Un moment de vérité

Selon l’ancien secrétaire au trésor de l’administration Clinton Lawrence Summers, nous nous trouvons à un moment décisif de la crise financière. Summers fait de cette idée le thème de sa chronique du jour du Financial Times. Il suggère les actions qui doivent être décidées. On citera ici l’introduction et la conclusion du texte, qui fixent, pour Sumers, la gravité du moment.

«It is quite possible that we are now at the most dangerous moment since the American financial crisis began last August. Staggering increases in the prices of oil and other commodities have brought American consumer confidence to new lows and raised serious concerns about inflation, thereby limiting the capacity of monetary policy to respond to a financial sector which – judging by equity values – is at its weakest point since the crisis began. With housing values still falling and growing evidence that problems are spreading to the construction and consumer credit sectors, there is a possibility that a faltering economy damages the financial system, which weakens the economy further.

(...)

»Unfortunately we are in an economic environment where we have more to fear than fear itself. But this is no excuse for fatalism. The policy choices made in the next few months will matter to the lives of millions of Americans, to America’s economic strength and to the global economy.»

Les mesures que propose Summers sont largement des mesures de régulation et d’intervention économique, notamment de la part du Congrès. Cela suppose une volonté politique qui, en temps normal, n’existe plus guère, et qui, en temps de campagne électorale, n’est plus qu’un lointain souvenir. On verra.

Il y a une bonne illustration des méthodes d'intervention et des capacités d'intervention des autorités US dans ces temps de crise, avec un texte du site WSWS.org, – qui cite l’article de Summers. WSWS.org donne (aujourd’hui) une intéressante vision intérieure de ce que fut l’action de la Federal Reserve lors de la crise spécifique de la Bear Stearns, les 13-15 mars, qui fut certainement l’une des moment cathartiques de la crise générale, un moment où l’on put craindre craindre que le système financier dans son ensemble allait s’effondrer. Ce qui apparaît est une situation faite à la fois de panique, d’urgence et d’improvisation, montrant que la Federal Reserve était prise à la gorge et, d'une façon plus générale, prise par surprise. Ecartant toutes les normes et tous les dogmes de la doctrine économique qu’elle est censée défendre, la Fed intervint comme si elle s'apercevait brusquement que le monde était au bord du gouffre. Il l'était sans doute. Lawrence Summers, lui, nous avertit que nous sommes toujours au bord du gouffre.

«The Fed became involved on March 13 when Bear Stearns notified it and other government agencies that its liquidity position had deteriorated and that it would have to file for bankruptcy the next day unless alternative sources of funds were found. Bear Stearns had been experiencing increasing difficulty since the previous June when two major hedge funds it owned collapsed, losing about $1.6 billion of investors’ funds.

»The Fed’s board of governors met at 9.15 the following morning to authorise a bailout operation. As the minutes make clear, there was a real fear that the entire financial system was on the point of collapse.

»“Board members agreed that, given the fragile condition of the financial markets at the time, the prominent position of Bear Stearns in those markets, and the expected contagion that would result from the immediate failure of Bear Stearns, the best alternative available was to provide temporary emergency financing to Bear Stearns through an arrangement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. also in New York. Such a loan would facilitate efforts to effect a resolution of the Bear Stearns situation that would be consistent with preserving financial stability,” the minutes read.

»Not only did the board authorise credit to Bear Stearns via JPMorgan Chase, it also decided to make funds available more broadly.

»The minutes note that “given the unusual and exigent circumstances”, the board authorised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in consultation with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, to provide financing “to other primary securities dealers, when the Reserve Bank finds that adequate credit accommodations are not available to the borrower from other banking institutions.”

»In other words, the board feared the collapse of Bear Stearns would induce a general crisis of confidence across financial markets leading to the drying up of credit.

»Such was the haste with which the meeting had been called that the board could not summon the requisite five governors, and so invoked emergency powers enabling it to make decisions with only four present.

»Fed chairman Bernanke elaborated on the potential for a US and global financial collapse in his later testimony to the US Congress on the crisis. Because Bear Stearns was extensively involved in a “range of critical markets”, he said, its sudden failure “likely would have led to a chaotic unwinding of positions in those markets and could have shaken confidence. The company’s failure could also have cast doubt on the financial positions of some of Bear Stearns’ thousands of counterparties and perhaps of companies with similar businesses.

»“Given the exceptional pressures on the global economy and the financial system, the damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain. Moreover, the adverse impact of a default would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability.”»

Mis en ligne le 30 juin 2008 à 07H51