Francis Lambert
12/10/2008
Dans les sondages, 83 % des Américains assurent que la couleur de peau ne joue aucun rôle dans leur choix. Mais une étude de l’université de Stanford évalue l’écart potentiel entre les déclarations des sondés et leur vote à 6 % des voix, pratiquement l’avance actuelle d’Obama. C’est «l’effet Bradley», du nom d’un candidat noir au poste de gouverneur de Californie en 1982, qui avait perdu de justesse alors que les sondages le donnaient gagnant. Dans le cas d’Obama, s’y ajoute une complication : 46 % des Américains sont incapables d’identifier sa religion et 13 % pensent qu’il est musulman.
de defensa
12/10/2008
Nous avons corrigé l’erreur que nous signalait notre lecteur Garçon DeCafe. Nous le remercions de son intervention et prions nos lecteurs de nous excuser pour cette erreur bien que, selon la formule, elle soit inexcusable.
Stephane Eybert
11/10/2008
Francis Lambert
11/10/2008
http://www.boursorama.com/infos/actualites/detail_actu_marches.phtml?&news=5963062
““Les délégations se sont mises d’accord pour travailler en étroite collaboration sur les questions en suspens dans les jours à venir”, ont déclaré les deux pays dans un communiqué, ajoutant que l’atmosphère des discussions était cordiale.”
Bonne nouvelle, l’aveuglement des législations et des banques de ces Nations laissaient craindre un conflit, au minimum juridique ... attendons la fin, tout sera facturé à quelqu’un !
Francis Lambert
11/10/2008
Menaces d’état, confiscation des biens de compagnies étrangères, et pire à venir ... les hyènes nationales défendent leurs charognes :
“... Gordon Brown has issued a public threat to Iceland, demanding the return of up to £20 billion belonging to British savers, companies and local councils.
... The Prime Minister said Britain would seize the assets of Icelandic companies and take “further action against the authorities”
Contre un allié atlantique de l’OTAN ? Les vraies valeurs des Nations se révèlent dans la lignée d’une orgie de spéculation.
Préférons le retour poétique de l’histoire :
1. la “South Sea bubble” (dont je résumais il y a deux semaine le poème de Swift) est actualisée en “North Sea bubble”
2. il y a aussi un beau poème de Kipling à propos de la déroute Anglaise en Afghanistan (vers 1850)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3169032/Financial-Crisis-Gordon-Brown-demands-20-bn-British-money-from-Iceland.html
D’autant plus que cette glorieuse Nation a été longuement avertie (déjà par son histoire éblouissante de rapacité) :
“... In February, Moody’s Investors Service cut its ratings on all the major Icelandic banks
... In May, Fitch, another agency, cut the ratings of Glitnir Bank and Kaupthing Bank.
... Standard & Poors said it had only rated one Icelandic bank, Glitnir, and had cut its rating from A- to BBB+ in April. “
etc etc. et encore mieux en juillet :
“Other councils opted to put money into Icelandic banks even after the agencies cut the banks’ ratings. Great Yarmouth Borough Council invested £2million with Heritable Bank as recently as July. “
On peut parier que ces pitres continuent !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3166782/Banking-crisis-Councils-ignored-warnings-over-Icelandic-banks.html
Ah oui, l’Eurogroup ce week end compte reprendre le “modèle Anglais” pour sortir de la crise :
1. préparez vos armées “to take further action against the authorities”
2. le modèle anglais “bail-out gamble” est déjà raté, il est temps de le copier
“Yesterday there were few signs that Mr Brown’s bail-out gamble was paying off. Bank shares rose but the FTSE-100 closed 1.2 per cent down. There was little evidence that banks were more prepared to lend to each other and no British bank has requested any of the £50 billion available. ” (extrait du premier article)
Les Raisins De la folie
11/10/2008
Un article du NY Times nous donne un peu plus de précisions sur l’ambiance raciste et violente qui régnait dans les récents meeting de Mcain/Palin. On y apprend notamment que le candidat républicain à été conspué à deux reprises lorsqu’il a fait part du respect qu’il avait pour Obama. On peut y constater aussi le caractère raciste de ces meeting avec notamment un cameraman “African-American” insulté.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/us/politics/11campaign.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Stephane Eybert
11/10/2008
Vous avez a maintes reprises parle de l’hypothese Gorbatchev, en faisant comprendre que cet homme a decide d’une orientation politique radicale allant a l’encontre du systeme URSS de l’epoque.
Vous n’avez pas approche l’URSS en y cherchant un systeme, un establishment, avec sa psychologie et sa pathologie. Chose que vous faite si bien pour les USA.
Pensez vous qu’un seul homme ai pu decider du sort de l’URSS..? Ne pensez vous pas qu’il y avait la un courant profond de forces patriotiques Russes qui etait a l’oeuvre depuis quelques decennies?
D’un autre cote vous semblez envisager l’histoire et le destin de l’amerique d’une toute autre maniere. Il semble que vous y excluer toute possibilite qu’une action individuelle puisse orienter l’histoire politique des USA. Envisagez vous la societe americaine unie et homogene dans son americanisme?
L’histoire financiere et geostrategique des USA a montre a maintes reprises comment quelques hommes ont pu decider du sort de cette nation.
Votre approche tres “psychologique” des USA semble ignorer toutes les actions de false flag terror realisees au cours des 100 dernieres annees.
La psychologie des USA est manipulee par l’establishment.
Il vous manque un article de fond qui preciserait les relations entre:
- l’establishment
- l’americanisme
- le psyche americain
- les operation psyop type northwoods, uss liberty, gulf of tonkin, 911
- les centres de pouvoirs
Merci
Francis Lambert
11/10/2008
... C’est le scénario de 1992, qui avait vu la victoire du démocrate Bill Clinton qui se rejoue, à la puissance dix. ” De plus en plus d’électeurs font de l’économie leur critère principal, et n’ont plus aucune confiance dans la capacité de Bush-McCain (c’est à dire des Républicains) à gérer cette crise ” diagnostique Mark Penn, le stratège de Clinton qui avait dirigé la campagne d’Hillary Clinton. 60% des Américains sont convaincus que le pays est sur la pente fatale qui mène à la Dépression.
... Plus grave encore pour les conservateurs, l’élection législative qui aura lieu en même temps que la présidentielle tournera à peu près certainement à la Bérézina. Le politologue Stuart Rothenberg prédit que le parti démocrate devrait augmenter sa majorité à la Chambre des représentants de 25 à 30 sièges.
Et, ce qui est encore plus important, ” je ne peux plus écarter l’hypothèse qu’ils arrivent à contrôler 60 sièges au Sénat ” (sur 100) en raflant au moins neuf sièges supplémentaires. Ils atteindraient alors la majorité des 2/3, qui permet au Congrès d’ignorer d’éventuels vetos du Président, et, surtout, les manoeuvres d’obstruction de la minorité.
