States have also become champions of cavalry

More look for the Red wire of the Lehman Brothers the Greek State Bank: this is the cavalry. Steps Lucky Luke, who always arrives late, but that of finance. Make the cavalry is borrow and repay, fill a discovered by creating another discovered in another account, cheat on value dates. An opaque technique, often fatal denouement, assimilated in France to of the scam. But in a finance where money was open, it had become a common practice.

That bankers lend more money collected to their depositors have long. Most often, they offer today funds they themselves borrowed from. And they spend their time playing with the deadlines for should not be short of money. Even the Caisse d'Epargne, which has long embodied the tranquility in the eyes of the French, has sometimes struggled to ends. This logic was etched in marble by Chuck Prince, former boss of the US Bank Citigroup, in July 2007, just before the first banking eruption: "When the music will stop in terms of liquidity, things are complicated." But as long as the music plays, you need to stand and dance. We still dance. "Except that sometimes, the music stops. More no one wants to lend. In technical jargon, it is said that "the interbank market to tends". To cause the collapse of the Lehman brothers Bank, September 15, 2008.

States have also become champions of cavalry. On the good 50 billion euros that the Greece should throw this year, more than half will be maturing debts. The France, she plans to borrow EUR 239 billion in 2010 to fund an abyssal 152 billion deficit but also to repay 87 billion. From 1997 until the explosion of his deficit in 2009, the State raised more capital to meet its commitments to its creditors to finance his budget impasse. All that is no problem as long as there is music. But if one day silent installs, if market blocks, it is immediate default. A disaster, because lenders disappear for a long time.

Firms are more cautious, although some etymologists argue that it is the questionable practices of "Knights of industry" which would have led to talk of "Cavalry". Certainly, they took the habit of juggling with their cash, placing and borrowing billions for a few days. But as of September 16, 2008, they have stopped net this high-flying, launching the most formidable race in the cash of history. They have slashed their spending (investment or advertising, unfortunately for the media), delayed their payments to the Urssaf, destroyed their stockpiles. In doing so, they triggered the brutal fall of never observed activity.

In a State of permanent Cavalry, bankers and States have continuously need to borrow to pay off. As if their blood depended on the willingness of the donors. If the music stops, the blood of the economy is likely to be blocked. The IMF can certainly act to the States "but its resources are now limited," said its Director General, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a few months ago. And if central banks can come to the rescue of the banks (they did much so for three years), or States, it is not in their genetic code. "The default is for me out of the question," was still the boss of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, Thursday last to exclude this perspective.

Sunday, the ECB undertook yet to buy problem of public duties, while Europe followed a 750 billion rescue plan to prevent asphyxiation of States. It is even more that the $ 700 billion of the Paulson plan forged in 2008 to oxygenate the banks. In the world of permanent Cavalry, must absolutely be a lender of last resort. With colossal means.