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« La liberté dans une démocratie n'est pas assurée si le peuple tolère que la puissance privée grandisse au point qu'elle devienne plus forte que l'état démocratique lui-même. Ce qui, fondamentalement est le fascisme, » avertissait le président Roosevelt en avril 1938. En une génération, l'héritage du New Deal a été défait aux USA par la vague libérale. Pourtant, le message de l'homme qui voulait instituer une « charte des droits économiques » (que nous reproduisons ici), reste plus que jamais d'actualité.


The Only Fitting Tribute
by Frances Moore Lappé, The Nation, 21 mars 2008

I feel a bit silly. For decades I called myself a child of the '60s, only to realize on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New Deal that I'm really its child. Coming to maturity as its beneficiary, I had a debt-free college education and, thanks to New Deal advances that doubled the real family income of the poor and middle class, my husband and I were able to live for a time on his salary alone.

It was thus, very practically, the New Deal that freed me to explore the “big questions.” Food, the basis of life, seemed like a smart place to start, so I asked, Why hunger in a world of plenty ?

Soon it began to dawn on me : as long as food is merely a commodity in societies that don't protect people's right to participate in the market, and as long as farming is left vulnerable to consolidated power off the farm, many will go hungry, farmers among them-no matter how big the harvests.

I might have gotten there quicker if I'd studied Roosevelt's insight that, to serve life, markets need help from accountable, democratic government. Against those who saw “economic laws” as “sacred,” he argued that “economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.” So in 1944 (my birth year), Roosevelt called on Americans to implement what was already “accepted”-”a second Bill of Rights” centered on economic opportunity and security. It would, in effect, put values boundaries around the market. His goal wasn't a legal document, observes University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, but the generation of a “set of public commitments by and for the citizenry, very much like the Declaration of Independence.”

The first two economic rights assured a “useful” job that paid enough to provide “adequate food and clothing.” The third guaranteed farmers a high enough return for their crops to provide their families with a “decent living.” To begin, he asked Congress to pass a “cost of food law,” putting a price floor under farmers and a price ceiling on the cost of food necessities for all.

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By Martin Wolf, Columnists , FINANCIAL TIMES


What am I bid on financial sector losses from the US subprime mortgage crisis? Do I have advances on the $100bn suggested by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, only last July? Yes, I now have $500bn from the gentlemen from Goldman Sachs. Any advances on $500bn? Yes, I have $1,000bn-$2,000bn from Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern School of Business. Any advances? Going, going, gone.

EDITOR'S CHOICE
Economists' forum - Nov-16
Every week, 50 of the world's most influential economists discuss Martin Wolf's articles on FT.com
It is easy to be cynical about this ascending auction of scary prognoses. But we cannot ignore them.

In “Why Washington's rescue cannot end the crisis story” (this page, February 27) I analysed the implications of aggregate financial sector losses of $1,000bn. That figure was in line with estimates by Prof Roubini and George Magnus of UBS.
I concluded that even this would be manageable, if painful, for an economy as big and a government as creditworthy as that of the US. Prof Roubini objects that I have taken the downside too lightly. He now argues that financial losses might amount to $3,000bn.

A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and pretty soon you are talking real money, even for the US. So does this new bid make sense?

Most of the losses will fall not on the financial sector but elsewhere. As Prof Roubini notes, a 10 per cent fall in house prices (relative to the peak) knocks off $2,000bn (14 per cent of gross domestic product) from household wealth. The first 10 per cent fall has already happened. What he sees as a likely 30 per cent cumulative fall would wipe out $6,000bn, 42 per cent of GDP and 10 per cent of household wealth. Already, falling prices are showing up in declining net household wealth. Prof Roubini also talks of a $5,600bn decline in the value of stocks and the possibility of additional trillions of dollars in losses on commercial property. Total losses might even equal annual GDP.

The principal direct effect of such losses will be on spending, particularly residential investment and household consumption. In the third quarter of last year, personal savings were a mere 2.4 per cent of GDP, while the financial balance of the personal sector (the difference between its income and expenditure) was minus 2.1 per cent. These patterns do not make sense when asset prices are falling. But a sharp rise in household savings would ensure a deep and durable recession.

Worse, the bigger the damage to the financial sector, the more credit-fuelled personal spending is going to dry up. So what might such overall losses mean for financial intermediaries. In Prof Roubini's 12 steps to meltdown, discussed here on February 20, 2008, he assumed that their losses on mortgages would be $300bn-$400bn, while losses on other assets (consumer debt, commercial real estate loans and so forth) would be another $600bn-$700bn, for a total of $1,000bn. On March 7, Goldman Sachs economists published an even higher estimate of mortgage-related losses, at $500bn, along with $656bn in other losses, for a total of $1,156bn. The mainstream has caught up. But Prof Roubini has moved on.