Les Démocrates sont donc en passe de retrouver l’hégémonie politique, avec le contrôle simultané de la Maison-Blanche, de la majorité à la Chambre et des 2/3 du Sénat qu’ils n’avaient plus connu depuis l’élection du républicain Nixon en 1968. ” Comment croire à un renversement de tendance, en dehors d’un attentat ? ” demande le stratège démocrate Paul Maslin dans le quotidien The Politico .
La panique qui règne dans les rangs républicains ressemble du coup à celle qui tétanise les bourses. Les conservateurs ont perdu deux des trois armes qui avaient assuré leur domination politique ininterrompue depuis l’ère Reagan (en dehors du double mandat de Bill Clinton).
Ils étaient le parti de l’enrichissement, ils sont devenus celui des fossoyeurs de la prospérité.
Ils sont le parti des faucons, garants de la sécurité nationale et de l’hégémonie américaine dans le monde, mais celle-ci est battue en brèche et de toute manière la politique étrangère et les guerres, en Irak et Afghanistan, n’intéressent plus que 10% des électeurs.
Ne reste aux Républicains qu’une seule arme : la ” guerre culturelle ” , qui passe par la dénonciation des Démocrates comme étrangers, ou hostiles aux valeurs fondamentales de l’Amérique et à la patrie et les attaques personnelles contre la crédibilité de leur candidat.
Depuis jeudi, John McCain a donc, selon l’expression d’un de ses conseillers ” lâché les chiens” . ... On entend aussi des cris ” À mort ! ” et ” Terroriste ! ” quand le nom du candidat démocrate est cité, et un des partisans de McCain, l’ex-gouverneur de l’Oaklahoma Frank Keating, l’a traité de ” voyou des rues qui se droguait à la cocaïne ” . Ces poussées de haine ont suscité l’embarras jusque dans l’entourage de McCain.
... S’il n’a rien lui non plus à proposer pour combattre la crise, le candidat démocrate s’emploie consciencieusement à imiter son grand ancêtre, Franklin D.Roosevelt. Il s’efforce comme lui de projeter une image rassurante de dirigeant au sang froid et résolument optimiste, allant jusqu’à reprendre la célèbre injonction lancée par FDR lors de sa prestation de serment en 1933 : ” La seule chose dont nous ayons à avoir peur c’est de la peur elle-même” . Un discours qui ne suffira peut-être pas à rassurer Wall Street, mais qui visiblement séduit Main Street.
Les Raisins De la folie
11/10/2008
La monté aux extrêmes que l’on avait (un peu) oublié ces derniers temps revient en force (et à quel degré!) via la base de l’électorat républicain.
Un article de CNN nous décrit une situation quasi insurrectionnelle d’une extrême tension dans les derniers meeting de Mcain. L’appel aux calme lancé par ce dernier et les commentaires de divers politiciens mentionné dans l’article montre clairement la crainte de l’establishment face à cette colère potentiellement déstabilisatrice (voir destructrice) et incontrôlable qu’elle pourrait avoir envers le système.
Reste à savoir ci cet état durera et si il pourrait engendrer d’autres réactions plus extrêmes comme une volonté de scission de certains États par exemple.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/10/mccain.crowd/index.html
Rage rising on the McCain campaign trail
Story Highlights
NEW: McCain urges his supporters to be respectful of Obama
McCain-Palin supporters increasing their attacks on Obama during rallies
Some supporters have yelled out “treason,” “kill him” and “terrorist”
Obama says Friday: Anger and division are “not what we need right now”
From Ed Henry and Ed Hornick
CNN
(CNN)—With recent polls showing Sen. Barack Obama’s lead increasing nationwide and in several GOP-leaning states, some Republicans attending John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign rallies are showing a new emotion: rage.
At a rally in Minnesota on Friday, a woman told McCain: “I don’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s an Arab.”
McCain shook his head and said, “No ma’am, no ma’am. He’s a decent family man…[a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That’s what this campaign is all about.”
One man at the rally said he was “scared of an Obama presidency.” McCain later told the man he should not fear Obama.
“I want to be president of the United States, and I don’t want Obama to be,” he said. “But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as President of the United States.”
McCain’s response was met with boos from the crowd.
When asked about these outbursts, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said that he didn’t know who those people were and if they were there as supporters or to disrupt the rallies.
A day earlier, the same type of hostility toward Obama was evident at McCain-Palin rallies.
“When you have an Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run this country, we have got to have our head examined. It’s time that you two are representing us, and we are mad. So, go get them,” one man told McCain at a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Another man was more pointed.
“And we’re all wondering why that Obama is where he’s at, how he got here. I mean, everybody in this room is stunned that we’re in this position,” another man said at Thursday’s rally.
“I’m mad. I’m really mad. And what’s going to surprise you, it’s not the economy. It’s the socialists taking over our country,” one said. Watch more of the anger at the rallies »
McCain urged his supporters to be respectful of Obama.
“We want to fight and I will fight. But we will be respectful,” he said. “I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments. I will respect him and I want everyone to be respectful, and let’s make sure we are.” Watch McCain address attacks on Obama »
CNN contributor David Gergen, who has advised Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, said Thursday that the negative tone of these rallies is “incendiary” and could lead to violence.
“There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence. I think we’re not far from that,” he said. “I think it’s really imperative that the candidates try to calm people down.”
On Friday, Obama said the “barrage of nasty insinuations and attacks” was a result of the Republican nominee’s failed economic ideas.
“They can run misleading ads, they can pursue the politics of anything goes. It will not work. Not this time. I think that folks are looking for something different this time. It’s easy to rile up a crowd, nothing’s easier than riling up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that’s not what we need right now in the United States. The times are too serious,” Obama said at a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Recently, McCain’s campaign launched a string of ads that question Obama’s judgment and character.
The McCain campaign calls Obama “too risky for America” in a new Web ad that focuses on his political relationship with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the radical Weather Underground.
“Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They’ve worked together for years. But Obama tries to hide it,” the announcer said in the 90-second ad.
The now-defunct Weather Underground was involved in bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol. Obama was a young child at the time of the bombings.
Obama and Ayers, now a university professor, met in 1995, when both worked with a nonprofit group trying to raise funds for a school improvement project and a charitable foundation. CNN’s review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved. CNN Fact Check: Is Obama ‘palling around with terrorists’?
Obama, in an April debate during the primaries, called Ayers “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
At a rally Tuesday in Clearwater, Florida, Sarah Palin said Obama was being “less than truthful” about his ties to Ayers. “His own top adviser said they were ‘certainly friendly.’ ... I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America—as the greatest source for good in this world,” she said.
