The crisis now escape any understanding of set

The Sunday mass, the creed is a critical time where the Assembly expresses his faith in God. In modern finance, there is no such rites and even less to music composed by Mozart or Schubert to emphasize the beauty. However, the credit is based on another form of creed. Because the confidence and belief are at the heart of finance (it is even the etymology of the word "credit"). But that belief By temporary crisis still learning become difficult to find an answer to this question...

Most believe the Pangloss! Since now more than a year, policies, bankers and experts continue to explain that "the worst is we" (as said five months ago the pattern of the Lehman Brothers Bank today in bankruptcy), that the effects of the crisis "will be measured" (the Minister Christine Lagarde end 2007) or that "the crisis is over" (a weekly quality last month). In fact, they don't strictly know nothing, nor the crew of a ship caught in a terrible storm knows when it will finish. The crisis now escape any understanding of set. It is disproportionate. Whenever you open a financial closet, dead falls. At best, optimism comes from a desire to reassure that leads ultimately to the contrary. At worst, a lie put forward by their authors to save place, save time or money.

Most believe the bankers! They have done anything. In America, they have lent to men or women who had no income, no job, no assets. They have designed financial products themselves do not understand. They drew with unbelievable spirals of debt to display strong profitability. They have forgotten their core business is the assessment of the risk. In a Word, they have played sorcerer's apprentices. Their European colleagues have made a little less anything... but their body defending because they dreamed to imagination, liveliness and the maestria from their New York colleagues. Looking for easy profits, some of them eventually buy the closed eyes of miraculous products "structured" "made in Wall Street", with which they finally lost billions of euros. According the count, unfortunately very temporary, prepared by the IMF in April, European banks had lost March almost as much as their American colleagues... in a purely American crisis. Close the ban.

Most believe money from bankers! Or more specifically, believe more in the virtuous effect of the mode of remuneration of the bankers on the quality of their management. They have won millions, but they have lost billions. Except that some remain in their portfolio while the others are out of the pocket of their shareholders. Payroll systems were to align the interests of managers with those of shareholders. They justified the mind-blowing amounts by the calf of gold of the creation of value. They have turned upside expectations, with a gap unprecedented between CEOs and their principals. Feathers, the "Financial Times" and "Figaro" assert that it is essential to act on the issue. That is, if there is urgency.

Most believe private regulators! The rating agencies were supposed to embody the future regulation. Private firms assess the quality of borrowers, in a healthy emulation to the best possible rating. Las! Unable to resist the prospect of huge commissions, they noted anything is any how. They have given to the famous structured products notes similar to those of the conventional obligations while their financial behavior has nothing to do, as evidenced by the events of these last quarters. Another form of private regulation shows its limits: famous IFRSs decided by a College of Accountants have forced banks to continually recalculate the value of their assets as soon as a house in danger attention her family jewels. They add to the wind in the storm.

Most believe the authorities! Of course, it is more difficult. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve of the United States and the European Central Bank on this side of the Atlantic, are not saving the planet finance This is true, but there are many other institutions in question. In the United States, the supervision of financial markets, mission-critical if it is, is fragmented in a quarantine of pharmacies, each clinging to its pre-square and incapable of the lesser overall vision. And the Government itself is struggling to find a readable action row. It saves two banks Sunday (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), let sink another Sunday on (Lehman Brothers), saves (AIG) insurer following Tuesday... Without reach out of the terrible profits nationalised private-loss equation. This is much better with central bankers. If they become today the Saint-Bernard of bankers caught in the avalanche, they have also made large pellets. Before the crisis, they have left to accumulate huge morass of debts without acting, because they had a blind faith in the market, that shows, for example, the book by Alan Greenspan, the former President of the Fed. Since the crisis, they spend a fortune to save lame duck whose fall could initiate a dreaded domino effect. In doing so, the central banks fill their balance sheets of poor quality assets without the certainty of power away tomorrow. They also find it difficult to coordinate their interventions between them. Ultimately, it is valuable credibility is at stake.

But that do when believed more person, when the world of finance has lost any credit Return to the basic principles. Do not believe, but rely. Practice not only the "stock picking" (careful choice of shares to constitute a stock portfolio), but also the "bank picking", "ideas picking", "people picking": select banks, ideas, men and women. Because there are a lot of reliable financial (literally, who can rely) seeking to control risk, effective regulators, experts honest enough to admit that we have not even the intelligence of this storm unprecedented, ready to think about less absurd forms of financial regulation policies. Let the belief in religion. Rejects the creed for the credit. Jinx with confidence. Back to the finance of the eyes open.