Nederlandse politici doen het voorkomen dat de financiele crisis eigenlijk een Amerikaanse zaak is.'Financial Crisis: So much for tirades against American greed
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says it is ironic that European banks have turned out to be deeper in debt than their US counterparts.
Last Updated: 1:12AM BST 02 Oct 2008
It took a weekend to shatter the complacency of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück. Last Thursday he told us that the financial crisis was an "American problem", the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its "superpower status". Pleas from US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a joint US- European rescue plan to halt the downward spiral were rebuffed as unnecessary.
By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate. By then Europe was "staring into the abyss," he admitted. Belgium faced worse. It had to nationalise Fortis (with Dutch help), a 300-year-old bastion of Flemish finance, followed a day later by a bail-out for Dexia (with French help).
Within hours they were all trumped by Dublin. The Irish government issued a blanket guarantee of the deposits and debts of its six largest lenders in the most radical bank bail-out since the Scandinavian rescues in the early 1990s. Then France upped the ante with a €300 billion pan-European lifeboat for the banks. The drama has exposed Europe's dark secret for all to see. EU banks took on even more debt leverage than their US counterparts, despite the tirades against ''le capitalisme sauvage'' of the Anglo-Saxons.
We now know that it was French finance minister Christine Lagarde who begged Mr Paulson to save the US insurer AIG last week. AIG had written $300 billion in credit protection for European banks, admitting that it was for "regulatory capital relief rather than risk mitigation". In other words, it was underpinning a disguised extension of credit leverage. Its collapse would have set off a lending crunch across Europe as banking capital sank below water level.
It turns out that European regulators have allowed even greater use of "off-books" chicanery than the Americans. Mr Paulson may have saved Europe.
Most eyes are still on Washington, but the core danger is shifting across the Atlantic. Germany and Italy have been contracting since the spring, with France close behind. They are sliding into a deeper downturn than the US.
The interest spreads on Italian 10-year bonds have jumped to 92 points above German Bunds, a post-EMU high. These spreads are the most closely watched stress barometer for Europe's monetary union.
Traders are starting to "price in" an appreciable risk that EMU will break apart.
The European Commission's top economists warned the politicians in the 1990s that the euro might not survive a crisis, at least in its current form. There is no EU treasury or debt union to back it up.
The one-size-fits-all regime of interest rates caters badly to the different needs of Club Med and the German bloc.
The euro fathers did not dispute this. But they saw EMU as an instrument to force the pace of political union. They welcomed the idea of a "beneficial crisis". As ex-Commission chief Romano Prodi remarked, it would allow Brussels to break taboos and accelerate the move to a full-fledged EU economic government.
As events now unfold with vertiginous speed, we may find that it destroys the European Union instead. Spain is on the cusp of depression (I use the word to mean a systemic rupture). Unemployment has risen from 8.3 to 11.3 per cent in a year as the property market implodes. Yet the cost of borrowing (Euribor) is going up. You can imagine how the Spanish felt when German-led hawks pushed the European Central Bank into raising interest rates in July.
This may go down as the greatest monetary error of the post-war era.
The ECB responded to the external shock of an oil and food spike with anti-inflation overkill, compounding the onset of an accelerating debt deflation that poses a greater danger. Has it committed the classic mistake of central banks, fighting the last war (1970s) instead of the last war but one (1930s)?'
By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate. By then Europe was "staring into the abyss," he admitted. Belgium faced worse. It had to nationalise Fortis (with Dutch help), a 300-year-old bastion of Flemish finance, followed a day later by a bail-out for Dexia (with French help).
Within hours they were all trumped by Dublin. The Irish government issued a blanket guarantee of the deposits and debts of its six largest lenders in the most radical bank bail-out since the Scandinavian rescues in the early 1990s. Then France upped the ante with a €300 billion pan-European lifeboat for the banks. The drama has exposed Europe's dark secret for all to see. EU banks took on even more debt leverage than their US counterparts, despite the tirades against ''le capitalisme sauvage'' of the Anglo-Saxons.