In reaching its conclusion, Goldman estimated a peak-to-trough house price fall of 25 per cent. In his comments on the FT's forum, Prof Roubini suggests that, after price falls of 20 per cent from the peak, losses on mortgages could be as much as $1,000bn. With a 40 per cent fall, they could be $2,000bn. He adds another $700bn for other losses, to reach total financial sector losses of close to $3,000bn, or about 20 per cent of GDP.

So how does Prof Roubini reach these much higher figures? The difference between him and Goldman is not so much in assumptions about the house price fall: 25 per cent for Goldman Sachs and 20-40 per cent for Prof Roubini. Both also estimate that lenders would lose half of the loan value after repossession. But Goldman believes that just 20 per cent of households in negative equity would default, while Prof Roubini believes 50 per cent might do so.

For people with poor credit ratings and few assets, apart from their house, walking away does seem to make disturbingly good sense (“Jingle-mail rings alarm bells for lenders”, Financial Times, March 7). Buyers with no equity had an option to walk. Now they are exercising it. This was demented finance. Yet, so long as the economy remains reasonably robust, highly indebted people with good career prospects would surely not wish to wreck their credit rating. Nevertheless, markets are pessimistic: the prices of even AAA tranches of securitised loans are collapsing.

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Les pertes du système financier sont maintenant estimées entre 2000 et 3000 milliards de dollars, ce qui place virtuellement les banques dans une situation de faillite généralisée. En tentant de se protéger en différant la reconnaissance de leurs pertes, elles accroissent le risque d'un effondrement systémique. Tous les économistes s'accordent à penser qu'une recapitalisation d'urgence est nécessaire. Mais cette mesure nécessiterait une nationalisation massive du système bancaire, impensable au pays de la libre entreprise, et ceci d'autant plus en année électorale. Faute de pouvoir - pour l'instant - briser ce tabou, la Fed en est réduite aux expédients et se transforme en mont de piété pour créances douteuses.


Contre Info, 14 mars 2008

Voilà encore quelques semaines on observait avec inquiètude la disparition de quelques milliards par ci, quelques autres par là, et la France était mise en émoi par les 7 milliards de dollars de pertes subies par la Société Générale.

Nous avons désormais nettement changé d'ordre de grandeur.

Aujourd'hui, l'unité de compte des calculs « sur le dos de l'enveloppe » qu'affectionnent les américains, c'est le billion (vf) de dollars, 1000 milliards de dollars [1].

Il y 15 jours, une éternité au rythme ou vont les choses, Martin Wolf, chroniqueur économique au Financial Times, reprenait le chiffre établi par Nouriel Roubini, et rappelait qu'après tout, 1000 milliards ne représentent « que » 7% du PIB US. Il « suffirait » donc de laisser filer le déficit de 63% à 70%, et d'accepter de payer 0,2% du budget en intérêts de la dette pour régler la facture de cette crise. Une « bagatelle budgétaire », concluait-il, en comparaison des pertes subies lors des crises asiatiques qui avaient volatilisé des montants allant jusqu'à 40% du PIB des pays concernés.

Les économistes intervenant sur le forum du Financial Times n'ont pas tardé à le convaincre que l'optimisme n'est plus de mise.

Les échanges que nous résumons ici ont eu lieu avant l'annonce de la nouvelle intervention de la Fed. Mais ils conservent tout leur intérêt et permettent d'entrevoir la situation dans laquelle se trouve le système financier mondial. Au bord du gouffre.

Nous sommes tous roubinistes désormais

En réponse à Martin Wolf, Roubini affirme que les 1000 milliards ne sont que le sommet de l'iceberg. Voici pourquoi.

Tout d'abord, 1000 milliards représentent une somme quatre fois supérieure à celle de la faillite des caisses d'épargnes, qu'il chiffre à 250 milliards.

Deux, les crises financières volatilisent le capital des banques et obligent à les nationaliser.

Trois, le total des pertes de patrimoine sera bien supérieur à 1000 milliards. 10% de baisse de l'immobilier entraînent une diminution de 2 000 milliards du patrimoines des ménages, soit 14% du PIB. L'immobilier allant encore chuter de 10% au moins, les pertes atteindront 28% du PIB des USA, voire 42% si la dépréciation des biens est de 30%.

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