruptcy provision and a proposal by Senate Democrats to dedicate to affordable housing some of the proceeds from the eventual sale of the assets.
Hours before Bush’s speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a joint statement saying they were “working in a bipartisan manner” and had “made progress” on a bill. But even as the substance of a deal began to take shape, the politics were in turmoil. McCain declared that he did “not believe that the plan on the table will pass” and announced he was leaving the campaign trail to return to Capitol Hill to lead negotiations, a move panned by Democrats as a political stunt. Meanwhile, with less than six weeks until the November election, Democratic leaders said they would approve the plan only if a majority of Republicans in both chambers endorsed it as well.
House Republicans have emerged as the most difficult bloc of votes, with moderates fearful of the price tag and conservatives opposed to the rejection of free-market principles implicit in the plan. A meeting Tuesday morning with Vice President Cheney only increased their defiance.
“The Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction required to complete this process by the end of the week,” said Rep. Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.), the third-ranking Republican in the House.
Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tried to change that yesterday during appearances before two congressional committees. But the former Wall Street dealmaker and the former economics professor struggled to paint a vivid picture of the harm that would befall the economy if the bailout was not approved.
At one point, Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio) pleaded with them to explain the crisis in terms a factory worker relaxing on his couch could understand.
“In order to accept this plan, he needs to be more scared,” LaTourette said. If Congress doesn’t act, “I need you to tell this guy on the couch what happens to him. Is he going to be out of a job? Is his credit card going to work? Can he buy a car? Is his daughter going to go to college?”
Paulson replied that the guy on the couch should be scared. “But I think right now he’s angrier than he is scared.
“It puts us in a difficult position,” Paulson continued, “because no one likes to be painting an overly dire picture and scaring people. But the fact is, the financial markets are not stable, and the situation can be very severe as it relates not just to his current situation, but to keeping his job” and preserving his retirement accounts.
By midday, it became clear that Paulson and Bernanke were not getting the job done; the president would have to deliver the message in person.
In his national address, Bush used the sort of everyday terms that lawmakers had been seeking to describe the potential collapse.
He warned that community “banks could fail,” that another stock market plunge would “reduce the value of your retirement account,” that farmers would not get credit and that parents would not be able to “send your children to college.”
In addition to easy credit, the president blamed mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for contributing to the crisis by borrowing “enormous sums of money” and fueling the market for questionable investments.
“With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all,” Bush said, noting that under usual circumstances his conservative ideology would have allowed markets to work their will.
“These are not normal circumstances,” he said.
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Neil Irwin contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400771.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=new
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NYTIMES

