In the Asian miracle, some countries accelerated the pace of reform and opening up, relaxed financial control, freely convertible under capital, and foreign capital could freely enter and leave. In this way, foreign investment and technology projects have been accelerated, the economy has overheated and the speed is accelerating. The currencies of stock markets and property markets in various countries skyrocketed. By 1997, there were bubbles in the stock market, property market and foreign exchange market. Here, international hot money swarms to Asia on a large scale.
After the return of Hong Kong from 65438 to 0997, george soros's Quantum Fund, Tiger Fund and Long-term Capital Management Fund, led by the United States, took Thailand as a breakthrough and set off the Asian financial turmoil. Before the storm, the exchange rate between US dollar and Thai baht was 1: 25, which was fixed, that is, 1 US dollar could be exchanged for 25 Thai baht. The American economy developed upward in the 1990s, but there was something wrong with the Thai economy. Its real estate bubble and economic growth slowed down. How to maintain the exchange rate at 1: 25? The three major funds in the United States assembled hundreds of billions of dollars and rushed to Thailand as the first stop. Soros first borrowed 25 billion baht from the Bank of Thailand and then threw it out. At that time, the Thais panicked and worried about the devaluation of the Thai baht, and they all went to change the Thai baht into dollars. The panic is expanding, and more and more people are changing dollars. However, Thai banks have limited foreign exchange reserves. In the end, in the absence of US dollars, Thailand could only abandon the fixed exchange rate system and let the Thai baht float automatically, and then the Thai baht depreciated. The original 1: 25, if it is reduced to 1: 50, one dollar can be exchanged for 50 baht. The speculators exchanged $500 million for 25 billion baht and returned it to the Bank of Thailand. The remaining $500 million can be kept by themselves. Under the repeated attacks of international speculators, the Thai government was finally outnumbered and announced on July 2 1997 that it would abandon the fixed exchange rate system. On that day, the exchange rate of Thai baht against the US dollar fell 17%, and 1997 the Asian financial turmoil officially kicked off.
The financial turmoil spread rapidly, and the warmth of the Philippine peso, Indonesian rupiah and Malaysian ringgit collapsed, and even the Singapore dollar, which has always been strong, was hit. 19971in late October, international speculators turned to attack the linked exchange rate system of China and Hongkong. China and Taiwan Province Province voluntarily gave up the new Taiwan dollar exchange rate. In mid-June, 5438+065438+ 10, another financial storm broke out in South Korea, and the won plummeted, so the South Korean government urgently asked the International Monetary Fund for help. Many commercial banks and securities companies in Japan also went bankrupt. At this time, the financial turmoil in Southeast Asia turned into the Asian financial crisis.
1998 The Asian financial turmoil resumed, attacking the Indonesian dollar, Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, Thai baht and Philippine peso again, and the second round of plunge began. The exchange rate of Japanese yen against the US dollar dropped from 1 15: 1 at the end of June 1997 to1from May to June 1998. At the beginning of August, 1998, international speculators attacked Hong Kong again, and the Hang Seng Index of Hong Kong stocks fell from 16000 to more than 6600. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority used the Exchange Fund to enter the stock market and futures market, bought Hong Kong dollars sold by international speculators, and stabilized the exchange rate at HK$ 7.75 1 USD. At this time, the China government provided it with strong public opinion support and sufficient financial support, which made international speculators fail to do so in Hongkong. Hong Kong's linked exchange rate was preserved, but the stock market almost collapsed. The Asian financial crisis spread to Russia in the north. 1On August 7, 1998, the Russian central bank expanded the floating range of the ruble against the US dollar, delayed the repayment of foreign debts and suspended the trading of government bonds, which quickly led to the devaluation of the ruble by 70%. Russian stock market and foreign exchange market plunged all the way. It was this accident that made international speculators who invested huge sums of money in Russian stock market and bond market lose their vitality. In the end, a famous American long-term capital management company with a transaction volume of trillions of dollars went bankrupt, and financial speculators gave up without a fight. The Asian financial turmoil has just ended.
The picture of close cooperation and joint efforts of a huge interest group is fully displayed in front of us. The financial turmoil that swept across the wealth of Asian countries in the past 30 years was the result of the concerted efforts of Qi Xin, an American interest group. In front of them, there are vanguard troops of industrial companies, industrial capital and financial capital, and then BLACKPINK, which specializes in hot money, appeared. The flag-waving of American public opinion and the encouragement of rating agencies have contributed greatly. At the critical moment, the government came forward to support it, and it was entirely a large corps battle. Can several hedge funds do it independently?
