Et maintenant, que faire ?

Après la cascade de prévisions apocalyptiques d'hier, il serait bon de revenir sur ce qu'il faudrait faire pour se sortir du pétrin. Plutôt que de réécrire ce que j'ai déjà pu publier depuis quelques mois, donnons la parole à des experts plus reconnus que je ne le suis (en clair, mieux payés pour dire la même chose). Tout d'abord, Arnold Kling, de la très distinguée George Mason University de Washington, dans les colonnes de Forbes: The economy will recover if and when profits recover. Vérité première que la vulgate anti-captaliste ordinaire voudrait occulter: pas de profits, pas de business. Wages and salaries rose by 3%, while corporate profits fell by 9%, from the third quarter of 2007 through the third quarter of 2008, according to Commerce Department data. Fourth-quarter figures, which will be available in late February, are expected to show weakening in both types of income, with wages and salaries showing almost no increase, and profits falling by more than 15% relative to last year's fourth quarter. Un tel effet ciseau sur les entreprises ne peut se traduire que par des dépôts de bilan et des licenciements massifs. The economy is in trouble today because of, pardon the pun, false profits. The financial sector reported as much as 40% of all profits in recent years. However, the reported profits on instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and the sale of credit default swaps did not reflect the long-term risks of those instruments. That is, the return on capital in the financial sector was artificially high because the amount of capital used to protect against risk was artificially low. Losses at many financial firms are inevitable. It is the market's way of telling the bloated industry to contract, releasing capital and talent for use elsewhere in the economy. L'ensemble du système a sous-estimé le risque sous-jacent des actifs financiers détenus. Sujet déjà esquissé dans ob'lib', mais à approfondir. (...) The financial sector is too absorbed in de-leveraging itself to play an active role in the economic recovery. The rest of the non-financial sector of the economy is going to have to survive in a less forgiving financial environment. In order to finance expansion, businesses will be even more dependent than usual on profits. ...

Je me connecte

---

J'en profite