Palin told the crowd that she sees “a pattern in how our opponent has talked about one of his most troubling associations.“Watch more of Palin’s comments »
One member of the Palin audience in Jacksonville, Florida, Tuesday shouted out “treason.” And at another rally in the state Monday, Palin’s mention of the Obama-Ayers tie caused one member to yell out: “kill him”—though it was unclear if it was targeted at Obama or Ayers.
At several recent rallies, Palin has stirred up crowds by mentioning the “liberal media.” Routinely, there are boos at every mention of The New York Times and the “mainstream media,” both of which are staples of Palin’s stump speech.
Some audience members are openly hostile to members of the traveling press covering Palin; one crowd member hurled a racial epithet at an African-American member of the press in Clearwater, Florida, on Monday.
And at a McCain rally in New Mexico on Monday, one supporter yelled out “terrorist” when McCain asked, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” McCain didn’t respond. Watch as McCain ramps up his criticism of Obama »
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, on Friday told voters that the McCain-Palin campaign “would want you to be afraid of Barack Obama.”
Some Republicans have also been critical of the McCain campaign.
Former Michigan Gov. William Milliken, a Republican, told the Grand Rapids Press he was “disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign.”
“He is not the McCain I endorsed,” Milliken said Thursday.
Some anger found at McCain-Palin rallies is directed at McCain for a different reason. Watch analysts weigh in on the recent attacks »
“I am begging you, sir, I am begging you, take it to him,” another supporter said to the Arizona senator at the Wisconsin rally.
McCain, however, seems torn. On one hand, he is going negative on the Ayers controversy.
“The point is, Sen. Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that’s not true,” he said at the rally in Wisconsin. “We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not.”
On the other hand, McCain is trying to focus on the economic downturn plaguing the country.
“But I also, my friends, want to address the greatest financial challenge of our lifetime with a positive plan for action,” he added.
Also, the McCains said months ago they didn’t want their son Jimmy—a Marine serving in Iraq—dragged into the campaign.
But on Thursday, Cindy McCain brought up her son.
She criticized the Illinois senator for voting against a bill to fund troops in Iraq, a regular line of attack from her husband’s campaign.
“The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body, let me tell you,” she told a Pennsylvania crowd before introducing her husband and his No. 2.
The vote Cindy McCain is referencing came in May 2007, when Obama was one of 14 senators who voted against a war-spending plan that would have provided emergency funds for American troops overseas.
A CNN fact check deemed the charge that Obama voted against troop funding “misleading.” Obama supported a different version of the troop-funding plan—one that McCain spoke against. Fact Check: Did Obama vote to cut funds for the troops?
CNN’s Carey Bodenheimer, Dana Bash and Anastasia Diakides contributed to this article.
Garçon DeCafe
11/10/2008
vous dites :
“en désespoir de cause, multiplié les attaques personnelles contre Obama, notamment à propos des liens quil a eus dans les années 1960, ou quil est supposé avoir eus, avec des personnalités et des groupes extrémistes, voire terroristes selon la terminologie républicaine toujours généreuse dans ce cas.”
Or le lien en question est a posteriori . Obama a effectivement siégé auprès de William Ayers au sein de la Woods Fund of Chicago, entre 1999 et 2002. Ayers etait un activiste dans les annees 60 ( Obama avait 8 ans) et a effectivement poses des bombes au Pentagone et au Capitol.
Les liens en questions ne sont donc pas situes dans les annees 60.
http://cafecroissant.fr/2008/palin-et-mccain-pataugent-dans-la-merde/
Laurent Ragain
11/10/2008
J’ai souris en tombant sur cette information après avoir lu votre article: alors que les bourses mondiales s’effondrent partout, celle de Bagdad -fonctionnant sans un seul ordinateur!- affiche une santé insolente:
http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-monde/investisseurs-inquiets-rendez-vous-a-la-bourse-de-bagdad/924/0/281418
Claude Animo
10/10/2008
Pourquoi, du moins jusquà présent, chaque proclamation officielle censée ramener les esprits à la raison (libéralisme, aurais-tu donc une âme ?) est mécaniquement suivie par une détérioration de la situation qui devait censément être contrôlée.
Après des décennies passées à stipendier l’état, son incompétence, son irresponsabilité, son inutilité
la vulgate libérale a fini par corrompre sa propre psychologie. Dans cette conformation de non-prensée, celle dun libéralisme croyant à sa propagande, toute action menée par un état ou institution ne pourra, du point de vue libéral, quêtre vouée à léchec.
Cest ce que nous observons, aujourdhui, de manière constante.
Un electro-choc est-il encore possible , est-il dailleurs souhaitable ?
Dominique Larchey-Wendling
10/10/2008
de Andrew Bacevich, c’est vraiment un livre exceptionnel par la densité et la clarté de l’analyse. AB y dénonce l"American profligacy” comme principal cause de la chute de l’Empire.
Christian Steiner
10/10/2008
A signaler larticle de Francis Fukuyama, dont la traduction est publiée par Le Monde, intitulée “La chute dAmerica Inc.” (version courte : http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2008/10/09/la-chute-d-america-inc_1104745_3234.html), et qui est de la même eau que larticle de Zakaria (larticle de Fukuyama porte dailleurs le copyright de Newseek).
Fukuyama pose le constat sévère de la perte de crédibilité et de la perte de lhégémonie des USA non seulement dans le domaine économique, mais dans celui de la politique extérieure et dans celui de linfluence culturelle (la perte de prestige de la marque “Amérique” du titre de son article).
Outre le déraillement de la finance et de léconomie américaine, quil nhésite pas à imputer au système lui-même (« Le pire, c’est que le coupable est le modèle américain lui-même : obsédé par le mantra de toujours moins de gouvernement, Washington a négligé de réguler de façon adéquate le secteur financier et l’a laissé causer un tort considérable au reste de la société »), Fukuyama constate également la perte de crédibilité de lagenda démocratique des USA :
« Mais la démocratie était d’ores et déjà ternie. Alors même qu’il avait été prouvé que Saddam Hussein ne possédait aucune arme de destruction massive, l’administration Bush tenta de justifier la guerre en Irak en l’intégrant à son vaste “agenda de la liberté”. Aux yeux de beaucoup de gens dans le monde, la rhétorique américaine sur la démocratie s’est mise à ressembler à une excuse visant à perpétuer l’hégémonie des Etats-Uni »)
...et la perte de crédibilité du modèle américain, « gravement terni par l’utilisation de la torture par l’administration Bush. Après le 11-Septembre, les Américains ont donné la triste image d’un peuple prêt à renoncer aux garanties constitutionnelles dans l’intérêt de la sécurité. Aux yeux de nombreux non-Américains, la prison de Guantanamo et le détenu encagoulé d’Abou-Ghraib ont depuis lors remplacé la statue de la Liberté en tant que symboles de l’Amérique »,
...le piteux état intérieur des USA, dont il attribue les causes aux excès de dérégulations (« Même aux Etats-Unis, les inconvénients de la dérégulation étaient apparus clairement bien avant le naufrage de Wall Street. Durant toute la dernière décennie, les inégalités n’ont cessé de se creuser aux Etats-Unis car les bénéfices de la croissance ont profité avant tout aux plus riches et aux mieux éduqués, tandis que les revenus de la classe ouvrière stagnaient. Enfin, l’occupation gâchée de l’Irak et la réaction des autorités après l’ouragan Katrina ont mis à nu la faiblesse générale du secteur public »).