Through this campaign, the United States finally found that "financial derivatives" are a good thing, easily pocketing such a large amount of wealth in Asia, and letting Asian countries return to the pre-flight overnight. Her destructive power is second only to atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. This prompted many Americans to change their wealth ideas: wealth was originally created through labor, but was later robbed by military wars. At this time, you can launch a financial war and secretly grab wealth. Speculators on Wall Street contributed a lot. This is a successful experiment.
1On June 5th, 1998, Greenspan, Rubin, Treasury Secretary and others, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, put pressure on the US Congress to freeze the supervision power of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for six months, in June, 1999, 1 1, pushing the US Congress to permanently cancel the supervision power of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on financial derivatives. Since then, financial derivatives have become the most powerful predatory national weapon in the United States under peaceful conditions. 1997 Asian financial turmoil, let the whole world witness the powerful arrogance of American financial hegemony and dollar hegemony. Europe cannot just sit back and wait.
1On May 2, 1998, the European Union announced that Germany, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Ireland and Finland had become founding members of the Euro. The euro officially circulated in the euro zone 1 1 countries from 1999 1. This is of great benefit to Europe: first, trade between European countries saves transaction costs; The second is to join hands against the dollar. The hegemonic position of the US dollar as the world currency is facing unprecedented challenges. Preventing the rise of the euro has become a difficult problem for the United States.
1998 10 10/3, the Kosovo crisis in the former Yugoslavia broke out in Europe. 199 1 year, 90% of Kosovo in Yugoslavia are Muslims. Albanians unilaterally declared the establishment of the "Republic of Kosovo" in 199 1, and then formed the "Kosovo Liberation Army" in an attempt to achieve national independence by force. 1On February 28th, 998, Albanian militants clashed with Serbian police. Since then, the conflict between the two ethnic groups has escalated and armed conflicts have continued. 1In August 1998, 200,000 Kosovo refugees were homeless, and the United Nations made a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire between the two parties to the conflict. Later, under the pressure of NATO, Yugoslavia announced that it would fully implement the Security Council resolutions, withdraw its troops from Kosovo under the supervision of international personnel, and start autonomy negotiations with Kosovo Albanians as soon as possible. 1998101On October 27th, NATO announced that it would suspend air strikes against Yugoslavia.
1 99965438+1October1Euro was born. The opening price is 1 euro pair 1. 17 USD. The world is optimistic about the euro. The dollar will not sit still.
1On March 24th, 1999, the Kosovo crisis resumed, and the NATO air force led by the United States began to bomb Serbia, and the Kosovo war officially broke out. After 73 days of fierce fighting, Yugoslavia was forced to accept the mediation plan of the United Nations, agreed to send peacekeeping troops to Kosovo, and finally let the United Nations take over Kosovo. Less than a year after the war, the euro fell to a minimum of 0.82. Kosovo has turned Europe into an unsafe area because of the war, and funds have to be withdrawn from Europe and the euro zone, so it is inevitable that the euro will plummet all the way.
Here is another episode: Clinton has a high IQ and represents the interests of the people in a greater sense than the Republican Party, but he doesn't know much about the upper political structure of Washington and new york, that is, the politics, economy and military of the United States have always been dominated by American capital groups, and the Clinton administration does not represent the interests of American capital groups. As a result, these capital groups created the "skirt incident", but in fact there was no "skirt incident", and other incidents will be found out. Finally, I put forward two conditions for Clinton: either to step down or to meet the conditions of capital interest groups. Clinton agreed to the latter condition. The capital groups in the United States are mainly oil, military industry and finance. Then the Kosovo war happened.
Asia has just experienced the financial crisis, Europe is still at war, the United States is safe and the dollar is stable. Unsurprisingly, money flowed wildly to the United States and the dollar. Negative and the European economic prospects are bleak, and the funds have chosen the United States and the US dollar.
The United States started the information technology revolution in the 1990s and found a new economic growth point-Internet, which is called the information superhighway project. With the advent of the high-tech era in the United States, capital from all over the world poured into the United States, into Silicon Valley, and into the Nasdaq stock exchange market established in 197 1, where they searched for gold.
Many high-tech companies in the United States attract funds from all over the world to the United States by listing on Nasdaq. After getting the money, these companies began to operate their own networks and high-tech companies. At that time, too many internet companies became rich overnight. The demonstration effect of this wealth makes more capital flow to high-tech and network. Later, with the advent of the Internet era, the United States made a large amount of funds flow into the United States from Asia, Europe and other parts of the world through the capital market, and there was a network investment fever. A lot of capital originally wanted to flow into the industry and into the company's money, but in the era of technology stocks, we simply took money to buy technology stocks and Internet companies' stocks in the Nasdaq market, so as to make money faster. As a result, a large amount of funds were injected into Nasdaq, which set off a wave of speculation on technology stocks and caused a great bubble in the stock market.
With the Asian financial turmoil of 1997 and the Kosovo artillery fire of 1999, the Nasdaq index rose from more than 1000 in running all the way to more than 5,000 in just two years.
