15 septembre 2008 — Reculant devant l’analogie épouvantable du “Lundi noir” (“Black Monday”), trouvant l’expression de “lundi gris-foncé”, pour faire les malins, un peu trop contrainte, – celle du “lundi vert de gris” nous est venue finalement sous la plume. Elle sonne mieux, c’est évident; elle indique à la fois, par analogie ou signification, quelque chose d’un peu vermoulu et quelque chose de fort toxique, ce qui est le cas du vert de gris dans ses appréciations les plus pratiques, mais quelque chose qui n’est pas sans beauté dans son apparence, ce qui est le cas du vert de gris pour la peinture. N’est-ce pas, plantée, hors des exclamations épouvantées, la scène de ce lundi 15 qui voit le système bancaire le plus puissant du monde épouvantablement ébranlée, jusqu’à la mort prochaine pour nombre d’entre ses acteurs, jusqu’à l’effondrement comme font les vieilles planches vermoulues pourtant colorées de riches parures?
“Wall Street se bat pour sa survie”, titrait très tôt ce matin le Financial Times sur son site. Le titre principal a changé plusieurs fois dans la journée. Celui que nous mentionnons a été vite changé pour celui, moins dramatique et moins définitif, de “Wall Street in turmoil”. Sans doute avait-on jugé le titre de la nuit un peu trop définitif, un peu trop expéditif, un peu trop “Doomsday” (dito, Jugement Dernier). Bref, il ne faut pas trop décourager le monde, il ne faut pas détruire ce qu’il reste de confiance.
… En effet, le grand mot est dit : “confiance”. C’est le thème du commentaire de Stephen King, directeur de la gestion économique à HSBC, ce matin dans The Independent.
«This issue of trust is a problem across a wide range of markets. Information failures can destroy markets remarkably quickly. Financial markets, in particular, rely on trust. Indeed, those familiar with the banking system know that it depends entirely on trust: no bank could repay all its depositors in one day because the money simply doesn't exist (which is one reason why, when the run started, Northern Rock was such a disaster). For the most part, trust is maintained but, once in a while, things go horribly wrong, perhaps because those who were trusted abused their positions. And, as trust disappears, once-respected brands become vulnerable. Madonna, be warned.
»Each time there's a rescue, in some cases via the use of public funds, markets rally in the hope that the bad news has been dealt with. After Northern Rock, markets picked up in the hope that a line could be drawn under the UK's problems. A similar bounce took place following the absorption of Bear Stearns into JP Morgan Chase earlier in the year. Then there was the injection of funds from abroad. Sovereign wealth funds were treated like the Seventh Cavalry, supplying much-needed capital to shore up the western banking system. Some of those funds, though, may now be regretting their earlier largesse, given the subsequent further losses incurred by shareholders as many banks' share prices have continued their precipitous decline.
»The breakdown of trust within the banking system relates to five factors. First, the assets which banks have lent against – notably housing – have been falling in value. Second, many banks have not only lent directly to households but have also purchased so-called asset-backed securities – effectively second-hand loans – which they can no longer offload to others.
»Third, some banks have bet that these securities, having fallen so far in value, must bounce, forgetting that a 90 per cent drop can still be followed by a further 100 per cent decline from the new, lower, value. Fourth, banks no longer trust each other, so the loans made within the interbank market have dried up, and interbank interest rates remain high relative to policy rates.
»Fifth, governments, fearing the political fall-out, are reluctant to use taxpayers' money to bail out institutions which have been abusing trust for too long already. That reluctance, in turn, has made it more difficult to arrange takeovers. After all, who knows what will be discovered upon the opening of a financial Pandora's Box?
»The result is a financial system which looks increasingly unstable. Lehmans is the casualty du jour: on Friday, its share price was down 93.6 per cent compared with a year ago. Merrill Lynch is down 71.3 per cent, Citibank down 60.7 per cent and Morgan Stanley down 63.5 per cent. Some British bank shares have not done much better, with HBOS and RBS also having experienced dramatic declines over the last 12 months.
»As trust has ebbed away, so the banking system as a whole has begun to look remarkably fragile. No one bank knows for sure what losses other banks are harbouring. This affects all of us. Over the past 12 months, banks have been squirrelling away cash and, where possible, quietly nursing their losses. No longer do they wish to lend with greedy abandon. Credit availability has dried up, house prices have fallen and, as fears of recession have risen, so too have stock markets.
»Things are likely to get quite a bit worse. As recession bites, so banks will become even more cautious. Further lending cutbacks, though, will magnify the economic downswing and reduce the impact of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and others. This is, potentially, a market failure on the grandest of scales. The effective nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a big, if largely expected, event, but we're not yet out of the woods. Ask policymakers in Sweden – who ended up nationalising almost their entire banking system in the early 1990s – or in Japan – where, year after year, taxpayers' money was used to prop up a banking system that was near enough bust.»
