Une conférence d’Alex Brazier de la Banque d’Angleterre  dont vous ne trouverez pas le compte rendu dans vos médias MSM. Source The Gardian (The Guardian) . Brazier nous rappelle l’enseignement de base de Minsky avec la fragilisation endogène de l’univers du crédit.

Une spirale de complaisance

Il y a dix ans , un système financier malsain a causé une crise financière et économique désastreuse. Depuis le système bancaire occidental a poursuivi une expansion rapide, les banques et les régulateurs ont été aveugles  au simple fait, pourtant basique, que plus on empile les dettes et plus le système devient fragile avec des risques de pertes de plus en plus grands. ..Les critères de prêts passent rapidement d’irresponsables à casse cou . Du  crédit bon marché , on en  prend de plus en plus et il est facile à servir.

…La spirale continue, les emprunteurs continuent d’augmenter leurs dettes. … les prêteurs pensent que les risques baissent alors qu’ils augmentent et  que les risques qu’ eux même et l’économie en général encourent sont au contraire en hausse.

 Alex Brazier of the Bank of England  (Liverpool speech):

Une spirale de complaisance 

 Lenders are « dicing with a spiral of complacency. » 

“Ten years ago, an unsafe financial system caused financial crisis and economic disaster”, he said. “The western banking system had expanded rapidly. Banks – and their regulators – had been blind to the basic fact that more debt meant greater risk of loss.

 

“Complacency gave way to crisis. Companies and households were unable to refinance their debts. The result was economic disaster. In this country alone, close to a million jobs were lost and more than 100,000 businesses failed. Too much debt made the financial system, and the economy, unsafe. Too many people paid the price when those risks materialised.”

 

“Lenders have not entered, but they may be dicing with the spiral of complacency,” Brazier said, noting that as credit became cheaper it was taken up more widely and was serviced more easily.

 

“The spiral continues, and borrowers rack up more and more debt. Lending standards can go from responsible to reckless very quickly.The sorry fact is that as lenders think the risks they face are falling, the risks they – and the wider economy – face are actually growing,” Brazier said.

 

“By September we will have assessed whether the rapid growth has created any gap in the line. If it has, we’ll plug it,” Brazier said.