Several large companies Goodyear Caterpillar Duke Energy

U.S. authorities have mobilized against the threat of a "liquidity crisis" ("credit crunch"). The Dow Jones index broke yesterday, down the symbolic threshold of 10,000 points for the first time since October 2004, on increasing signs of contagion from the crisis of the credit to the real economy. This new threat, the Treasury and the Central Bank announced a series of emergency measures. In addition to implementing the study of unsecured loans and raising its short-term loans, the Federal Reserve (Fed) will double the level of liquidity available to the banks, $ 900 billion. According to the Paulson plan, it will also begin to pay interest on the reserves of banks filed with it. Finally, the "Working Group on financial markets" the White House, created after the 1987 crash and reactivated today, will be implemented, the more quickly, "toxic assets" $ 700 billion buyback plan of banks.

Growing doubts about the plan

In addition, the Fed and the Treasury will consult "market operators" to "provide additional aid on unsecured funding markets". A meeting is planned today in New York with a small number of banks to study the creation of a clearing house on the market "supply default swaps", in the heart of the crisis of credit.

Despite the announcement of these new emergency measures, most of the American banking fell yesterday morning from 6 to 12 on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to uncertainties on local finances of some States such as California, anxiety rises on inflation of the credit. Several large companies (Goodyear, Caterpillar, Duke Energy,...) are today obliged to tap into new emergency credit lines to meet their financing needs. Relapse of Wall Street is also explained by the net worsening of the economic climate, most economists for a fall in GDP in the next two quarters and unemployment to 8 end 2009.

The Fed's initiative in part to respond to criticism on the limits of the Paulson plan. The Fed "has exercised its authority beyond the normal regime for a Central Bank, and the method of the Treasury is appropriate", said yesterday its former Chairman, Paul Volcker, who approach to piecemeal of the Treasury has perhaps lacked consistency.

In the aftermath of its adoption by the United States Congress, the Wall Street $ 700 billion rescue plan is growing doubts about its effectiveness. For the Economist from Columbia University Edmund Phelps, "there is many reasons to believe that the Paulson plan will not succeed in cleaning up the balance sheets of the banks any time soon." "It could even aggravate the fact that banks are virtually insolvent," said the Nobel Prize in economics 2006. He joined Nouriel Roubini of New York University, who is convinced that American banks have priority need of an injection of liquidity and the guarantee of the Federal State should be extended to all bank deposits (and non-capped at $ 250,000). To better control the crisis of credit, many analysts believe that the Fed should resolve to lower its rate base before its next meeting, on 28 October..