我が政府は状況を悪化させている?
来る不況についての更なる兆し
by Danny Schechter
(2008年10月20日)
A View from Europe as the Crisis Goes Global and the Response remains Partial
PARIS, FRANCE, OCTOBER 19: The word CRISE is
plastered all over every magazine, newspaper and newsstand in Paris. It is big
news and the French public seems to think that its government acted swiftly to
stem(取り去る) it. Le Figaro reports a 60 percent approval rate for President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s strategy of promptly injecting money into banks to make the “crise
financiere” go away.
Sarkozy says, “there can be no freedom” without regulation and
quickly huddled(秘密裏に協議した) with George Bush at Camp David to try to coordinate strategies
along with the president of the EU. The hapless(不幸な) Bush will now “host” (ie. serve
refreshments(飲食物)) at a major Summit, like the one that led to the Bretton Woods
agreement setting up the financial system in the aftermath of World War II.
(It’s not clear why anyone even speaks to W because every time Bush speaks,
markets go down). It’s also not clear why all the efforts to “stabilize” the
economy seem to be making it more volatile.
Out in La Defense, an overdeveloped arrondisment known as
the Wall Street of Paris, where the banks and insurance companies are based, I
was filming interviews against the background of glass towers with the Arch d
Triomphe
(凱旋門) visible on the far horizon. There, a German businessman assured me that
the crisis will be “over by Monday” since his government is busily capitalizing,
or is it recapitalizing, its engines of Capitalism. (While the German public
makes a run on the bookstore for copies of Karl Marx’s Das
Kapital).
One young man has no idea what I am taking about when we ask him if
he is worried. He says he doesn’t really know what’s going on, and doubts it
will affect him since he has a Debit Card, not a credit card. Another(打ち明ける) confides
the worst that will happen is a “slow down.” We don’t have subprime loans in
Europe I am assured. Yes, maybe, I respond, but your banks invested in these
bogus(いんちきの) products, made billions and now are writing(価格を下げて) it all
down.
And then I followed my usual practice of interviewing people in “low places” who don’t feel
the need to hype(誇大に宣伝する) their companies. A grad student(大学院生) interning at a large bank that
was taken over(買収され) tells me that people who don’t follow finance have no clue about
what’s going on and how serious it is. He adds that the
companies and the media are not telling them
either.
“This is a much deeper problem,” he says, suggesting it
will “spill over
(あふれる)” and affect everyone. He described the atmosphere of panic and uncertainty
in the bank he works for where the new owner has yet to assert(強く主張する) control and no
one knows how long their jobs will last. He speaks of a climate of greed(強欲) that
led a small number of interconnected executives operating in their own bubble to
accumulate millions for themselves with no apparent concern about how it affects
others. This is the nature of financialization—rule by the credit and loan
complex. The newspaper LIBERATION calculates that 1700 billion have been spent
and guaranteed so far in Europe alone.
In a globalized world, despite national differences, customs and
regulatory regimes, the same market logic drove decisions, the same greed, and
may I add corruption(不正行為). France is still reeling(動揺して) from the revelation(暴露された事実) that one young
trader made and lost a $7 billion dollar bet with the bank’s money. His defense(抗弁):
we all do it, win some and lose some.
The crimes of the financial elite do not stay with the financial
elite. What’s been a slow motion crisis so far is quickly gathering force like a
hurricane building in strength. I made this point recently at a media conference
in Gabon in Africa where journalists from the Continent heard my warnings and
expressed some of their own fears about the deepening food
crisis.
Faxts(ファックス), a news service in Brisbane, Australia (not America,) picked
up a release on my talk.
“Africa is at great
risk,” he
says, noting that the International Monetary Fund has warned of “severe
consequences” including famines(飢饉). It could worsen hunger and certainly delay
development projects and millennium goals. African economists note the continent
could experience considerable repercussions(反動) as lending and investment abilities
tighten(きつくなる) in the industrialized world.’
The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) decried(公然と非難した) the
contrast between the rush to pump billions into western banks with the tepid(熱意の無い)
response to the food crisis in non-western
countries.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf says, "Borrowing, bank lending,
official development aid, foreign direct investment and workers' remittances(送金) -
all may be compromised(危うくされ) by a deepening financial
crisis."
There are no precise numbers yet about the impact of the financial
crisis on developing countries, said Josef Schmidhuber, senior economist at the
FAO's Global Perspectives Unit, but he noted that when industrialized countries
face a crisis, fewer people work and fewer remittances are sent to developing
countries.
Asia is being hit too, according to the Washington Post: “Investors
who helped build the financial boomtowns(新興都市) of developing countries in recent years
are now fleeing them, threatening to destabilize burgeoning(拡大する) economies and drag
the world into a deep recession.”
In America, as banks are bailed out the housing crisis gets worse
with l out of 6 homes “underwater” ie., worth less than owners are paying. This
prompts NY Times financial columnist Joe Nocera to ask, “Now that the government
has “saved” Wall Street — at least for the moment — hasn’t the time finally come
to save Main Street too?”
Apparently not. In fact, quiet as this is kept, the bailout may be
making matters worse, as the Naked Capitalism site explains:
“one of the big motivations behind the latest "let's save the
banks" initiative was (first) to get interbank lending going, but a second,
important goal was to facilitate mortgage lending, with the hope that volumes
would improve, and even better yet, rates.
Unfortunately, in another example of
unintended consequences, the improvement in interbank lending is occurring at a
glacial(氷河の動きのような) pace, while mortgage rates(不動産抵当貸付利率) went in the wrong
direction, and quickly to boot
(その上).
Layoffs(一時解雇) of state workers and cutbacks
are already starting. 1000 employees were laid off in Massachusetts last week
and emergency medical care
(医療) is
being slashed(大幅に削減され).”
“State budget cuts will hit two of the state's safety-net hospitals
particularly hard. Boston Medical Center has been notified(知らせられ) it will not be
reimbursed(払い戻され) $64 million for care delivered to low-income Medicaid patients last
fiscal year, and Cambridge Health Alliance will lose out on $40 million it had
been expecting…”
No wonder, the authorities fear civil unrest(不穏). No wonder
there are rumors of plans for martial law
(戒厳令). When people discover the damage done to their
retirement funds, or when credit cards stop working, there will be hell(地獄に居るような苦悩) to
pay.
Companies are cutting(削って) too. NBC Universal announced a
$500 million cutback(削減) with other media companies with battered(ぼろぼろになった)
stocks soon to follow suit(先例にならう). Alternative and independent media are
barely(かろうじて) hanging on
(ふんばって).
In a financialized world, where Wall Street gets sick, the world
catches the flu and then can’t ‘contain(食い止める) the contagion(感染).” What to do? The
political candidates are still skirting(回避して) the issues. The unions are largely
silent, and then what’s left of the left has yet to mount(しかける) a response although
plans by many organizations are afoot(計画中で) for another March(行進) on Wall Street on
October 24th. Because only a relatively few seem to
understand the issues, I proposed national teach-ins—but the response was
tepid(生ぬるい).
So what to do, mon cherie, what to do until the screw turns?
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