Les journalistes osent rarement se lancer dans des pronostics pessimistes, notamment en France. Je me suis apperçu ces dernières semaines que les médias anglo-saxons parlent de plus en plus ouvertement de ce qui semble désormais évident: les Etats-Unis sont entrés dans l'une des pires recessions de leur histoire et celle-ci marquera la fin de l'ère de l'"hyperpuissance".
Pour une analyse plus technique des processus en cours voir "Après 87, la recession américaine, la même...en pire!".
Nous reproduisons ici l'intégralité de l'article de The Economist du 15 Novembre. Pour les non anglophones ContreInfo propose un résumé en Français.
"Recession in America looks increasingly likely. Can booming emerging markets save the world economy?
IN 1929, days after the stockmarket crash, the Harvard Economic
Society reassured its subscribers: “A severe depression is outside the
range of probability”. In a survey in March 2001, 95% of American
economists said there would not be a recession, even though one had
already started. Today, most economists do not forecast a recession in
America, but the profession's pitiful forecasting record offers little
comfort. Our latest assessment (see article) suggests that the United States may well be heading for recession.
Granted, GDP grew by a robust 3.9%, at an
annual rate, in the third quarter. Granted also, revisions may well
push this figure up. But that was the past. More timely signs suggest
that the economy could stall in this quarter. By early next year,
output and jobs could be shrinking. The main cause is the imploding
housing market. Experts said that house prices could never fall
nationwide. But fall they have, by 5% in the past 12 months.
Residential investment has collapsed, but a glut of unsold homes means
that prices have much further to drop. Americans' spending is likely to
be dented much more by a fall in house prices than it was in 2001 by
the stockmarket's collapse. With house prices lower and credit
conditions tighter as a result of the subprime crisis, households can
no longer borrow against capital gains to support their spending.
Dearer oil is set to squeeze households further (this week's drop
in crude prices notwithstanding). Consumer confidence has already
fallen sharply. It cannot be long before consumer spending stumbles,
which in turn would hurt companies' profits and investment. The weak
dollar will boost exports, but at only 12% of GDP, exports are too small to make up for a weakening of consumer spending, which accounts for 70%.
I want to break free
Will an American recession drag the rest of the world down with it?
The economies of Europe and Japan rebounded strongly in the third
quarter, but look likely to slow down. Although both should be able to
keep chugging along, neither is likely to set any great pace.
Strengthening currencies will hurt exporters in both places. Europe's
own housing hotspots are cooling, and some of its banks have been
sideswiped by America's subprime ills.
The best hope that global growth can stay strong lies instead with
emerging economies. A decade ago, the thought that so much depended on
these crisis-prone places would have been terrifying. Yet thanks
largely to economic reforms, their annual growth rate has surged to
around 7%. This year they will contribute half of the globe's GDP
growth, measured at market exchange rates, over three times as much as
America. In the past, emerging economies have often needed bailing out
by the rich world. This time they could be the rescuers.
Of course, a recession in America would reduce emerging economies'
exports, but they are less vulnerable than they used to be. America's
importance as an engine of global growth has been exaggerated. Since
2000 its share of world imports has dropped from 19% to 14%. Its vast
current-account deficit has started to shrink, meaning that America is
no longer pulling along the rest of the world. Yet growth in emerging
economies has quickened, partly thanks to demand at home. In the first
half of this year the increase in consumer spending (in actual dollar
terms) in China and India added more to global GDP growth than that in America.
Most emerging economies are in healthier shape than ever (see article).
They are no longer financially dependent on the rest of the world, but
have large foreign-exchange reserves—no less than three-quarters of the
global total. Though there are some notable exceptions, most of them
have small budget deficits (another change from the past), so they can
boost spending to offset weaker exports if need be.
This does not mean emerging economies will grow fast enough to make
up for the whole of a fall in America's output. Most of them will slow
a bit next year: for instance, China's growth rate may dip to “only”
10%. So global growth will ease—which, after five years at an average
of almost 5%, close to its fastest pace ever, it needs to do. But
thanks to the vigour of the new titans, it will stay above its 30-year
average of 3.5%.
A tale of two prices
The rising importance of the world's new giants will not only boost
growth. It will also shift relative prices, notably those of oil and
the dollar. And the consequences of this will be less comfortable for
developed countries, especially America.
The oil price has risen mainly because of strong demand in emerging
economies, which have accounted for as much as four-fifths of the total
increase in oil consumption in the past five years. In past American
recessions the oil price usually fell. This time it is likely to hold
up. That will not only hurt the finances of Western consumers, but may
also make the jobs of their central bankers harder, by combining
inflationary pressure with economic slowdown.
The enfeebled dollar—lately in sight of $1.50 to the euro—would be
weaker still without enormous purchases by central banks in emerging
economies. This support is now waning. China and others are putting a
smaller share of increases in reserves into the American currency. And
Asian and Middle Eastern countries with currencies linked to the dollar
are facing rising inflation, but falling American interest rates make
it harder to tighten their own monetary policy. They may have to let
their currencies rise against the sickly greenback, meaning they will
need to buy fewer dollars. More important, as international investors
wake up to the relative weakening of America's economic power, they
will surely question why they hold the bulk of their wealth in dollars.
The dollar's decline already amounts to the biggest default in history,
having wiped far more off the value of foreigners' assets than any
emerging market has ever done.
The vigour of emerging economies is good news for the world
economy: for its growth, it has much less need of a strong America. The
bad news for America is that this, in turn, may mean that the world
also has less need of the dollar".
Nov 15th 2007
From The Economist(R) print edition
Une bonne blague à lire ce matin sur Bloomberg :
"C'est le nouveau thème dominant des commentaires sur l'économie du monde : l'inflation menace. Aux Etats-Unis, la Réserve fédérale relève que les prix ont dérapé de 2,8 % sur la dernière période annuelle glissante. En Europe, la BCE anticipe jusqu'à la fin de 2008 une dérive nettement supérieure aux 2 % considérés comme le plafond acceptable. Or elle s'accompagne de perspectives moroses et d'une croissance molle, d'à peine 2 %, selon la plupart des projections. Sans aller jusqu'à évoquer une nouvelle stagflation (combinaison d'inflation et de stagnation), on est conduit à diagnostiquer un dérèglement sournois des repères monétaires sans dynamique économique. On ne classerait pas non plus celle-ci dans la catégorie des inflations par la demande, notamment aux Etats-Unis et en Allemagne, ni dans celle, domestique, des inflations par les coûts, principalement salariaux. Et, pourtant, elle roule. Le paradoxe apparent est qu'elle nous vient de la libération mondiale des échanges, laquelle est censée, au contraire, faire pression sur les prix grâce à la concurrence exercée par les nouveaux producteurs. Dans ce nouveau puzzle, il faut analyser.
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