September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent.
As Democrats and the administration negotiated details of the package late into the night, the presidential candidates of both major parties planned to meet Mr. Bush at the White House on Thursday, along with leaders of Congress. The president said he hoped the session would “speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.”
Mr. Bush used a prime-time address to warn Americans that “a long and painful recession” could occur if Congress does not act quickly.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats said that progress toward a deal had come after the White House had offered two major concessions: a plan to limit pay of executives whose firms seek government assistance, and a provision that would give taxpayers an equity stake in some of the firms so that the government can profit if the companies prosper in the future. Details of those provisions, and many others, were still under discussion.
Mr. Bush’s televised address, and his extraordinary offer to bring together Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Senator John McCain, the Republican, just weeks before the election underscored a growing sense of urgency on the part of the administration that Congress must act to avert an economic collapse.
It was the first time in Mr. Bush’s presidency that he delivered a prime-time speech devoted exclusively to the economy. It came at a time when deep public unease about shaky financial markets and the demise of Wall Street icons such as Lehman Brothers has been coupled with skepticism and anger directed at a government bailout that could become the most expensive in American history.
The administration’s plan seeks to restore liquidity to the market and restore the economy by buying up distressed securities, many of them tied to mortgages, from struggling financial firms.
The address capped a fast-moving and chaotic day, in Washington, on the presidential campaign trail and on Wall Street.
On Capitol Hill, delicate negotiations between Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Congressional leaders were complicated by resistance from rank-and-file lawmakers, who were fielding torrents of complaints from constituents furious that their tax money was going to be spent to clean up a mess created by high-paid financial executives.
On Wall Street, financial markets continued to struggle. The cost of borrowing for banks, businesses and consumers shot up and investors rushed to safe havens like Treasury bills — a reminder that credit markets, which had recovered somewhat after Mr. Paulson announced the broad outlines of the bailout plan last week, remain under severe stress, with many investors still skittish.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said a deal could come together as early as Thursday. “Working in a bipartisan manner, we have made progress,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative John A. Boehner, the Republican leader, said in a joint statement.
“We agree that key changes should be made to the administration’s proposal. It must include basic good-government principles, including rigorous and independent oversight, strong executive compensation standards and protections for taxpayers.”
Mr. Bush used his speech to signal that he was willing to address lawmakers’ concerns, including fears that tax dollars will be used to pay Wall Street executives and that the plan would put too much authority in the hands of the Treasury secretary without sufficient oversight.
“Any rescue plan should also be designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected,” Mr. Bush said. “It should welcome the participation of financial institutions, large and small. It should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars. It should establish a bipartisan board to oversee the plan’s implementation. And it should be enacted as soon as possible.”
The speech came after the White House, under pressure from Republican lawmakers, opened an aggressive effort to portray the financial rescue package as crucial not just to stabilize Wall Street but to protect the livelihoods of all Americans.
But the White House gave careful thought to the timing; aides to Mr. Bush said they did not want to appear to have the president forcing a solution on Congress.
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Paulson, facing a second day of questioning by lawmakers, this time before the House Financial Services Committee, tried to focus as much on Main Street as Wall Street.
“This entire proposal is about benefiting the American people because today’s fragile financial system puts their economic well being at risk,” Mr. Paulson said. Without action, he added: “Americans’ personal savings and the ability of consumers and business to finance spending, investment and job creation are threatened.”
But it was the comments of Mr. Paulson, a former chief of Goldman Sachs, about limiting the pay of executives that signaled the biggest shift in the White House position and the urgency that the administration has placed in winning Congressional approval as quickly as possible.
“The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightly so,” he said. “No one understands pay for failure.”
Officials said the legislation would almost certainly include a ban on so-called golden parachutes, the generous severance packages that many executives receive on their way out the door, for firms that seek government help. The measure also is likely to include a mechanism for firms to recover any bonus or incentive pay based on corporate earnings or other results that later turn out to have been overstated.
Democrats were also working to include tax provisions that would cap the amount of an executive’s salary that a company could deduct to $400,000 — the amount earned by the president.
At the same time, Congressional Democrats said they were prepared to drop one of their most contentious demands: new authority for bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of first mortgages. That provision was heavily opposed by Senate Republicans.
In addition, Democrats also are leaning toward authorizing the entire $700 billion that Mr. Paulson is seeking but disbursing a smaller amount, perhaps only $150 billion, to start the program, with future funds dependent on how well it is working.
Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead negotiator for Congressional Democrats, said they also planned to insert a tax break to aid community banks that have suffered steep losses on preferred stock that they own in the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That change is in addition to others that already have been accepted by Mr. Paulson that would create an independent oversight board and require the government to do more to prevent foreclosures.
Mark Landler and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/economy/25bush.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222336998-e6kR6n75KL+ftXME3LCOXw

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Les Etats-Unis à la recherche de l’union sacrée pour faire face à la crise
LE MONDE | 25.09.08 | 08h53 •  Mis à jour le 25.09.08 | 09h25
Washington, correspondante

Dans une atmosphère d’urgence nationale, le président George Bush s’est adressé aux Américains, mercredi 24 septembre, pour les avertir que “l’économie entière est en danger”. Il a convié en même temps les chefs de la majorité et de l’opposition, dont les candidats démocrate, Barack Obama, et républicain, John McCain, jeudi à la Maison Blanche pour mettre au point un plan d’action susceptible d’épargner à l’économie américaine une “récession longue et douloureuse”. Les deux rivaux de l’élection présidentielle ont publié un communiqué commun et accepté la proposition.