We now know that it was French finance minister Christine Lagarde who begged Mr Paulson to save the US insurer AIG last week. AIG had written $300 billion in credit protection for European banks, admitting that it was for "regulatory capital relief rather than risk mitigation". In other words, it was underpinning a disguised extension of credit leverage. Its collapse would have set off a lending crunch across Europe as banking capital sank below water level.
It turns out that European regulators have allowed even greater use of "off-books" chicanery than the Americans. Mr Paulson may have saved Europe.
Most eyes are still on Washington, but the core danger is shifting across the Atlantic. Germany and Italy have been contracting since the spring, with France close behind. They are sliding into a deeper downturn than the US.
The interest spreads on Italian 10-year bonds have jumped to 92 points above German Bunds, a post-EMU high. These spreads are the most closely watched stress barometer for Europe's monetary union.
Traders are starting to "price in" an appreciable risk that EMU will break apart.
The European Commission's top economists warned the politicians in the 1990s that the euro might not survive a crisis, at least in its current form. There is no EU treasury or debt union to back it up.
The one-size-fits-all regime of interest rates caters badly to the different needs of Club Med and the German bloc.
The euro fathers did not dispute this. But they saw EMU as an instrument to force the pace of political union. They welcomed the idea of a "beneficial crisis". As ex-Commission chief Romano Prodi remarked, it would allow Brussels to break taboos and accelerate the move to a full-fledged EU economic government.
As events now unfold with vertiginous speed, we may find that it destroys the European Union instead. Spain is on the cusp of depression (I use the word to mean a systemic rupture). Unemployment has risen from 8.3 to 11.3 per cent in a year as the property market implodes. Yet the cost of borrowing (Euribor) is going up. You can imagine how the Spanish felt when German-led hawks pushed the European Central Bank into raising interest rates in July.
This may go down as the greatest monetary error of the post-war era.
The ECB responded to the external shock of an oil and food spike with anti-inflation overkill, compounding the onset of an accelerating debt deflation that poses a greater danger. Has it committed the classic mistake of central banks, fighting the last war (1970s) instead of the last war but one (1930s)?'
3 opmerkingen:
Wouter Bos legde de natie ook uit:
"Niemand, ook ’s werelds grootste experts niet, had anderhalf geleden zicht op de precieze waardering van dit type producten. Dat is het dominante kenmerk van deze hele financiële crisis."
Ja, echt, serieus. Zelfs "'s werelds grootste experts" vinden het opeens allemaal te ingewikkeld om te kunnen begrijpen.
Elders lezen we: "Donderdag lichtte Bos toe dat daarbij geen sprake is geweest van opzet bij Fortis." Ze hebben dus niets met opzet verzwegen, maar per ongeluk!
Niemand, ook ’s werelds grootste experts niet, had anderhalf geleden zicht op de precieze waardering van dit type producten.
Juist OMDAT er geen zicht op is, hadden alle alarmbellen moeten afgaan. Wat een ontzettende DWAAS, of wat een LEUGENAAR is die Bos.
Niet te vertrouwen, die ex-Shellers.
In een interview uit augustus 2007 legt Michael Hudson uit dat de veel onderliggende hypotheken van de gestructureerde producten in essentie frauduleus zijn (afgesloten zonder adequaat betalingsvooruitzicht, vaak niet gedocumenteerd). De bundeling vergelijkt hij met het bundelen van promesses van gangsters, net zo betrouwbaar. In de Amerikaanse financiële pers werden de pakketten publiekelijk aangeduid als 'junk', dus wat Bos zegt is onzin.
Hudson vertelt ook dat het de bedoeling was de pakketten te verkopen aan buitenlanders en hij noemt het veoorbeeld van de Duise bank die destijds opeens miljarden schuld had door de aankoop van de junk. Nu blijkt dus dat er veel meer banken in Europa zijn die erin getrapt zijn. Wat niet wegneemt dat het een probleem van Amerikaanse makelij is. En dat vertelt Pritchard er weer niet bij.
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