Notes
La crise des subprime loans, dans son aspect factuel, a fait l’objet de très nombreux articles auxquels nous renvoyons le lecteur qui souhaiterait reconstituer le scénario des événements. Les articles qui suivent sont fort utiles pour appréhender le scénario de la crise, la revue Le Débat propose trois contributions qui font un tour d’horizon précis de la crise dans son numéro 151 de septembre-octobre 2008 : Jean-Luc Gréau, « L’irresponsabilité des marchés », 49-64 ; Pierre Charrin, « Où va la crise ? », 65-74 ; Paul Jorion, « L’après-capitalisme s’invente aujourd’hui », 75-84.
On rappellera qu’il s’agit de prêts hypothécaires accordés aux États-Unis dans des conditions plus risquées que la moyenne.
“[…] We have a globalized financial system in which a crisis that began with a bubble in Florida condos and California McMansions has caused monetary catastrophe”. Paul Krugman, “Moment of Truth”, International Herald Tribune, 11-12 octobre 2008, 5.
Adrian Blundell-Wignall & Lee Se-Hoon, “The Subprime Crisis: Causal Distortions and Regulatory Reform”, Intervention au Colloque du Conseil Scientifique de l’Autorité des Marchés Financiers, Paris, 2 octobre 2008, Working paper (document de travail).
Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 8.
Voir sur ce point Richard J. Rosen, “The Role of Securitization in Mortgage Lending”, Chicago Fed Letter, n° 244, novembre 2007, <www.chicagofed.org>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
Ginnie Mae (Government National Mortgage Association), créée en 1968, a pour but de garantir les émissions de titres adossés à des prêts hypothécaires.
Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) créée en 1938 et Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association) créée en 1970 ont toutes deux pour but d’augmenter la liquidité sur le marché des prêts hypothécaires. Elles ont été frappées de plein fouet par la crise des subprimes.
Parmi les institutions financières privées ayant racheté des titres adossés à des prêts hypothécaires à risque on trouve Lehman Brothers ou encore Countrywide Financial ou Wells Fargo.
Rama Cont, « Notation et valuation des produits structurés : leçons et recommandations », intervention au colloque du Conseil Scientifique de l’Autorité des Marchés Financiers, Working paper (document de travail), Paris, 2 octobre 2008.
Vanessa Sumo, “Risky Business: Have Recent Innovations in Credit Markets Made the Financial System Safer or Riskier?” Region Focus, été 2007, 16-19.
Voir infra.
“The explosive growth of complex financial instruments is well documented. Credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations are just two examples of comparatively new exotic products flooding our markets. Warren Buffett famously labeled credit derivatives ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’. Some may view his characterization as extreme, but allowing these highly risky creations to thrive in a thinly regulated or unregulated market is a recipe for disaster”, US House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, Hearing on Systemic Risk and the Financial Markets, Opening Statement of Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski, 24 juillet 2008.
De très nombreux articles de presse sont parus au sujet du rôle de l’avidité dans la crise financière. On en citera quelques-uns parmi les plus récents : Hugo Dixon, “When Greed Can Be Bad”, Wall Street Journal, 22 juillet 2008, 12 ; Steven Pearlstein, “Greed is Fine. It’s Stupidity That Hurts”, Washington Post, 3 octobre 2008, D 01 ; Edward Porter, “A Cure for Greed”, New York Times, 29 septembre 2008, 20 ; Dan Glaister, “Banking Crisis: Gekko is Coming Back… But Will Greed Still Be Good?”, The Guardian, 15 octobre 2008, 6 ; “Greed is Good for Some”, The Times, 4 octobre 2008, 2 ; “Cause of Financial Woes Is Our Culture of Greed”, The Times, 24 septembre 2008, 27 ; Martin Waller, “Greed, Not Short Selling Is the Ill”, The Times, 20 septembre 2008, 59 ; “For Wall Street, Greed Wasn’t Just Good Enough”, New York Times, 18 septembre 2008, 35.
