Wall Street heureux, la Fed est là, – et tant pis pour Einstein

Curieux, dira-t-on d’abord. Les mauvaises nouvelles financières et économiques s’accumulent dans une liste sans fin. Wall Street est en plein euphorie, enregistrant de belles envolées (4,25% pour le Dow Jones la semaine dernière, 4,4% pour le Nasdaq Composite Index et ainsi de suite). Contradiction? Les mauvaises nouvelles devraient effrayer les investisseurs…

Pas du tout, puisque nous sommes entrés dans l’ère de l’interventionnisme. Finis le marché libre, le libéralisme à tout crin, la “main invisible” du marché, l’anathème contre les interférences des autorités instituées. La Fed est là. C’est ce que WSWS.org conclut aujourd’hui après avoir effectivement détaillé les nouvelles catastrophiques et l’exubérance de Wall Street…

«The newfound bullish optimism among major Wall Street players—as transient as it may prove to be—can be traced in large part to the decision by the Fed to rescue Bear Stearns last month and open the Fed discount window for cheap loans to the big investment banks. This move, without precedent since the Great Depression, was taken to avert an imminent collapse of the US and global banking system, and it signaled that the US government would do whatever was necessary—ultimately at taxpayer expense—to bail out Wall Street.

»It is this implicit guarantee from the government that has shifted the mood among big market players and institutions from fear and panic to a measure of confidence, bringing with it a new eruption of risk-taking and greed.

»As Floyd Norris, the economic commentator for the New York Times, wrote on Friday, “... investors are starting to assume that the government stands behind Wall Street. The share prices of investment banks began to recover just after the Fed made it clear the investment banks could borrow from it.

»“It appears that the real way we are going to get out of this crisis is to have the government guarantee lots of things. ‘The universal cry of the bust is, “Give me a government guarantee,” said Alex J. Pollack, a former president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute... As private balance sheets are cut back to reduce leverage, he forecast, the government’s balance sheet will grow rapidly.”

»The political and social implications of this government rescue operation are far-reaching. In essence, it means that the consequences of the economic crisis precipitated by the reckless pursuit of super-profits on the basis of vastly inflated home values, leveraged buyouts and various forms of speculation and fraud will be borne entirely by the working class, while the big players, CEOs, accounting firms and ratings agencies will emerge relatively unscathed.

»Meanwhile, the banks and finance houses will carry out a ruthless process of cost-cutting and job-slashing, which will be mirrored in every other sector of the economy. The US financial industry has already shed 38,000 jobs since last summer, not counting the most recent layoff announcements, and some analysts predict the final toll will reach 200,000.

»Big investors are clamoring for just such measures, and are prepared to reward those companies that carry them out. Byron MacLeod, an analyst with Gradient Analytics, said of Citigroup’s quarterly report:

»“Investors want to see aggressive action at this point. You want to make sure the company really cleans house. The provisions are a part of that. The layoffs are a part of that. They appear to be taking aggressive action, taking the company in line with an ideal structure going forward.”

»There is no opposition from any section of the political establishment or either party to this blank check for Wall Street. The Fed’s massive intervention to shore up the banks has received the endorsement of the Democratic Congress. No congressional investigations of any substance have been launched to uncover the unprecedented scale of fraud and swindling that underlay the banking debacle. No one is being called to account.»

La progression des consciences et des politiques devant la crise est foudroyante. Parvenir à relancer la machine spéculative du “marché libre” qui a conduit à la crise, grâce à une politique interventionniste que dénonce en principe avec la dernière énergie ce “marché libre” et qu’il accepte avec euphorie dans ce cas, conduisant à reconduire le même cycle catastrophique, tout cela a un côté à la fois épique dans le grotesque, ou bien obscène dans le tragique, qui permet de ne pas sombrer dans la neurasthénie. On ne sait si ce système va s’effondrer, ou plutôt quand il s’effondrera, mais on peut être assuré qu’il faudra examiner avec sérieux le choix difficile entre quelques hoquets d’angoisse et un éclat de rire difficile à maîtriser. Ou bien, rien ne se passera et tout recommencera comme avant, jusqu'à la prochaine dernière.

Subsidiairement, il restera à trancher la redoutable question de savoir si Einstein doit rester fameux pour E=MC2 ou bien pour sa remarque selon laquelle «[d]eux choses sont infinies : l’univers et la bêtise humaine ; en ce qui concerne l’univers, je n’en ai pas la certitude absolue.». Mais il est de plus en plus question que Wall Street adopte cette devise.

Cela dit, au Diable Einstein et revenons aux choses sérieuses. Gerard Baker, du Times, nous explique aujourd’hui que Wall Street va beaucoup, beaucoup mieux, simplement parce que le pire est passé, que la crise est finie, que tout est sur le point d’aller mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.

«Wall Street's reporting season is in full swing and this too has contributed to a sense that perhaps the worst is past. Financial companies' earnings remain grim, of course, but other sectors seem to be holding up and equities overall have had a surprisingly buoyant April.»

Mis en ligne le 22 avril 2008 à 18H00