When Eric Cantona speaks Finance

The Former footballer Eric Cantona has called on a new form of direct protest - a mass cash withdrawal - to bring down the banks. So what would happen if everyone tried to withdraw their savings? From the footballer who once kung-fu kicked an abusive fan, a new form of direct action without any violence. Take your money out of the banks and spark their collapse, says Eric Cantona, in advice to the students and public sector workers holding protests in France and the UK."We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution," says the French former Manchester United star in a newspaper interview that has been filmed and widely viewed on YouTube. "It's not complicated. Instead of going on the streets and driving kilometres by car you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money, and if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money the system collapses. No weapons, no blood, or anything like that."

So how effective would this form of protest be? In the very unlikely circumstance of everyone heeding Cantona's call, there are obvious practical hurdles preventing that number of people getting to cashpoints or queueing up in branches to withdraw their savings.But setting those aside, the banks would need to find more cash, because only about 5-10% of people's savings are kept in banks' tills. The rest is lent out or invested."Banks only keep a small fraction of their deposits as cash, so the cash machines would run out and cash in the branches would run out," says Richard Wellings, deputy editorial director of the Institute of Economic Affairs."They could go to the Bank of England [for some cash] or they could sell assets to release cash but they probably wouldn't bother because it would just be a temporary blip."Although some branches may have to close, it would be very different from a conventional run on a bank because depositors would know it was related to a protest and not an underlying problem with the bank, so confidence would not be hit in the same way, says Mr Wellings. Furthermore, all deposits up to £50,000 are government-guaranteed, through the protection of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, so that would help strengthen confidence and prevent a panic. All their digital transfers would carry on as normal, this would just affect the physical payments of cash. These could be rationed or temporarily halted. "The only effect it would have is to inconvenience a lot of people when they go to the cash machine and try to withdraw their money but find there's no cash there. But it would not cause the collapse of the banking system. Notwithstanding the big problems, I can't see it having much of an effect in reality." When there is a run on a single bank for reasons of confidence, then the government can step in, as it did for Northern Rock in 2007. But if there was ever a collective panic sparked by a mass withdrawal against all the banks, then the consequences are far more serious. In 2001 during the Argentinian economic crisis, large numbers of people began taking their cash out of the banks, so all bank accounts were frozen for months.
If we will listen to the suggestion of Cantona, we will not be surprised to see soon an international committeeformed by Zidane, Cantona, Roberto Carlo, Maldini and Messi to resolve the finnacial global crash.

Le marché de change en parfaite ébullition

Entre le 30 novembre et le 1er décembre 2010 la paire EURO/USD a évolué en dents de scie avec un apogée à 1.3180 et un périgée à 1.2968 (des entreprises se sont intervenues pour acheter vers 11h30, une banque asiatique a acheté massivement vers 7h00, une maison de titre anglaise a vendu vers 11h34 et une échéance d'une option vers 11h35): incontestablement, le FOREX présente des opportunités réelles pour faire de l'interday. Mieux, ces derniers temps, le forex trace manifestement l'évolution du marché des actions.

A mon sens, en prennat en compte l'endettemlent des états européens et les taux d'empreunts de plusieurs d'entre eux, rien ne justifie le décalage important entre l'Euro et le USD : l'Allemagne 2.6%, la France 3%, L'Espagne 5%, le Portugal 7% et l'Irlande 8%. Dans le cas où l'Espagne (4ème économie de la zone EURO) tombe, il faudra plus que 480 Milliards d'Euros pour le sauver; et donc l'éclatement de l'Euro serait envisageable. La vraie zone de valorisation des l'Euro est désormais autour du 1.20 $. Ce niveau un compromis entre croissance possitive et exportation. Le cas échéant, il faudra un euro à deux vitesses : un euro fort pour l'allemagne et ses pays satellites et un Euro faible pour le reste (A ce jour, seuls la France, le pays bas, la Finlande, l'Autriche et l'Allemagne résistent séreinement à la tourmente du monde de la finance ). Cette solution est désormais va à l'encontre des fondement de la doctrine économique qui a fait enfanter l'UE mais ellle nous évitera le pire. A ce stade, je me demande où ce sont passés les 700 Milliards de garantie qui furent annoncés à la crise grecque et jusqu'à quand nous continueront à alimenter les marchés financiers en aspirine ? d'ailleurs, en comparant la crise grecque à la crise irlandaise (structurelement similaires), je me rends compte que les annonces spectaculaires et les réunions d'urgence du weekend ne sont plus suffisants pour rassurer les marchés. A quand la véritable restructuration qui attaqura les"produitstoxiques ". A quand la juste regmentation globale ? Rappelons le, les pays européens ne pourront en aucun cas lacher un pays europeen en agonie budgétaire : un ils lui partagent la meme monnaie; deux leurs banques ainsi que leurs assureurs sont directement exposés à ce pay.