Etc. etc. Constats classiques.
Mais la solution quil propose à tous ces maux manquent elle-même de… crédibilité. Il propose de restaurer la confiance non seulement dans le domaine financier et économique, par des réformes adéquates (c-à-d antiaméricanistes, comme laisser tomber le dogme du moins dimpôts qui se finance lui-même, reconstruire le secteur publique, consommer moins à crédit, travailler plus et épargner plus, et financer la croissance économique grâce au travail et à la productivité intérieure), et de restaurer la confiance également dans le domaine de limage de marque, dans le domaine culturel ((re)devenir un partenaire crédible ?)
Jai limpression que si ces solutions lui paraissent à lui crédibles ou quil tente de les faire paraître crédible au lecteur , cest parce quil sarrête, dans son analyse, au temps de Reagan et Tatcher, amputant du coup lhistoire précédente, ce qui lui évite de faire la démonstration que les USA nont jamais été capable dêtre ou de faire ce quil préconise comme solutions. Sacrée hypothèque…
Nicolas Stassen
10/10/2008
The End Of American Capitalism?
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 10, 2008; A01
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.
Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation’s wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.
The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.
Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way.
The government’s about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.
Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry.
But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism.
The government could launch a targeted program in which it takes a minority stake in troubled banks, or a broader program aimed at the larger banking system. In either case, however, the move could be seen as evidence that Washington remains a slave to Wall Street. The plan, for instance, may not compel participating firms to give their chief executives the salary haircuts that some in Congress intended. But if the plan didn’t work, the government might have to take bigger stakes.
“People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here’s what you have to do—hand over power to the market,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. “The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us.”
In Seoul, many see American excess as a warning. At the same time, anger is mounting over the global spillover effect of the U.S. crisis. The Korean currency, the won, has fallen sharply in recent days as corporations there struggle to find dollars in the heat of a global credit crunch.
“Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling,” said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. “A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?”
Other than a few fringe heads of state and quixotic headlines, no one is talking about the death of capitalism. The embrace of free-market theories, particularly in Asia, has helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades. But resentment is growing over America’s brand of capitalism, which in contrast to, say, Germany’s, spurns regulations and venerates risk.
In South Korea, rising criticism that the government is sticking too close to the U.S. model has roused opposition to privatizing the massive, state-owned Korea Development Bank. South Korea is among those countries that have benefited the most from adopting free-market principles, emerging from the ashes of the Korean War to become one of the world’s biggest economies. It has distinguished itself from North Korea, an impoverished country hobbled by an outdated communist system and authoritarian leadership.
But the repercussions of crisis that began in the United States are global. In Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to herald capitalism’s promise, the government this week moved to partly nationalize the ailing banking system. Across the English Channel, European leaders who are no strangers to regulation are piling on Washington for gradually pulling the government watchdogs off the world’s largest financial sector. Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they are calling for broad new international codes to impose scrutiny on global finance.
To some degree, those calls are even being echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution charged with the promotion of free markets overseas and that preached that less government was good government during the economic crises in Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Now, it is talking about the need for regulation and oversight.
“Obviously the crisis comes from an important regulatory and supervisory failure in advanced countries . . . and a failure in market discipline mechanisms,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s managing director, said yesterday before the fund’s annual meeting in Washington.
In a slideshow presentation, Strauss-Kahn illustrated the global impact of the financial crisis. Countries in Africa, including many of those with some of the lowest levels of market and financial integration and openness, are now set to weather the crisis with the least amount of turbulence.
Shortly afterward, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was questioned by reporters about the “confusion” in the developing world over whether to continue embracing the free-market model. He replied, “I think people have been confused not only in developing countries, but in developed countries, by these shocking events.”
In much of the developing world, financial systems still remain far more governed by the state, despite pressure from the United States for those countries to shift power to the private sector and create freer financial markets. They may stay that way for some time.
China had been resisting calls from Washington and Wall Street to introduce a broad range of exotic investments, including many of the once-red-hot derivatives now being blamed for magnifying the crisis in the West. In recent weeks, Beijing has made that position more clear, saying it would not permit an expansion of complex financial instruments.
With the U.S. government’s current push toward intervention and the soul-searching over the role of deregulation in the crisis, the stage appears to be at least temporarily set for a more restrained model of free enterprise, particularly in financial markets.
“If you look around the world, China is doing pretty good right now, and the U.S. isn’t,” said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You may see a push back from globalization in the financial markets.”
Staff writers Blaine Harden in Seoul and Ariana Cha in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100903425.html?hpid=topnews
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October 9, 2008
THE RECKONING
Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Not only have individual financial institutions become less vulnerable to shocks from underlying risk factors, but also the financial system as a whole has become more resilient. Alan Greenspan in 2004
George Soros, the prominent financier, avoids using the financial contracts known as derivatives because we dont really understand how they work. Felix G. Rohatyn, the investment banker who saved New York from financial catastrophe in the 1970s, described derivatives as potential hydrogen bombs.
And Warren E. Buffett presciently observed five years ago that derivatives were financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.
One prominent financial figure, however, has long thought otherwise. And his views held the greatest sway in debates about the regulation and use of derivatives exotic contracts that promised to protect investors from losses, thereby stimulating riskier practices that led to the financial crisis. For more than a decade, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has fiercely objected whenever derivatives have come under scrutiny in Congress or on Wall Street. What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldnt be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so, Mr. Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee in 2003. We think it would be a mistake to more deeply regulate the contracts, he added.
Today, with the world caught in an economic tempest that Mr. Greenspan recently described as the type of wrenching financial crisis that comes along only once in a century, his faith in derivatives remains unshaken.
The problem is not that the contracts failed, he says. Rather, the people using them got greedy. A lack of integrity spawned the crisis, he argued in a speech a week ago at Georgetown University, intimating that those peddling derivatives were not as reliable as the pharmacist who fills the prescription ordered by our physician.
