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..."