“Sans une action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait plonger dans une panique majeure”, a mis en garde M. Bush, dans une allocution retransmise par les chaînes de télévision. M. Bush avait jusqu’à présent évité d’apparaître en première ligne. Selon ses conseillers, il ne voulait pas risquer de renvoyer des signaux alarmistes aux marchés.
Il ne voulait probablement pas non plus insister sur la situation de l’économie alors que les démocrates bénéficient d’un avantage électoral dans ce domaine. Selon les sondages, la crise financière est en train de permettre à M. Obama de creuser l’écart. Le dernier sondage Washington Post/ABC News, publié mercredi, lui donne neuf points d’avance (52 % à 43 %) sur M. McCain.
Les réserves de la Maison Blanche ont été balayées au deuxième jour des auditions au Congrès des deux architectes du plan de “bail out” - renflouage - des banques, le secrétaire au Trésor, Henry Paulson, et le président de la Réserve fédérale, Ben Bernanke.
“LES AMÉRICAINS SONT FURIEUX”
Comme la veille, il est apparu que les parlementaires, notamment républicains, étaient plus que sceptiques sur le plan de stabilisation de 700 milliards de dollars (476 milliards d’euros) présenté par l’administration, l’intervention la plus massive de l’Etat depuis les années 1930.
Les élus ont indiqué être inondés de coups de téléphone de leurs administrés en colère. “Soyons clairs, a dit le sénateur démocrate Charles Schumer. Les Américains sont furieux.”
Dans son intervention à la Maison Blanche, la première de cette nature depuis plus d’un an, M. Bush a été contraint d’expliquer que, bien que son “instinct naturel” de républicain soit de “s’opposer à l’intervention du gouvernement”, il avait décidé de ne pas laisser “les actes irresponsables de quelques-uns compromettre la sécurité financière de tous”.
Il a décrit en termes très explicites les conséquences potentielles d’une crise qui reste très immatérielle pour la plupart des Américains, même si le sénateur républicain Judd Greg l’a comparée au 11 septembre 2001 et à l’ouragan Katrina : “D’autres banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse plonger encore, ce qui réduirait la valeur de votre retraite. Des entreprises fermeraient leurs portes et des millions d’Américains pourraient perdre leur emploi”.
La journée a été une succession de rebondissements. Avant le discours de George Bush, John McCain a tenté un nouveau “coup”. Comme il l’avait fait avec le choix de Sarah Palin pour son “ticket”, ou l’annulation de la première journée de la convention républicaine pour cause de cyclone, il a annoncé qu’il suspendait sa campagne pour retourner au Sénat et tenter d’arracher un compromis sur le plan Paulson.
Cette initiative a été immédiatement décriée par les démocrates, qui y ont vu une “politisation” des négociations sur les modalités du plan, lesquelles d’ailleurs n’étaient pas, selon eux, au point mort comme M. McCain le prétendait.
HENRY PAULSON DÉCRIÉ
Le candidat républicain a aussi annoncé qu’il ne se rendrait pas au débat de vendredi avec Barack Obama, le premier des trois débats officiels de la campagne, tant que le sauvetage des marchés financiers ne serait pas assuré. M. Obama a fait savoir qu’un président était censé pouvoir “mener deux tâches à la fois” et qu’il ne voyait pas la nécessité de reporter le débat – prévu sur la politique étrangère – alors que les Américains avaient plus que jamais besoin de connaître les positions des candidats.
Plus que la panique, l’atmosphère dans le pays est à la rébellion populiste. “Respect est le mot qui manque le plus”, a dit le promoteur Donald Trump, qui, après avoir soutenu Hillary Clinton, penche maintenant du côté de John McCain. Henry Paulson est largement décrié (il a été transformé en Frankenstein par l’humoriste Jon Stewart). “Il a perdu toute crédibilité”, a jugé le sénateur républicain Jim Demint.
Il lui est reproché de réclamer les “pouvoirs spéciaux” par le biais de la clause 8 du plan de sauvetage, qui stipule que “les décisions du secrétaire ne sont pas révisables ni susceptibles d’être revues par une cour de justice ou une agence administrative”. Ce que la gauche s’est mis à appeler le “Patriot Act financier”, en référence à la loi antiterroriste de 2001. Pour l’analyste démocrate Steve Clemons, George Bush utilise une nouvelle fois “la politique de la peur”.

Corine Lesnes
http://www.lemonde.fr/elections-americaines/article/2008/09/25/les-etats-unis-a-la-recherche-de-l-union-sacree-pour-faire-face-a-la-crise_1099216_829254.html

Bush: «Toute l’économie américaine est en danger»
(Reuters)
Le président américain a tenté de convaincre cette nuit le Congrès d’adopter son plan de sauvetage. Il reçoit aujourd’hui à la Maison Blanche les deux candidats à sa succession, une première.
AFP
LIBERATION.FR : jeudi 25 septembre 2008
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que “toute notre économie est en danger”. “Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave”, a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette “période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine”.
Toute notre économie est en danger”, a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à “se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (...) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan”.
“Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration”, s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était “assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave”, rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter “les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier”.
“Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général”, a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme “un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise”. “Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement”, a-t-il dit, “je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre”.
“Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales”, a-t-il martelé. “Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber”, a-t-il poursuivi.
“Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux”, a encore prévenu Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
“Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites”, a-t-il dit aux Américains, “plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (...) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse”.
“Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver”, a-t-il scandé. “Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là”, a-t-il promis.
•
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http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/economie_terre/354293.FR.php

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Bush : « L’économie américaine en danger »
Rédaction en ligne
jeudi 25 septembre 2008, 09:37
Le président américain George W. Bush a averti mercredi soir, dans une de ses rares allocutions télévisées consacrées à la crise financière, que « toute notre économie est en danger ».
Lire aussi l’édito de Jurek Kuczkiewicz: “Citoyens cherchent leaders désespérément” / Bush invite McCain et Obama à la Maison blanche / La crise financière s’immisce entre McCain et Obama
AP