But others hold a starkly different view of how global markets unwound, and the role that Mr. Greenspan played in setting up this unrest.
Clearly, derivatives are a centerpiece of the crisis, and he was the leading proponent of the deregulation of derivatives, said Frank Partnoy, a law professor at the University of San Diego and an expert on financial regulation.
The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002 and a relative pittance just two decades ago. Theoretically intended to limit risk and ward off financial problems, the contracts instead have stoked uncertainty and actually spread risk amid doubts about how companies value them.
If Mr. Greenspan had acted differently during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, many economists say, the current crisis might have been averted or muted.
Over the years, Mr. Greenspan helped enable an ambitious American experiment in letting market forces run free. Now, the nation is confronting the consequences.
Derivatives were created to soften or in the argot of Wall Street, hedge investment losses. For example, some of the contracts protect debt holders against losses on mortgage securities. (Their name comes from the fact that their value derives from underlying assets like stocks, bonds and commodities.) Many individuals own a common derivative: the insurance contract on their homes.
On a grander scale, such contracts allow financial services firms and corporations to take more complex risks that they might otherwise avoid for example, issuing more mortgages or corporate debt. And the contracts can be traded, further limiting risk but also increasing the number of parties exposed if problems occur.
Throughout the 1990s, some argued that derivatives had become so vast, intertwined and inscrutable that they required federal oversight to protect the financial system. In meetings with federal officials, celebrated appearances on Capitol Hill and heavily attended speeches, Mr. Greenspan banked on the good will of Wall Street to self-regulate as he fended off restrictions.
Ever since housing began to collapse, Mr. Greenspans record has been up for revision. Economists from across the ideological spectrum have criticized his decision to let the nations real estate market continue to boom with cheap credit, courtesy of low interest rates, rather than snuffing out price increases with higher rates. Others have criticized Mr. Greenspan for not disciplining institutions that lent indiscriminately.
But whatever history ends up saying about those decisions, Mr. Greenspans legacy may ultimately rest on a more deeply embedded and much less scrutinized phenomenon: the spectacular boom and calamitous bust in derivatives trading.
Faith in the System
Some analysts say it is unfair to blame Mr. Greenspan because the crisis is so sprawling. The notion that Greenspan could have generated a totally different outcome is naïve, said Robert E. Hall, an economist at the conservative Hoover Institution, a research group at Stanford.
Mr. Greenspan declined requests for an interview. His spokeswoman referred questions about his record to his memoir, The Age of Turbulence, in which he outlines his beliefs.
It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade, Mr. Greenspan writes. The worst have failed; investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future.
In his Georgetown speech, he entertained no talk of regulation, describing the financial turmoil as the failure of Wall Street to behave honorably.
In a market system based on trust, reputation has a significant economic value, Mr. Greenspan told the audience. I am therefore distressed at how far we have let concerns for reputation slip in recent years.
As the long-serving chairman of the Fed, the nations most powerful economic policy maker, Mr. Greenspan preached the transcendent, wealth-creating powers of the market.
A professed libertarian, he counted among his formative influences the novelist Ayn Rand, who portrayed collective power as an evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals. In turn, he showed a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly.
An examination of more than two decades of Mr. Greenspans record on financial regulation and derivatives in particular reveals the degree to which he tethered the health of the nations economy to that faith.
As the nascent derivatives market took hold in the early 1990s, and in subsequent years, critics denounced an absence of rules forcing institutions to disclose their positions and set aside funds as a reserve against bad bets.
Time and again, Mr. Greenspan a revered figure affectionately nicknamed the Oracle proclaimed that risks could be handled by the markets themselves.
Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury, recalled Alan S. Blinder, a former Federal Reserve board member and an economist at Princeton University. I think of him as consistently cheerleading on derivatives.
Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, says Mr. Greenspan opposes regulating derivatives because of a fundamental disdain for government.
Mr. Levitt said that Mr. Greenspans authority and grasp of global finance consistently persuaded less financially sophisticated lawmakers to follow his lead.
I always felt that the titans of our legislature didnt want to reveal their own inability to understand some of the concepts that Mr. Greenspan was setting forth, Mr. Levitt said. I dont recall anyone ever saying, What do you mean by that, Alan?
Still, over a long stretch of time, some did pose questions. In 1992, Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who led the House subcommittee on telecommunications and finance, asked what was then the General Accounting Office to study derivatives risks.
Two years later, the office released its report, identifying significant gaps and weaknesses in the regulatory oversight of derivatives.
The sudden failure or abrupt withdrawal from trading of any of these large U.S. dealers could cause liquidity problems in the markets and could also pose risks to others, including federally insured banks and the financial system as a whole, Charles A. Bowsher, head of the accounting office, said when he testified before Mr. Markeys committee in 1994. In some cases intervention has and could result in a financial bailout paid for or guaranteed by taxpayers.
In his testimony at the time, Mr. Greenspan was reassuring. Risks in financial markets, including derivatives markets, are being regulated by private parties, he said.
There is nothing involved in federal regulation per se which makes it superior to market regulation.
Mr. Greenspan warned that derivatives could amplify crises because they tied together the fortunes of many seemingly independent institutions. The very efficiency that is involved here means that if a crisis were to occur, that that crisis is transmitted at a far faster pace and with some greater virulence, he said.
But he called that possibility extremely remote, adding that risk is part of life.
Later that year, Mr. Markey introduced a bill requiring greater derivatives regulation. It never passed.
Resistance to Warnings
In 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading, began exploring derivatives regulation. The commission, then led by a lawyer named Brooksley E. Born, invited comments about how best to oversee certain derivatives.
Ms. Born was concerned that unfettered, opaque trading could threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it, she said in Congressional testimony. She called for greater disclosure of trades and reserves to cushion against losses.
Ms. Borns views incited fierce opposition from Mr. Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market. Mr. Greenspan warned that too many rules would damage Wall Street, prompting traders to take their business overseas.
Greenspan told Brooksley that she essentially didnt know what she was doing and shed cause a financial crisis, said Michael Greenberger, who was a senior director at the commission. Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street.
Ms. Born declined to comment. Mr. Rubin, now a senior executive at the banking giant Citigroup, says that he favored regulating derivatives particularly increasing potential loss reserves but that he saw no way of doing so while he was running the Treasury.
All of the forces in the system were arrayed against it, he said. The industry certainly didnt want any increase in these requirements. There was no potential for mobilizing public opinion.
Mr. Greenberger asserts that the political climate would have been different had Mr. Rubin called for regulation.
