Indeed, this week the state of Michigan suspended a major student-loan program because of the sudden collapse of another $300 billion market you’ve never heard of, the market for auction-rate securities.<\/em>\u00bb)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tKrugman s’interroge: comment se fait-il qu’une telle contagion ait pu s’installer et qu’elle se poursuive avec tant de puissance? \u00abTroubles that began a little over a year ago in an obscure corner of the financial system – BBB-minus subprime-mortgage-backed securities have spread to corporate bonds, auto loans, credit cards and now, the latest casualty, student loans.<\/em>\u00bb Pourquoi, enfin, cette contagion, cet embrasement de crises successives qui semblent se poursuivre comme un chateau de cartes s’effondre? \u00abBecause, ultimately, it’s a crisis of faith.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tApr\u00e8s une explication technique, effectivement Krugman revient \u00e0 son hypoth\u00e8se de d\u00e9part, qu’il d\u00e9veloppe dans sa conclusion.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abMore important, however, is the way the ever-widening financial crisis has shaken investors’ faith in the whole system. People no longer trust assurances that fancy financial instruments will function the way they’re supposed to after all, they know what happened to people who thought their subprime-backed securities were safe, AAA-rated investments. Why, then, should they believe that auction-rate securities are as good as cash?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAnd loss of trust can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that new investors won’t buy auction-rate securities because they no longer believe that they’re as good as cash, those securities become a worse investment.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbNeedless to say, all of this is bad for the economy. I like to think of what’s happening as a sort of minor-key reprise of the banking crisis that swept America in 1930 and 1931. Frustrated investors who can’t get their money out of auction-rate securities aren’t as photogenic as angry mobs milling outside closed banks, but the principle is the same. And so are the effects: would-be borrowers can’t get credit, and the economy suffers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbOne simple measure of the seriousness of the credit problem is this: although the Federal Reserve has sharply cut the interest rate it controls over the past few weeks, the borrowing costs facing many companies and households have actually gone up.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAnd the financial contagion is still spreading. What market is next?<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCette appr\u00e9ciation de Paul Krugman met en \u00e9vidence la gravit\u00e9 souvent cach\u00e9e de la crise, qui n’appara\u00eet au grand public que dans ses manifestations les plus spectaculaires alors qu’elle se poursuit \u00e0 son propre rythme constant de d\u00e9gradation. Elle renvoie effectivement au facteur psychologique bien plus qu’aux explications techniques financi\u00e8res. Krugman identifie ainsi parfaitement ce qui nous semble l’explication la plus satisfaisante du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne qui d\u00e9vaste le syst\u00e8me financier. La crise de la foi dans le syst\u00e8me, qui est d’essence psychologique, rappelle en effet le d\u00e9roulement de la Grande D\u00e9pression aux USA. L’indiff\u00e9rence et l’inaction par rapport \u00e0 ce ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne des autorit\u00e9s politiques, occup\u00e9es \u00e0 de vastes probl\u00e8mes comme la m\u00e9moire \u00e0 l’\u00e9cole et l’\u00e9lection municipale de Neuilly sur Seine, constituent \u00e0 leur tour un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne psychologique qui vaut bien celui que signale Krugman. Il en est absolument compl\u00e9mentaire et ach\u00e8ve de caract\u00e9riser un \u00e9v\u00e9nement o\u00f9 la crise de la foi constat\u00e9e d’un c\u00f4t\u00e9 semble accompagn\u00e9e d’un refus de mesurer les cons\u00e9quences du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne g\u00e9n\u00e9ral et de s’y pr\u00e9parer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 18 f\u00e9vrier 2008 \u00e0 05H10<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La crise g\u00e9n\u00e9rale du syst\u00e8me financier, avec les suites \u00e9conomiques qui vont avec, continue dans une indiff\u00e9rence qu’on peut qualifier elle aussi de g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. Dans l’International Herald Tribune du 15 f\u00e9vrier, Paul Krugman nous signale les derniers prolongements de la crise… (\u00abIndeed, this week the state of Michigan suspended a major student-loan program because of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3228,2670,7224,898,3099],"class_list":["post-69686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-crise","tag-financiere","tag-foi","tag-krugman","tag-psychologie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}