But it didn't last long. By April 2000 14, the Nasdaq stock market bubble began to burst, falling from the highest point of 5300 to the lowest point of 1600 within one year. As a result, most companies went bankrupt. At this time, people realized that there were too many stock bubbles in listed companies engaged in the Internet and information superhighway in the United States, and their stock prices were artificially hyped, which was simply not worth that much money.
But the internet has made America. First, it attracted a lot of money from all over the world to the United States and made a strong dollar. The second is to establish the high-tech status of the United States in the world and accelerate the process of globalization. Third, the wealth model of the United States is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it has completed a large-scale primitive accumulation of wealth at such a fast speed.
But the two extremes met. With the bursting of the internet bubble, Europe stopped fighting, the euro zone became safe, and funds began to flow to Europe. The euro against the US dollar started from 1: 0.82 and reached the level of 1: 1.56 in 2008, which made the strong position of the US dollar face unprecedented challenges. When the Nasdaq bubble burst, the American capital market lost its attraction to capital. However, the Asian economy is gradually recovering here. After Kosovo, Europe returned to calm, capital began to flow back to Asia and Europe, and the capital flowing into the United States became less and less. The capital flowing into the United States in199 was $700 billion, in 2000 it was $300 billion, and in 200 1 year it was 100 billion.
200 1 September 1 1. Al-Qaida terrorists headed by Osama bin Laden hijacked four passenger airliners, two of which crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, one crashed into a corner of the Pentagon in Washington, and the other crashed ahead of schedule on the way to the Capitol due to the resistance of passengers. Terrorist organizations attacked the United States. Broke the myth of America's safest. International funds began to invest heavily in euros.
This time, it never rains but it pours. After the "9. 1 1" incident, the funds were withdrawn at an accelerated pace, which finally forced the fraud of American companies to surface one after another. Large multinational companies such as Enron, Andersen, Xerox, Lucent Technology, WorldCom, etc. are all making false accounts, and finally they all fall down. The United States is facing large-scale capital flight, and the American economic myth is shattered.
The "9. 1 1" incident severely hit the confidence of Americans, and the financial scandal shattered the myth of big American companies all over the world. In this case, the United States has to do everything possible to divert the attention of the world.
Because of the "9. 1 1" incident, Americans hated terrorism, and Iraq became one of the biggest sources of terrorism, plus historical grievances. The United States wants to fight Iraq, but the United Nations firmly forbids it. Most countries strongly oppose it, but the United States insists on fighting. On March 20, 2003, the Iraq war broke out. The most advanced weapons used by the United States: B2 stealth bomber, cruise missile launched at sea, M 1 main battle tank, etc. Immediately turned the focus of world public opinion to Iraq.
The United States launched the Iraq war, killing many birds with one stone: First, it diverted the world's attention to the American financial scandal in time. The second is to wage war to stimulate the demand for arms. Third, soaring oil and gold stimulated the demand for dollars. The fourth is the power to control Iraq's oil depots, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and petrodollars. Fifth, it shows the political and military hegemony of the United States in the world.
This shows that in order to defend the hegemonic position of the dollar in the world, American capital groups will definitely do whatever it takes. For example, why do Americans hate Saddam so much because he is a dictator? Do you have to start a war and die quickly? Why did the CIA try to kill Chavez in the coup? Although there was an accident during the coup, Chavez was lucky to escape. It is because the two of them took the lead in changing the history of international oil settlement in dollars into euros. Because Iraq and Venezuela are both important members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, if these two countries take the lead in changing the settlement currency of international oil from US dollars to Euro, it may cause a domino effect, and many capital markets and financial markets will follow suit one after another, thus overthrowing the hegemony of the US dollar as a world currency, and American capital groups will lose their most important tool for controlling the world economy. The problem is that on June 5438+065438+ 10, 2000, Saddam Hussein's government decided to change the settlement of oil dollars into euros, and it was not changed into dollars until the end of the Iraq war in 2003. This is the real origin of the Iraq war. Although the Iraqi war temporarily solved the domestic crisis in the United States, it did not fundamentally change the fate of the United States' capital loss, twin deficits's surge and economic decline. When Iraq was attacked, the US war budget was about $50-60 billion. At that time, it was thought that it could be completed quickly. Results From 2003 to 2009, the United States spent six years in Iraq and spent more than 800 billion dollars. The Iraq war expanded the national debt, fiscal deficit and trade deficit of the United States. This is a very urgent situation facing the United States. This historical responsibility falls on American real estate. The American government made a choice around 2000, calling on Americans to buy houses. The Federal Reserve has also adopted a loose monetary policy, cut interest rates continuously, and the loan interest rate is very low, using real estate to boost the American economy and keep it prosperous. Encourage poor Americans to buy houses and create real estate prosperity. Create a bigger bubble to block the black hole left by another bubble.