In early 1998, Mr. Rubins deputy, Lawrence H. Summers, called Ms. Born and chastised her for taking steps he said would lead to a financial crisis, according to Mr. Greenberger. Mr. Summers said he could not recall the conversation but agreed with Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin that Ms. Borns proposal was highly problematic.
On April 21, 1998, senior federal financial regulators convened in a wood-paneled conference room at the Treasury to discuss Ms. Borns proposal. Mr. Rubin and Mr. Greenspan implored her to reconsider, according to both Mr. Greenberger and Mr. Levitt.
Ms. Born pushed ahead. On June 5, 1998, Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Levitt called on Congress to prevent Ms. Born from acting until more senior regulators developed their own recommendations. Mr. Levitt says he now regrets that decision. Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin were joined at the hip on this, he said. They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos.
Ms. Born soon gained a potent example. In the fall of 1998, the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed, dragged down by disastrous bets on, among other things, derivatives. More than a dozen banks pooled $3.6 billion for a private rescue to prevent the fund from slipping into bankruptcy and endangering other firms.
Despite that event, Congress froze the Commodity Futures Trading Commissions regulatory authority for six months. The following year, Ms. Born departed.
In November 1999, senior regulators including Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin recommended that Congress permanently strip the C.F.T.C. of regulatory authority over derivatives.
Mr. Greenspan, according to lawmakers, then used his prestige to make sure Congress followed through. Alan was held in very high regard, said Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican who led the House Banking and Financial Services Committee at the time. Youve got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise.
As the stock market roared forward on the heels of a historic bull market, the dominant view was that the good times largely stemmed from Mr. Greenspans steady hand at the Fed.
You will go down as the greatest chairman in the history of the Federal Reserve Bank, declared Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee when Mr. Greenspan appeared there in February 1999.
Mr. Greenspans credentials and confidence reinforced his reputation helping him to persuade Congress to repeal Depression-era laws that separated commercial and investment banking in order to reduce overall risk in the financial system.
He had a way of speaking that made you think he knew exactly what he was talking about at all times, said Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa. He was able to say things in a way that made people not want to question him on anything, like he knew it all. He was the Oracle, and who were you to question him?
In 2000, Mr. Harkin asked what might happen if Congress weakened the C.F.T.C.s authority.
If you have this exclusion and something unforeseen happens, who does something about it? he asked Mr. Greenspan in a hearing.
Mr. Greenspan said that Wall Street could be trusted. There is a very fundamental trade-off of what type of economy you wish to have, he said. You can have huge amounts of regulation and I will guarantee nothing will go wrong, but nothing will go right either, he said.
Later that year, at a Congressional hearing on the merger boom, he argued that Wall Street had tamed risk.
Arent you concerned with such a growing concentration of wealth that if one of these huge institutions fails that it will have a horrendous impact on the national and global economy? asked Representative Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
No, Im not, Mr. Greenspan replied. I believe that the general growth in large institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically I should say, fully hedged.
The House overwhelmingly passed the bill that kept derivatives clear of C.F.T.C. oversight. Senator Gramm attached a rider limiting the C.F.T.C.s authority to an 11,000-page appropriations bill. The Senate passed it. President Clinton signed it into law.
Pressing Forward
Still, savvy investors like Mr. Buffett continued to raise alarms about derivatives, as he did in 2003, in his annual letter to shareholders of his company, Berkshire Hathaway.
Large amounts of risk, particularly credit risk, have become concentrated in the hands of relatively few derivatives dealers, he wrote. The troubles of one could quickly infect the others.
But business continued.
And when Mr. Greenspan began to hear of a housing bubble, he dismissed the threat. Wall Street was using derivatives, he said in a 2004 speech, to share risks with other firms.
Shared risk has since evolved from a source of comfort into a virus. As the housing crisis grew and mortgages went bad, derivatives actually magnified the downturn.
The Wall Street debacle that swallowed firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and imperiled the insurance giant American International Group, has been driven by the fact that they and their customers were linked to one another by derivatives.
In recent months, as the financial crisis has gathered momentum, Mr. Greenspans public appearances have become less frequent.
His memoir was released in the middle of 2007, as the disaster was unfolding, and his book tour suddenly became a referendum on his policies. When the paperback version came out this year, Mr. Greenspan wrote an epilogue that offers a rebuttal of sorts.
Risk management can never achieve perfection, he wrote. The villains, he wrote, were the bankers whose self-interest he had once bet upon.
They gambled that they could keep adding to their risky positions and still sell them out before the deluge, he wrote. Most were wrong.
No federal intervention was marshaled to try to stop them, but Mr. Greenspan has no regrets.
Governments and central banks, he wrote, could not have altered the course of the boom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?em
From The Times
October 10, 2008
We must lead the world to financial stability
Strong banks, unfrozen markets, greater transparency and international supervision are the four keys to recovery
Gordon Brown
The banking system is fundamental to everything we do. Every family and every business in Britain depends upon it. That is why, when threatened by the global financial turmoil that started in America and has now spread across the world, we in Britain took action to secure our banks and financial system.
The stability and restructuring programme for Britain that we announced this week is the first to address at one and the same time the three essential components of a modern banking system - sufficient liquidity, funding and capital.
So the Bank of England has pledged to double the amount of liquidity it provides to the banks; we have guaranteed new lending between the banks so that we can get the banks lending to each other again; and at least £50 billion will be made available to recapitalise our banks.
We will take stakes in banks in exchange for a return and will guarantee interbank lending on commercial terms. And at the heart of these reforms are clear principles of transparency, integrity, responsibility, good housekeeping and co-operation across borders.
But because this is a global problem, it requires a global solution. Indeed this now moves to a global stage with a range of international meetings starting this week with the G7 and the IMF and, we propose, culminating in a leaders meeting in which we must lay down the principles and the new policies for restructuring our banking and financial system all around the globe.
When I became Prime Minister I did not expect to make the decision, along with Alistair Darling, for the Government to offer to take stakes in our high street banks, just as nobody could have anticipated the action taken in America. But these new times require new ideas. The old solutions of yesterday will not serve us well for the challenges of today and tomorrow.
So we must leave behind outworn dogmas and embrace new solutions.
Of course, the policies each country pursues will need to be suited to its particular circumstances. But based on the British approach, I believe through wider European co-operation and also co-ordination among the leading economies, there are four broad steps we must now all take to restore our international financial system.
First, every bank in every country must meet capital requirements that ensure confidence. Just as in the UK we have made at least £50 billion of new capital available, so other countries where banks have insufficient capital will need to take measures to address this. Only strong and solid banks will be able to serve the global economy.
Secondly, short-term liquidity is simply a means of keeping the system going. What really matters for the future is to open the money markets that have been closed for medium-term funding from the private sector. Until only a few weeks ago few, if any, appreciated the real significance of the money markets within the wider global financial crisis and the importance of trust in these markets. But the freezing of the market for medium-term funding reflects a total loss of trust between banks.