Effectivement, en marge de ces événements en cascade, on ne sait plus comment susciter, ou ressusciter la confiance, jusqu’à en devenir sot (sotte). C’est le cas de la ministre française Lagarde, obligée de constater l’extrême difficulté du système qu’elle chérie, déclarant pourtant (en marge d’une émission à Europe 1 ce matin, sur I-TV): «C’est un choc, bien entendu, un tel fleuron de la finance… Mais c’est aussi un signe d’équilibre» “Equilibre”, quoi donc? La situation (le refus de l’administration US de renflouer Lehman) montre, nous explique la ministre, que les pouvoirs publics ne veulent plus assumer les pertes pour ceux qui les subissent. Quand un homme en train de se noyer et de se débattre désespérément, soudain prend le temps de resserrer dignement le nœud de sa cravate, c’est “un signe d’équilibre” d’une certaine façon, – cela doit vous donner confiance dans son destin de noyé bien cravaté.
“Wall Street se bat pour sa survie”, titrait très tôt ce matin le Financial Times sur son site. Le titre principal a changé plusieurs fois dans la journée. Celui que nous mentionnons a été vite changé pour celui, moins dramatique et moins définitif, de “Wall Street in turmoil”. Sans doute avait-on jugé le titre de la nuit un peu trop définitif, un peu trop expéditif, un peu trop “Doomsday” (dito, Jugement Dernier). Bref, il ne faut pas trop décourager le monde, il ne faut pas détruire ce qu’il reste de confiance.
… En effet, le grand mot est dit : “confiance”. C’est le thème du commentaire de Stephen King, directeur de la gestion économique à HSBC, ce matin dans The Independent.
«This issue of trust is a problem across a wide range of markets. Information failures can destroy markets remarkably quickly. Financial markets, in particular, rely on trust. Indeed, those familiar with the banking system know that it depends entirely on trust: no bank could repay all its depositors in one day because the money simply doesn't exist (which is one reason why, when the run started, Northern Rock was such a disaster). For the most part, trust is maintained but, once in a while, things go horribly wrong, perhaps because those who were trusted abused their positions. And, as trust disappears, once-respected brands become vulnerable. Madonna, be warned.
»Each time there's a rescue, in some cases via the use of public funds, markets rally in the hope that the bad news has been dealt with. After Northern Rock, markets picked up in the hope that a line could be drawn under the UK's problems. A similar bounce took place following the absorption of Bear Stearns into JP Morgan Chase earlier in the year. Then there was the injection of funds from abroad. Sovereign wealth funds were treated like the Seventh Cavalry, supplying much-needed capital to shore up the western banking system. Some of those funds, though, may now be regretting their earlier largesse, given the subsequent further losses incurred by shareholders as many banks' share prices have continued their precipitous decline.
»The breakdown of trust within the banking system relates to five factors. First, the assets which banks have lent against – notably housing – have been falling in value. Second, many banks have not only lent directly to households but have also purchased so-called asset-backed securities – effectively second-hand loans – which they can no longer offload to others.
»Third, some banks have bet that these securities, having fallen so far in value, must bounce, forgetting that a 90 per cent drop can still be followed by a further 100 per cent decline from the new, lower, value. Fourth, banks no longer trust each other, so the loans made within the interbank market have dried up, and interbank interest rates remain high relative to policy rates.
»Fifth, governments, fearing the political fall-out, are reluctant to use taxpayers' money to bail out institutions which have been abusing trust for too long already. That reluctance, in turn, has made it more difficult to arrange takeovers. After all, who knows what will be discovered upon the opening of a financial Pandora's Box?
»The result is a financial system which looks increasingly unstable. Lehmans is the casualty du jour: on Friday, its share price was down 93.6 per cent compared with a year ago. Merrill Lynch is down 71.3 per cent, Citibank down 60.7 per cent and Morgan Stanley down 63.5 per cent. Some British bank shares have not done much better, with HBOS and RBS also having experienced dramatic declines over the last 12 months.
»As trust has ebbed away, so the banking system as a whole has begun to look remarkably fragile. No one bank knows for sure what losses other banks are harbouring. This affects all of us. Over the past 12 months, banks have been squirrelling away cash and, where possible, quietly nursing their losses. No longer do they wish to lend with greedy abandon. Credit availability has dried up, house prices have fallen and, as fears of recession have risen, so too have stock markets.
»Things are likely to get quite a bit worse. As recession bites, so banks will become even more cautious. Further lending cutbacks, though, will magnify the economic downswing and reduce the impact of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and others. This is, potentially, a market failure on the grandest of scales. The effective nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a big, if largely expected, event, but we're not yet out of the woods. Ask policymakers in Sweden – who ended up nationalising almost their entire banking system in the early 1990s – or in Japan – where, year after year, taxpayers' money was used to prop up a banking system that was near enough bust.»
Effectivement, en marge de ces événements en cascade, on ne sait plus comment susciter, ou ressusciter la confiance, jusqu’à en devenir sot (sotte). C’est le cas de la ministre française Lagarde, obligée de constater l’extrême difficulté du système qu’elle chérie, déclarant pourtant (en marge d’une émission à Europe 1 ce matin, sur I-TV): «C’est un choc, bien entendu, un tel fleuron de la finance… Mais c’est aussi un signe d’équilibre» “Equilibre”, quoi donc? La situation (le refus de l’administration US de renflouer Lehman) montre, nous explique la ministre, que les pouvoirs publics ne veulent plus assumer les pertes pour ceux qui les subissent. Quand un homme en train de se noyer et de se débattre désespérément, soudain prend le temps de resserrer dignement le nœud de sa cravate, c’est “un signe d’équilibre” d’une certaine façon, – cela doit vous donner confiance dans son destin de noyé bien cravaté.
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