Hyperinflation ou faillite des états, quel sera le prochain cygne noir ?

Nous sommes bercés du chant lénifiant des médias de masse qui vantent les mérites du plan de relance, ou alors en critiquent "l'insuffisance", malgré quelques voix discordantes comme capital ou le parisien. Même des radios pourtant réputées sérieuses comme BFM font la part belle aux relancistes de tout poil. Pourtant, lorsque l'on lit la presse internationale, on s'aperçoit que le concert des optimistes qui voient venir une reprise née des "stimulus" des états dès fin 2009 est assez fortement contesté par un nombre croissant d'analystes, et que certains vont jusqu'à juger envisageables, voire probables, des scénarios catastrophe. Et vous savez quoi ? Je suis d'accord avec eux. La folie relanciste au niveau mondial nous envoie droit dans le mur. Petit tour du monde des analyses les plus flippantes et des mauvaises nouvelles. -------------- Commençons notre petit tour du monde du pessimisme noir par Morgan Stanley Peut on faire confiance en ceux qui vous disent que tout pourrait aller mal lorsque les mêmes, il y a deux ans, vous affirmaient la main sur le portefeuille que tout allait bien ? Ceci dit, Morgan Stanley n'exclut pas la possibilité d'un "cygne noir" (*), c'est à dire d'une conjonction d'évènements fâcheux d'amplitude supérieure à tout ce qui était attendu (ou encore "loi de l'emmerdement maximal", parfois poétiquement résumée par l'aphorisme "shit happens") qui se matérialiserait sous la forme d'une résurgence de l'hyper-inflation. Cette fois ci, c'est un banquier qui vous le dit, pas un bloggueur non-conformiste: One stark lesson from the ongoing financial and economic crisis is that so-called black swans — large-impact, hard-to-predict and seemingly rare events — can occur more frequently than generally believed.With policymakers around the world throwing massive conventional and unconventional monetary and fiscal stimuli at their economies, we think that it is worth exploring the black swan event of very high inflation or even hyperinflation. While such an outcome is clearly not our main case, the risk of hyperinflation cannot be dismissed very easily any longer, in our view. We discuss the historical evidence, the conditions that can lead to very high or hyperinflation, and whether and how it might happen again. (...) given the size of the current and prospective economic and financial problems, and given the size of the monetary and fiscal stimulus that central banks and governments are throwing at these problems, investors would be well advised not to ignore this tail risk, especially as markets are priced for the opposite outcome of lasting deflation in the next several years. Put differently, we believe that buying some insurance against the black swan event of high inflation or even hyperinflation makes sense and is relatively cheap currently. Et le Financial Times d'ajouter : Of course, when hyperinflation occurred in the eastern block countries towards the end of the communist era, most citizens hedged via significant purchases of black-market US dollars, the US dollar becoming the effective proxy store of value. This time round, that would not be an option. ----------- A propos des Black Swans (*) L'expression "cygne noir" vient d'un Best Seller qu'il faut que je me procure. En voici une définition par l'exemple : How do you create a Black Swan? It’s not that hard. Start with something that you know is seemingly useful, true or good. Then slavishly rely on that idea until it fails. I’ll toss out a few here: · The more people that live in houses that they own, the better. The government should encourage home ownership. You should own the biggest house you can afford. Residential housing is an investment for the masses; the prices never go down for the nation as a whole. Continually maximizing return on equity will maximize stock prices. Optimal capital structures and all times. We all want high, smooth returns from our investments — high Sharpe Ratios, everyone! Proper central banking practice can lead to near-permanent prosperity with moderate volatility. Our government can borrow without limit to promote or common prosperity. Our central bank can cleverly intervene in markets with their assets, and fix things without getting stuck, or creating inflation. L'auteur, un directeur financier de fonds d'investissement, conclut sur ces paragraphes peu encourageants : In closing, consider a Black Swan of the future. Governments globally nationalize financial institutions, run huge deficits and borrow a lot of money to do so. They “stimulate” the economy through targeted spending, and ignore the future consequences of the debts incurred. They do it in the face of the coming demographic bust for the developed nations plus China. My expectation is that these “solutions” will not do much to deal with the economic weakness induced by the debt overhang. As Walter Wriston famously said, “A country does not go bankrupt.” Perhaps what he should have said was the country remains in place, only the creditors get stiffed. Short of war, it is tough to reorganize or liquidate a country. But I’lltake the sentiment a different way and say that most people believe “A developed country does not go bankrupt.” That is the black swan that will be displayed here, and Iceland is the harbinger of what might be a future trend of developed country sovereign defaults, or their close cousin, high inflation. Croire aveuglément qu' "un pays ne peut pas faire faillite" ou ne peut pas spolier ses créanciers en fabriquant sa propre monnaie, comme le font certains éditorialistes, est une façon comme u...

Je me connecte

---

J'en profite