“Identification, calculation, pricing and packaging of risk are at the heart of the rapid expansion of modern financial markets on a global scale”, Marieke De Goede, “Re-Politicizing Financial Risk”, Economy & Society, 2004, 197.
Michel Aglietta & Antoine Rébérioux, Dérives du capitalisme financier, Albin Michel, 2004, 191.
“The mathematically driven apparatus of modern risk management [which] contains the seeds of a dehumanizing and self-destructive technology”, Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 7.
Le Financial Stability Forum a été créé en 1999, il est composé de présidents de banques centrales, de ministres des finances et il est présidé par Mario Draghi qui est l’actuel gouverneur de la Banque d’Italie. <http://www.fsforum.org>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
Mario Draghi est aussi le Gouverneur de la Banque d’Italie. Le CRMP Group est dirigé par Gerald Corrigan, vice-président de Goldman Sachs, et Douglas Flint qui est le vice-président de HSBC. Le groupe est constitué de représentants des grandes banques américaines. Ce groupe fut constitué en avril 2008 et l’on doit cette initiative aux efforts conjoints du President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, du Senior Supervisors Group, du Financial Stability Forum et de l’Institute for International Finance. Pour plus de détails consulter <www.crmpolicygroup.org/docs/CRMPG-III.pdf>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
“Measures to better understand and manage complex financial instruments with particular emphasis on their distribution and how their risk sensitivities are disclosed”, Containing Systemic Risk: The Road to Reform, The Report of the CRMPG III, 6 août 2008, 1. <www.crmpolicygroup.org/docs/CRMPG-III.pdf>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
CRMPG III, op. cit., 3.
“The key issue here is not complexity per se but rather the extent to which complexity feeds on itself thereby helping to create or magnify contagion risk ‘hot spots’ that may have systemic implications”. CRMPG III, op. cit., 4.
Rama Cont, « Henry Paulson a été d’une complaisance impressionnante avec Wall Street », Le Monde, 18 septembre 2008, 12.
Ces auditions se sont déroulées le 7 octobre 2007.
“Systemic Risk: Examining Regulators’ Ability to Respond to Threats to the Financial System”, Hearing before the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives, 110e Congrès, 1re session, 2 octobre 2007.
Richard Bookstaber, auteur et ancien banquier chargé de la gestion du risque chez Morgan Stanley et Salomon Brothers ; Robert Kutner, éditeur de American Prospect, Alex Pollock, chercheur à l’American Enterprise Institute ; et Steven Schwarcz, professeur de droit des affaires à l’Université de Duke.
“And I want to be very clear that I think overwhelmingly, probably unanimously, members of this committee welcome innovation in the financial system. And I believe in the essential rationality of the market system. I don’t think you get innovation unless those innovations do some good and meet a need. I don’t think that this is purely random. On the other hand, there is a tendency—and I was pleased to see Secretary Paulson say essentially that a week or so ago—for innovation to outrun regulation”. Hearing, op. cit., 2 octobre 2007, 1.
“Virtually everybody was surprised by the extent to which the problems in the subprime market spilled over into the broader market. There are people who tell me that they saw it coming. I have asked them for any copy of the correspondence in which they notified anybody else. So far, nothing. The Fed acknowledges it was surprised. The Treasury was surprised. The Financial Services Authority in England was surprised, the EU. No one saw the extent to which this was going to spill over, at least no one in the regulatory area”. Barney Frank, président de la commission des marchés financiers, Hearing, op. cit., 2 octobre 2007, 2.
“the arms race of innovative products”, Richard Bookstaber, Hearing, op. cit., 2 octobre 2007, 9.
“Hearing on Systemic Risk and Financial Markets”, US House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, 110e Congrès, 2e Session, 10 et 24 juillet 2008.
Tim Geithner a, par la suite, été nommé Secrétaire au Trésor de l’Administration Obama.