The potential economic consequences cannot be understated. The role of banks is to circulate the savings from deposits, our pensions and from companies to those that need to spend or invest them. The cost at which banks can borrow this money directly affects the costs of mortgages for homeowners and of lending for business. This paralysis of lending from loss of confidence jeopardises the flow of money to every family and every business in the country.
Our guarantee to restart wholesale money markets in exchange for a fee has, I believe, broken new ground in restarting our financial system.
Thirdly, we must have stronger international rules for transparency, disclosure and the highest standards of conduct. Successful market economies need trust, which can only be built through shared values. So as we reform our financial system we should encourage hard work, effort, enterprise and responsible risk-taking - qualities that markets need to ensure, so that the rewards that flow are seen to be fair. But when risk-taking crosses the line between the responsible entrepreneurship, which we want to celebrate, and irresponsible risk-taking, then we have to take action to see that markets work in the public interest to reflect our shared values.
And fourthly, national systems of supervision are simply inadequate to cope with the huge cross-continental flows of capital in this new, ever more interdependent world. I know that the largest financial institutions will welcome the proposed colleges of cross-border supervisors that should be introduced immediately. The Financial Stability Forum and a reformed International Monetary Fund should play their part not just in crisis resolution but also in crisis prevention.
And action for financial stability should be accompanied by the wider international economic co-operation such as that which began on Wednesday with co-ordinated action on interest rates.
I have said all along that we will do whatever it takes to secure the stability of the financial system. And we have not flinched from taking the bold and far-reaching decisions needed to support British families and businesses through these extraordinary times.
We must now act for the long term with co-ordinated national actions.
The resolve and purposefulness of governments and people across the world is being put to the test. But across the old frontiers we must now redouble our efforts internationally. For it is only through the boldest of co-ordinated actions across the globe that we will adequately support families and businesses in this global age.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4916344.ece
October 10, 2008
As Credit Crisis Spreads, Global Approach Weighed
By MARK LANDLER and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON The United States and Britain appear to be converging on a similar blueprint for stemming the financial chaos sweeping the world, one day before a crucial meeting of leaders begins in Washington that the White House hopes will result in a more coordinated response.
The British and American plans, though far from identical, have two common elements according to officials: injection of government money into banks in return for ownership stakes and guarantees of repayment for various types of loans.
Both remedies will be center stage on Saturday, when President Bush meets with finance ministers from the worlds richest countries at an unusual White House meeting to swap ideas.
Mr. Bushs invitation to finance ministers from Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Japan came on a day of phone calls and letters between European leaders and with Washington.
Adding to the urgency, the Japanese stock market plunged more than 10 percent Friday morning, after having dropped 9 percent on Wednesday.
Government officials struggled to fashion a coordinated response to the ailing global banking system before going to Washington for annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
As this thing has spread, the opportunities for cooperation have risen, David H. McCormick, the under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said. We need to promote and highlight these common areas.
With credit markets still frozen and stock markets around the world in a deep swoon, there is a growing consensus that the crisis is now so fast-moving and harmful to the global economy that it demands an unprecedented degree of worldwide coordination.
The Treasurys openness to direct infusions of cash is a remarkable change in tone from a few weeks ago, when the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, discouraged such actions in testimony before Congress. Putting capital in institutions is about failure, Mr. Paulson declared on Sept. 23. This is about success.
Treasury officials, however, said the emphasis changed in the last week, largely because stock markets kept spiraling down.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made the case, in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for another option gaining favor among economists guaranteeing short- and medium-term loans between banks. By persuading banks to resume lending to each other, the plan aims to shake loose the paralyzed credit market. This is an area where a concerted international approach could have a very powerful effect, Mr. Brown said Thursday in the two-page letter.
Administration officials are discussing aspects of the British proposal but said different economies have different rules that complicate a single joint action.
One senior administration official argued that expecting an agreement on proposals like Mr. Browns would be irrationally raising expectations.
Still, recapitalizing the banks and jump-starting their lending are at the top of the list of remedies that many economists are now suggesting. By acting in concert, countries can maximize the punch of their actions, these experts said, while avoiding distortions that occur when countries go different ways.
At a minimum, you want to curtail damage, said Carmen M. Reinhart, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. You dont want the beggar-thy-neighbor policies that characterized the Great Depression.
At a maximum, she continued, you can get general principles the need for a swift recapitalization of the banks, the need for liquidity so we dont get an even bigger credit crunch.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned countries against taking actions that could destabilize the financial systems of their neighbors. Unilateral acts, he said, have to be avoided, if not condemned.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn announced that the fund had activated an emergency financing mechanism, which would allow it to lend money more quickly to countries facing financial problems, as a result of the crisis.
The White House confirmed that the Treasury Department was considering taking ownership positions in banks as part of its $700 billion rescue package. But officials said the idea was less developed than the plan to buy distressed assets from banks through reverse auctions.
The goal, Treasury officials said, is a plan that would be broadly available to all banks, rather than through specific rescue packages negotiated on a case-by-case basis. That makes it likely that the government could afford to take only a small stake in any single institution.
The direct injections of cash would be for comparatively healthy banks. If a bank is failing and needs to be rescued or shut down, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation would handle it through its own procedures.
The Treasury proposal to recapitalize banks stems from the realization that as the stock market keeps tumbling, and as mortgage-related securities on banks balance sheets also plummet, it has become harder for banks to raise fresh capital from investors.
The government concluded it would be able to deliver capital faster and with greater assurance if it did so directly.
The switch may also reflect growing doubts about the Treasurys plan to purchase mortgage-related assets. Through reverse auctions, aspiring sellers of the hard-to-sell securities would compete to offer the securities to the government. The auctions are supposed to jump-start the market for these securities and allow investors to value them on balance sheets. Once banks balance sheets were cleansed of toxic assets, the theory went, they would be able to tap fresh capital.
But the concept is untested, experts said, and the deteriorating market conditions had further dimmed its prospects.
I dont think the plan is getting off the ground, said Martin N. Baily, an economist at the Brookings Institution. Im not sure youll get price discovery, but even if you did, how many Warren Buffetts or Middle Eastern sheiks are out there who want to invest in banks?
Another advantage of the recapitalization plan is more subtle: the Treasury would get more bang for the buck. Because banks have debt-to-equity ratios of 10 to one or higher, a dollar spent buying an equity stake would support 10 times as many assets as a dollar spent buying up individual securities.
Administration officials said the government could acquire stakes in the form of common stock, preferred shares paying a specific dividend or some other form of equity. But officials said the governments offer of additional capital should be made in a uniform way to all banks.
