Consigne sémantique : “the Lehman Moment”

Consigne sémantique : “the Lehman Moment”

L’expression est devenue le mot de passe des connaisseurs, des commentateurs et de ceux qui savent, – “the Lehman Moment”, en référence à l’écroulement de la banque Lehman Brothers du 15 septembre 2008, qui ouvrit officiellement la grande crise de l’automne 2008. Hier, on disait essentiellement “the Lehman Moment” pour la Grèce ; aujourd’hui, c’est pour l’Europe, comme dans le Daily Telegraph de ce 17 juin 2011.

La formule a l’avantage du raccourci, du mouvement (d’effondrement), du catastrophique, et elle semble tout dire en trois mots. Pour autant, on se méfiera de cette sorte d’analogie héritée du langage du système de la communication, et des relations publiques (comment faire passer un “message” en style télégraphique, frappant et décisif). Nous ne voulons certainement pas dire que le déroulement des événements n’est pas catastrophique, comme il l’est partout puisque nous sommes dans la phase d’accélération décisive de l’effondrement du Système dans son entier. (Un effondrement grec, ou européen, ne fait pas partie d’un jeu de compensation relative, la catastrophe de l’un profitant à l’autre, mais c’est une partie d’un tout, ce tout étant l’effondrement du Système.) L’on veut dire simplement que l’effondrement a de nombreuses voies à sa disposition et qu’il n’est nullement assuré qu’il ne fasse simplement que reproduire un schéma déjà utilisé. Le phénomène de l’effondrement du Système est un phénomène fondamentalement imaginatif, qui répond à des forces qui nous dépassent et prennent un certain plaisir à nous prendre à contrepied, – en même temps que répondre à l’efficacité, la surprise étant la mère de la victoire.

En attendant, voici ce qu’on nous dit du “Lehman Moment”.

«Traders feared that the political chaos and riots across Greece would cause a default, which in turn would trigger a tsunami through the financial system – as the collapse of Lehman Brothers did in 2008.

»Neil Mackinnon, an economist at VTB Capital in London and a former Treasury official, said: “The probability of a eurozone Lehman moment is increasing. The markets have moved from simply pricing in a high probability of a Greek debt default to looking at a scenario of it becoming disorderly and of contagion spreading to other economies like Portugal, like Ireland, and maybe Spain, Italy and Belgium.”

»London's FTSE 100 closed down 0.76pc at 5698.81, following a 1pc drop on Wednesday. Major exchanges in Germany and France plunged as well. Asian stock markets had already fallen overnight on Wednesday and US markets followed in early trading yesterday. The euro hit an all-time low against the Swiss franc and fell 0.1pc against the dollar to $1.4161. The cost of insuring Greek debt against default also hit a fresh record. Five-year credit default swaps on Greek government debt rose by 124 basis points to 18.5pc. Greek debt is the most expensive in the world to insure, with the next closest being Venezuelan debt. […]

»…Olli Rehn, the European Union's economic commissioner, said the international authorities had decided to get around their differences by providing the Greek rescue package in “two stages”.

»He said he was “confident” European leaders and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would on Sunday consent to release the fifth tranche of the €110bn bail-out agreed last year. The IMF had said it would not release the funds unless Greece passed tough economic tests. It has also demanded European leaders agree a fresh bail-out of as much as €120bn and settled the treatment of bondholders. Mr Rehn said he hoped the “contents and conditions of a successor programme for Greece and the nature of private sector involvement in this” would be discussed on Sunday and Monday. […]

»Fears about contagion remain acute, with Nout Wellink, a governing council director of the European Central Bank, warning that eurozone members may have to double the size of their European Financial Stability Fund to €1.5 trillion to cover potential risks from Ireland, Portugal and elsewhere.

»Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said Greece may still default if the disarrayed government rejects the terms of a new bail-out. While a default alone would be manageable, he said, “Europe would likely switch to contagion control to prevent the turmoil from spreading to Spain and Italy”.»

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