“In many respects, financial innovation over this period outpaced the system’s capacity to measure and limit risk, to manage the incentive problems in the securitization process, and to provide for an appropriate degree of transparency through meaningful disclosure. Once the performance of the underlying assets began to deteriorate, these weaknesses in the system magnified the uncertainty about the scale of potential losses and added to the intensity of pressures that accompanied the crisis”. Timothy F. Geithner, “Hearing on Systemic Risk and Financial Markets”, op. cit., 4.
“If financial conditions fail to improve for a protracted period, the implications for the broader economy could be quite adverse”. Ben Bernanke, “Hearings on the Future of the Financial Services: Exploring Solutions for the Market Crisis”, US House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, 110th Congress, 2nd Session, 24 septembre 2008, 1.
Hearings on the Role of Credit Rating Agencies in the Structured Finance Market, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprise Hearings, US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Capital Markets, 110e Congrès, 1re session, 27 septembre 2007. <http://www.house.gov.apps/list/hearings/financialsvcs_dem/ht092707.shtml>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
Joseph R. Mason, “Hearings on the Role of Credit Rating Agencies in the Structured Finance Market”, US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Capital markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, Committee on Financial Services, 110e Congrès, 1re Session, 9.
“Looking past the immediate crisis, a more resilient system must be built on stronger and better designed shock absorbers, both in the major institutions and in the infrastructure of the financial system”. Hearing on Systemic Risk and Financial Markets, US House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, 110e Congrès, 2e session, 24 juillet 2008, 5.
Julia M. Whitehead and H. Sean Mathis, “Finding a Way Out of the Rating Agency Morass”, Hearings on the Role of Credit Rating Agencies in the Structured Finance Market, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprise Hearings, US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Capital Markets, 110e Congrès, 1re session, 27 septembre 2007, 6. <http://www.house.gov.apps/list/hearings/financialsvcs_dem/ht092707.shtml>, consulté le 15 mai 2009.
“Investors often took insufficient care in evaluating the risks of structured credit products, in part because they over-relied on the evaluations provided by the credit ratings agencies […] Investors must take more responsibility for developing independent views of the risks of sub-prime mortgage securities”. Tom Bawden, “Bernanke Lays Credit Crunch Fiasco squarely on Rating Agencies”, The Times, 11 avril 2008, 53.
M. De Goede, op. cit., 209.
Voir Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2007.
CRMPG III, op.cit., 9.
“is more an art than a science”, CRMPG III, op.cit., 11.
“Maximum, long-term growth and the greatest economic wellbeing for ordinary people depends on market innovation and experimentation. But these, of course, make the future more uncertain. Markets for financial instruments by definition place a current price on future, thus inherently uncertain events”. Alex Pollock, Hearing, op. cit., 2 octobre 2007, 15.
“A measurable uncertainty, or ‘risk’ proper is so far different from an unmeasurable one that it is not an uncertainty at all”. Franck Knight, cité in Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
TARP: Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Voir sur la question de l’innovation financière l’article de Christine Zumello, « L’innovation et les marchés financiers aux États-Unis depuis les années 1970 : une approche contrastée », in Martine Azuelos & Marie-Claude Esposito (dir.), Revue LISA/LISA e-journal : Les Économies anglo-saxonnes et l’innovation. Ressorts, enjeux, influences, vol. 4, n° 1, 2006, 307-326 <http://lisa.revues.org/index2385.html>.
“the language of economic efficiency and risk classification is the de-politicization of finance and insurance”. De Goede, op. cit., 204.
Steven Schwarcz : “A person who is going to make a decision is going to be unlikely to want to have the institution buy into a market when the market is dropping and everyone is saying ‘Let’s abandon the market’. People tend to go with the herd. You have a certain herd mentality and this could deter buying. Individuals in institutions also may find it safer to conform to the herd view even if they believe there is value there”. Hearing, op. cit., 2 octobre 2007, 21.
Le texte de cette conférence a été publié : Albert Hirschmann, “Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble?”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 20, décembre 1982, 1463-1484.
A. Hirschmann, op. cit., 1464.
Fred Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1976.
A. Hirschmann, op. cit., 1466.
Ibid., 1467.
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