jeudi 23 octobre 2008

Un article passionnant

Un article court et passionnant de Scott Reynolds Nelson, professeur d'histoire ... Sur la crise de 1873 et la "longue dépression" (1873-1896).

En substance, les comparaisons faites entre la crise de 1929 sont bien sur oiseuses sinon carrément contreproductives. Car entre la grande crise de surproduction du géant industriel enserré dans une politique monétaire restrictive et l'empire décadent vivant du crédit de ses fournisseurs nous ne sommes ni de près ni de loin dans un remake du scénario des années trente.

En revanche la comparaison avec la crise de 1873 qui démarre par un enrichissement sans cause sur la base d'UNE TRÈS LARGE SPÉCULATION IMMOBILIÈRE dans un empire décadent, l'Autriche sur fonds de montée en puissance d'un grand concurrent au delà des mers, les US ... Est des plus intéressantes.

La mauvaise nouvelle tombe rapidement. La crise mit longtemps à se résorber. Mais certains d'entre vous sur ce forum sont plus lucides que les analystes des banques et moins menteurs qu'un porte-parole gouvernemental ...

D'abord une ressource en français

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_D%C3%A9pression_1873_%C3%A0_1896

Ensuite les commentaires de l'historien en VO-US :

"As a historian who works on the 19th century, I have been reading my newspaper with a considerable sense of dread. While many commentators on the recent mortgage and banking crisis have drawn parallels to the Great Depression of 1929, that comparison is not particularly apt. Two years ago, I began research on the Panic of 1873, an event of some interest to my colleagues in American business and labor history but probably unknown to everyone else. But as I turn the crank on the microfilmreader, I have been hearing weird echoes of recent events.

When commentators invoke 1929, I am dubious. According to most historians and economists, that depression had more to do with overlarge factory inventories, a stock-market crash, and Germany’s inability to pay back war debts, which then led to continuing strain on British gold reserves. None of those factors is really an issue now. Contemporary industries have very sensitive controls for trimming production as consumption declines; our current stock-market dip followed bank problems that emerged more than a year ago; and there are no serious international problems with gold reserves, simply because banks no longer peg their lending to them.

In fact, the current economic woes look a lot like what my 96-year-old grandmother still calls “the real Great Depression.” She pinched pennies in the 1930s, but she says that times were not nearly so bad as the depression her grandparents went through. That crash came in 1873 and lasted more than four years. It looks much more like our current crisis."

La suite est ici:

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18