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Repères 18/01/08 - Banques américaines : Plus dure est la chute

L'Asie et le Moyen Orient au secours des banques de l'oncle sam.

We must name our price
Anatole Kaletsky, The Times January 17, 2008

"...what has happened this week to Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, respectively the world's biggest bank and the world's biggest stockbroking firm (at least until their recent troubles).

On Tuesday these two companies, universally recognised as the biggest and brashest symbols of America's financial hegemony and the triumph of market capitalism in every corner of the world, were forced to raise $21billion of new capital from national investment funds owned by governments in Asia and Middle East. These bailouts raised to $35billion the rescue capital received by Merrill Lynch and Citigroup in the past three months and to almost $100billion the total cash injections into Western financial institutions from the sovereign wealth funds or ruling families of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, China, Singapore and South Korea.

Everybody can see the irony in the proudest and loudest proponents of American-style private enterprise limping, cap in hand, around the capitals of Asia and Arabia, begging for some government assistance, after the private money managers on Wall Street have kicked them in the teeth. But, beyond dramatic irony, the truly remarkable feature of this week's financial news was not the size or origin of the new investments, which were pretty much as expected, but the market reaction to this news...

...As a result, Asian and energy-producing sovereign wealth funds will soon become the biggest shareholders in most of the leading American and European financial institutions. In this sense, the bailouts of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch will be remembered as milestones, marking a decisive shift in the centre of gravity of the world economy towards Asia after five centuries of financial, economic and therefore political dominance by Europe and America..."

 

Repères 13/01/08 - Vive l'Euro et le modèle français !

La France vient de prendre la cinquième place de l'économie mondiale au Royaume-Uni mais ni la presse française, ni aucun de nos déclinologues n'en a encore fait état. Pour les anglais, c'est un "cataclysme" !

UK slips behind France on economy
Financial Times January 11 2008

The size of the British economy has slipped below that of France for the first time since 1999 thanks to the slide in the value of the pound.

Sterling’s rapid fall to 11-year lows against European currencies has also pushed Britain into sixth place in the world.

The US, Japan, Germany, China and France all had larger economies than the UK in the third quarter of 2007 – and in 2006.

The figures represented a “political economic cataclysm” for Britain, said Martin Weale, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who noted that the UK government often boasted of Britain’s being the fourth largest economy, and then the fifth largest when China overtook the UK in 2005.

The UK’s demotion to sixth place will put pressure on the government’s reputation for economic competence, particularly as it is Britain’s ancient rival, France, that is moving ahead.

Mr Weale said that, although the change in rank had no immediate effect on British living standards and the UK still had slightly higher gross domestic product per head, the falling exchange rate would crimp income growth compared with overall growth in economic output.

In 2006, the GDP of France was €1,792bn (£1,353bn) compared with £1,304bn for the UK. With sterling worth €1.47 on average in 2006, this put the UK economy comfortably 6.7 per cent ahead of the French economy.

But with sterling’s more than 10 per cent fall against the euro in the past six months to €1.32 to the pound, the UK’s economy in 2008 is now 4 per cent smaller than France.