« Nous sommes au milieu d’une crise financière grave », a-t-il dit depuis la Maison Blanche, insistant sur cette « période sans précédent pour l’économie américaine ».
« Toute notre économie est en danger », a déclaré M. Bush d’un ton solennel, appelant les élus du Congrès à adopter le plan de sauvetage du système financier proposé par son administration.
Pour ce faire, le président américain a annoncé avoir invité, jeudi à la Maison Blanche, les candidats à la présidentielle Barack Obama et John McCain à « se joindre aux responsables parlementaires des deux partis (…) afin d’aider à accélérer nos discussions vers une loi sans esprit partisan ».
« Il y a un esprit de coopération entre les démocrates et les républicains et entre le Congrès et cette administration », s’est-il félicité au cours de cette allocution d’un quart d’heure.
Il a souligné que le plan, présenté par le secrétaire au Trésor Henry Paulson, était « assez ambitieux pour résoudre un problème grave », rappelant que le gouvernement fédéral verserait 700 milliards de dollars pour racheter « les actifs douteux qui encrassent le système financier ».
« Cet effort de sauvetage ne vise pas à préserver les sociétés ou les industries de certains individus. Il vise à préserver l’économie américaine en général », a-t-il encore déclaré.
Le président américain s’est présenté comme « un fervent partisan de la libre entreprise ». « Donc mon instinct naturel est de m’opposer à une intervention du gouvernement », a-t-il dit, « je crois qu’on devrait laisser les entreprises qui prennent de mauvaises décisions s’éteindre ».
« Dans des circonstances normales, j’aurais suivi cette inclinaison. Mais nous ne sommes pas dans des circonstances normales », a-t-il martelé. « Le marché ne fonctionne pas bien, il y a une importante perte de confiance et des secteurs majeurs du système financier américain risquent de tomber », a-t-il poursuivi.
« Sans action immédiate du Congrès, l’Amérique pourrait glisser dans une panique financière et un scénario douloureux », a encore prévenu M. Bush, sur la foi des prévisions des experts.
« Davantage de banques pourraient faire faillite, la Bourse pourrait chuter encore plus, ce qui réduirait la valeur de vos retraites », a-t-il dit aux Américains, « plus d’entreprises pourraient fermer leurs portes et des millions d’Américains perdre leurs emplois (…) et finalement, notre pays pourrait vivre une récession longue et douloureuse ».
« Nous ne devons pas laisser cela arriver », a-t-il scandé. « Notre économie est confrontée à un défi immense, mais nous avons déjà surmonté des défis difficiles auparavant, et nous allons surmonter celui-là », a-t-il promis.
(d’après AFP)
http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/monde/bush-toute-l-economie-2008-09-25-642285.shtml

La Russie aujourd’hui a bien negocie son virage mais a quel prix! Il est vrai qu’a l’Ouest on ne lui a pas fait de cadeau.

Mais la Russie avait quelques atouts pour elle. Une richesse energetique et une population habituee et adaptee a survivre.

Au contraire, les USA n’ont pas la meme richesse energetique, sans etre non plus miserables sur ce point, et surtout on une population habituee a un certain confort, acquis au depent du “rest of the world”.

Mais peut etre chose plus importante, la Russie et les USA sont de natures differentes.

L’histoire Sovietique n’est pas toute l’histoire Russe. Meme si les Russes ont subit l’ideologie sovietique, cette ideologie n’etait pas la leur. L’URSS n’etait pas la Russie.

Il est raisonable de penser que depuis les annees 1970 des elements nationalistes Russes ont commence a emerger au sein du systeme Sovietique, pour aboutir aujourd’hui, apres le dynamitage du carcan societique, a une liberte retrouvee permettant l’expression de l’identite Russe.

On ne retrouve pas cela du cote des USA. Ceux ci sont totalement impregnes de leur ideologie. Ils n’ont pas, apparemment, un tel carcan ideologique qui leur a ete impose par un accident de l’Histoire. Leur ideologie leur est propre. Et c’est la leur grand malheur. Il est beaucoup plus facile de rejeter ce que l’on ne reconnait pas comme etant de soi meme, que de se remettre en question.

Il y a eu un grand fracas du cote Russe, mais peu de desordre apres coup. Et un ordre a vite retrouve ses droits, au grand dam des puissances occidentales qui sont pris de gemissements droit-de-l’hommistes des que l’ordre regne en face.

Il n’y aura probablement pas de grand fracas du cote des USA, mais un desordre douloureux et interminable.

De la difficulte de se regarder en face…

C’est rigolo que Poutine parlait du camarade loup a son discours de Munich.

Ce chiffre de 700 milliards, et le “plan” qui va avec,  semble être devenu une bouée pour un naufrage en cours. Mais une bouée symbolique et à usage unique. Alire les commentaires sur les sites étasuniens on comprend vite que le besoin réel, à cet instant présent (sans préjuger de ce qu’il pourrait être dans les mois à venir) serait du double, soit 1500 milliards, voire 2000 milliards. C’est donc une bouée déjà crevée. Il faudrait au système financier étasunien une nouvelle bulle.  In extremis…