There are 350 million people in the United States, and many people have not bought a house. Search the rich people who have houses first, and let them buy villas again, so that the middle class who live in small houses can live in big houses. How much real estate demand will be created if the blue-collar class without housing is further mobilized to buy a house. Subprime loans are gradually formed:
First, commercial banks issue subprime loans.
At first, people with high credit ratings bought houses. Later, there were fewer and fewer high-quality customers, and business was not good. Commercial banks have relaxed conditions so that people with low credit ratings can buy houses, and they can make money by selling goods. But the rules of commercial banks still get in the way. What should I do? Fake! As long as the lender agrees to buy a house, although the credit is poor, the commercial bank can fill in his credit record as excellent, and then it can apply for a mortgage loan. It's just that the interest rate of commercial banks lending to high-quality customers is 5%, and lending to people with low credit rating is 10%. Such a spread is very profitable for commercial banks.
Commercial banks tell people who can't afford a house that they can stay if they spend $300,000 to buy a house and make a down payment of $30,000. In a few years, if the house price rises to $500,000, you will sell the house and return the principal and interest of $300,000 to the main bank, leaving a profit of $200,000. If you can't afford a down payment of 30%, then a down payment of 20%, or 10%, is really impossible. If you have no income or low income, you can't pay the monthly payment. You can start again after three years, but the interest is higher. In this way, people who can't afford a house can afford it. As more and more people buy houses, house prices will rise. People who buy houses are very happy. They either own a house or wait for the property to appreciate. There is no risk for buyers, because commercial banks have already paid for buyers with loans.
Second, commercial banks sell subordinated debt to investment banks.
Both buyers and sellers are happy. Commercial banks bear all risks. Moreover, once the house price falls and the buyer doesn't pay, the house will be worthless and the bank will face huge losses. In this way, commercial banks pool all mortgage loans to form mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The usual mortgage interest rate is 5%, and the subprime interest rate is 10%. You can sell it to an investment bank at 6% interest rate and earn the remaining 4%. In this way, the risk of subprime loans has shifted from commercial banks to investment banks.
Third, investment banks package them and sell them to the world.
After purchasing these mortgage-backed securities, investment banks began to design financial derivatives. They also packaged them and turned them into subordinated bonds-CDOs. The deposit interest rate of the bank is only 1%, and the interest rate of subordinated bonds is set at 10%, which is sold to the big customers of investment banks. In this way, subprime loans were sold all over the world.
The fourth is to insure the subordinated debt.
In order to dispel investors' worries about buying subordinated bonds of investment banks, investment banks have designed a new product-Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which allows investors who buy subordinated bonds to buy credit default swaps if they are worried about risks, so that insurance companies can bear some risks. For example, if an investor buys $500,000 subordinated bonds, he goes to an insurance company to buy credit default swaps, and after paying a 3% premium, if something goes wrong here, the insurance company there will be responsible for making up the losses. If nothing happens, the insurance company will make a lot of money. In this way, subprime loans were generously sold to the whole world.
Just as the financial war between the American capital group and the American government was a great success, a series of financial crises happened:
On April 4th, 2007, New Century Financial Company filed for bankruptcy protection.
On August 6, 2007, the American Residential Mortgage Investment Corporation, the tenth largest mortgage service provider in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection.
On September 7, 2008, the US Treasury Department had to announce the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
On July 16, 2007, Bear Stearns, the fifth largest investment bank on Wall Street, closed its two hedge funds, which was the first time that the company suffered losses since its establishment 83 years ago. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve urged Bank of JPMorgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns.
On September 5, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection.
On the evening of September 15, 2008, Bank of America issued a statement expressing its willingness to acquire Merrill Lynch, the third largest investment bank in the United States.
On September 16, 2008, American International Group (AIG) provided $85 billion in short-term emergency loans. This means that the US government stepped in to take over AIG.
On September 2 1 2008, after the collapse of Wall Street investment banks, the Federal Reserve announced that it would turn the last two investment banks, Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley, into commercial banks. In this way, we can tide over the difficulties by absorbing deposits.
So far, on September 2, 20081day, history drew an amazing full stop for Wall Street investment banks, and "Wall Street investment banks" disappeared as a historical term.
10 On June 3, the Bush administration signed a financial rescue plan totaling 700 billion US dollars.
The outbreak of the financial crisis in the United States has greatly impacted the real economy in the United States, including General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Chrysler, and the real industry is at stake.
The American financial tsunami also involved the whole world and affected the whole world.
200965438+1On October 20th, the new US President Barack Obama was sworn in.
(This part is taken from Yang's article "Analysis of the Process and Causes of the 2008 American Financial Crisis")