It is far from clear that other countries will accept the need for wholesale recapitalization of the banks. Even if they did, neither the British nor the American plan would necessarily be a template.
You have lots of people skinning the cat in lots of different ways, Mr. McCormick, the Treasurys point person in organizing the meetings of finance ministers, said in an interview. Its clear that one size does not fit all.
For their part, American officials questioned how the British government and the banks would value the capital injected into the banks, for purposes of taking equity stakes. They also said the proposal was vague about how the government would treat executive compensation.
In the rescue law passed a week ago, Congress stipulated that the Treasury must strictly limit the pay of executives in banks to which it adds capital including provisions that ban golden parachutes and that direct the government to recover bonuses based on stated earnings that prove inaccurate.
Britains plan also hinged on the willingness of several of the largest banks Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC Holdings, among them to sell preferred shares to the government. It is not clear, administration officials said, that the largest American banks would agree to this, particularly given the restrictions on executive pay.
Another concern banks are likely to have is that any government ownership stake would dilute the holdings of existing shareholders.
For Europeans, common ground has been elusive. Mr. Sarkozy tried without success to unite leaders behind a rescue effort. Germany, in particular, has resisted a Europe-wide effort, in part because it believes it would end up bailing out its neighbors.
Only coordinated action by central banks and governments is able to stop the systemic risk and ensure the financing of economies, Mr. Sarkozy said. He suggested a special meeting of the leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations before year-end.
On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, took up that call, saying Mr. Bush should convene an emergency meeting of the Group of 8, which also includes Russia. The White House said earlier that Mr. Bush was open to such a meeting.
The White House announced that Mr. Bush would appear in the Rose Garden Friday morning to make a statement on the economy. A senior administration official said that his remarks would again seek to calm nerves.
Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/business/worldbusiness/10global.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
Le krach boursier mondial met le G7 sous pression
LE MONDE | 10.10.08 | 11h01 Mis à jour le 10.10.08 | 11h01
La débâcle des marchés financiers s’aggrave de jour en jour. Vendredi 10 octobre les Bourses européennes ont à nouveau ouvert sur des reculs très sévères. A l’ouverture Paris s’effondrait de 9,68 %, Londres de 6,43 %, et Francfort de plus de 10 %. En Asie, l’indice Nikkei, a aussi plongé de 9,62 %, sa pire chute depuis vingt et unans. En séance l’indice a reculé jusqu’à 11 %. La Bourse de Sydney a, elle, clôturé en baisse de 8,34 % et Séoul de 4,13 %. La veille, le marché américain avait reculé de 7,33 %, enregistrant sa septième baisse consécutive.
Désormais plus rien ne semble retenir la chute des indices, nulle part dans le monde. Pour les investisseurs la crise est mondiale et ses effets seront dévastateurs à la fois sur les systèmes financiers mais aussi sur le reste de l’économie. La plupart mise sur une récession mondiale en 2009 et un effondrement des profits des entreprises.
Au Japon les opérateurs considéraient jusqu’ici que le système bancaire serait relativement épargné. Après la violente crise de la fin des années 1980, les banques s’étaient restructurées, le système s’était assaini et les établissements nippons ont peu investi dans les produits risqués. Mais vendredi, les opérateurs ont appris que la compagnie japonaise Yamato Life Insurance s’est déclarée en cessation de paiement.
Il s’agit du premier assureur nippon à se déclarer en faillite depuis le début de la crise financière. Les investisseurs se sont aussi inquiétés pour la banque Mitsubishi Financial qui doit renflouer l’américaine Morgan Stanley à hauteur de 9 milliards de dollars. “Même si le système bancaire est plus sain, aucun établissement qui agit sur un marché global se sera épargné”, constate Benoit Peloille, de Natixis.
Comment arrêter la débâcle ? Jusqu’ici aucune action entreprise ou envisagée par les autorités monétaires ou politiques n’a été jugée efficace. Pas même la baisse des taux d’intérêt coordonnée d’une ampleur inédite des grandes banques centrales, dont la Réserve fédérale américaine et la Banque centrale européenne, décidée dans l’urgence mercredi. Ni la mise en place du “Plan Paulson” aux Etats-Unis de 700 milliards de dollars. Ni le plan britannique de 50 milliards de livres destiné à sauver les banques. Les opérateurs sont d’autant plus inquiets que les besoins de financement des Etats, pour sauver les systèmes bancaires, s’annoncent colossaux, ce qui pourrait entraîner une hausse durable des taux d’intérêt à long terme.
Désormais seule une action massive de la part des sept pays industrialisés (G7) qui devaient se réunir vendredi à Washington semble à même de restaurer la confiance. Ils devaient “discuter des démarches entreprises par chacun pour faire face à cette crise et des moyens de renforcer nos efforts collectifs”, a assuré le secrétaire américain au Trésor Henry Paulson. Le président George Bush devait faire une déclarationassurant que “les responsables économiques agissent énergiquement pour stabiliser notre système financier”.
INITIATIVE “RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE”
“La situation est très grave mais dans le même temps nous pouvons résoudre les problèmes si nous agissons vite, énergiquement et de façon concertée”, a déclaré jeudi le directeur général du Fonds monétaire international (FMI). Le FMI a indiqué par ailleurs avoir réactivé le système de financement d’urgence employé lors de la crise asiatique de la fin des années 1990.
La presse japonaise mentionnait, vendredi, l’initiative du ministre des Finances, Shoichi Nakagawa, qui pourrait proposer au G7 la création d’un fonds d’urgence d’environ 200 milliards de dollars pour prêter de l’argent aux petits pays affectés par la crise financière mondiale. Le Japon, qui préside cette année le G8 (G7 plus Russie), est également prêt à convoquer un sommet extraordinaire de ce club de grandes puissances. “Si aucune conclusion n’émerge, en tant que président, je convoquerai” un sommet, a prévenu le premier ministre japonais Taro Aso.
Dans une tribune publiée dans le quotidien britannique The Times, vendredi, le premier ministre britannique Gordon Brown a appelé les gouvernements du monde entier à adopter une initiative “révolutionnaire” pour secourir le système bancaire, calquée sur le plan britannique. “Les vieilles solutions d’hier ne nous seront pas utiles pour les défis d’aujourd’hui et de demain. Donc, nous devons abandonner les dogmes périmés et adopter de nouvelles solutions.”
Selon un sondage Ifop pour Le Monde, 73 % des Français considèrent que le sauvetage des banques relève de la responsabilité nationale avec des coopérations entre Etats au cas par cas. Et 10 % disent avoir songé ces derniers jours retirer de leur banque tout ou partie de leurs économies.
Claire Gatinois
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