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Notes:
(1) Iceland adopted 10 years ago all the principles of economic deregulation and « financieration » advocated and implemented in the US and UK. Reykjavik thus became some sort of a financial «
Mini-Me » of London and Washington, in reference to the very Americano-British movie character Austin Powers. The three countries undertook to play the financial game of «
the frog that wished to be as big as the ox », in reference to a fable by Jean de la Fontaine with a very unhappy end for the frog.
(2) Icelandic stocks collapsed 76 percent after a few days suspension designed to « avoid » a panic! Source:
MarketWatch, 10/14/2008
(3) On this subject, let's spend a few lines on the amount of the “financial package” announced by London, i.e. 640-billion EUR including 64-billion EUR to recapitalize banks and a further 320-billion EUR pay back those same banks’ debt (source:
Financial Times, 10/09/2008). With an economy in freefall to the image of the real-estate market, with a soaring inflation, with capital-based pensions going up in smoke and a currency at the lowest,… apart from increasing the public debt and weakening even more the Sterling pound, it is difficult to imagine how the plan can « rescue » British banks. Contrary to Eurozone banks, the British financial system, exactly like its US counterpart, is at the centre of the crisis, not a collateral victim. Gordon Brown may well compare himself to Churchill and Roosevelt together (Source:
Telegraph, 10/14/2008), in his ignorance of History, he seems to forget that neither Churchill nor Roosevelt had already spent 10 years in their country's governments when each of them had to cope with their « big crisis » (that goes for the US and the Bush administration – Paulson and Bernanke included - who all come from the problem and are certainly not part of the solution). Not to mention the fact that Churchill and Roosevelt organised summits such as Yalta or Tehran leaving the French and the Germans waiting at the door, while today it is him who waits at the door of the Euroland summit.
(4) Source:
L'Express, 10/13/2008
(5) Source:
GEAB N°5, May 15, 2006
(6) Source:
GEAB N°26, June 15, 2008
(7) LEAP/E2020 made a synthesis of its anticipations on the decanting phase of the crisis by means of a world map of the impact of the crisis based on the identification of 6 large groups of countries; and of an anticipatory schedule of the 4 financial, economic, social and political sequences over 2008-2013 for each of these regions.
(8) It is indeed the Eurozone which curbed the spiral of global panic. For weeks, the US and British initiatives followed one another without any effect. The eruption of a new collective player, the « Euroland summit », and the wide-ranging decisions it made, are a new and soothing phenomenon. It is for this very reason that Washington and London have systematically prevented such a summit from taking place ever since the Euro was launched, 6 years ago. A complete set of diplomatic gesticulation was required (preliminary meeting, pre-summit group photo,…) to make the British Prime Minister believe he was not set aside the process, when in fact there is no reason why he should take part in a Euroland Summit. In this edition of the GEAB, LEAP/E202020 comes back on the phenomenon and the long-term systemic consequences of this 1st Euroland Summit.
(9) The US financial rescue plan has already increased by 17,000 USD the debt owned by each US citizen. Source:
CommodityOnline, 10/06/2008
(10) It is indeed 2,000-billion USD of capital-based pensions which evaporated in the past few weeks in the US. Source:
USAToday, 10/08/2008
(11) At least in the short-term. Indeed our team is convinced that it is not bad at all for the American people in the medium- and long-term if the system currently prevailing in Washington and New-York is fundamentally reappraised. This system has thrust the country into dramatic problems among which dozens of millions of US citizens now struggle, as illustrated in this article by the
New York Times dated 10/11/2008.
(12) Even if it will be a minor-scale measure compared to the prospect of a US bankruptcy, those who think that it is time to invest again on financial markets may find useful to learn that the New York Stock Exchange has recently reviewed all its circuit-breaker thresholds as a result of ratings collapse. Source :
NYSE/Euronext, 09/30/2008