主题：【文摘】玩火 - 美国和美元的幻觉 -- 倥偬飞人

Waiting for the signal

Alan Greenspan, the legendary former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, did much to feed the dollar illusion. Whenever skepticism increased, he raised the key interest rate. Any rise in the key interest rate also serves as a sort of risk premium for those who took their chances by investing in the dollar. When doubts about the sustainability of US economic growth were heard, Greenspan set out to dispel them immediately. For a man better known for his mumbling and preference to keep people in the dark about the financial world, he spoke with remarkable precision. "Overall, the household sector seems to be in good shape," he said in October of 2004. If the global financial market's managers worship Greenspan, then it's at least partly because he's given their dream a lease on life of several more years.

His successor has no other option but to do the same thing. He knows that every piece of advice issued by someone in his position will have consequences. If he issues a warning about the skewed state of the economy, the warning itself instantly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if he chooses a subtle formulation, the financial market will perfectly understand what he's saying. Everyone is waiting for the sign that the trend has reversed. No one is hoping for that sign, but no one can afford to miss it either.

At this point, a legitimate objection could be formulated: namely, that financial markets don't normally obey politicians. So why aren't the markets correcting themselves in this instance as they normally do? Who or what is preventing investors from behaving differently towards the dollar than they behaved towards New Economy stocks?

They're going to do it. The only question is when. Financial investors aren't tax collectors or accountants: Their job isn't that of a meticulous overseer. They love excess, and they regularly cause markets to overheat. After all, speculation is the business they're in, and being in that business involves living with the risk of going too far. Their professional attitude resembles that of race car drivers whose goal is victory and not avoiding accidents at all costs. What remains unclear is just how dramatic the crash will be. Experts have often forecast the effects of a dollar meltdown. If the downward trend were to begin, interest on credit would rise step by step in an attempt to curb devaluation. That way, the dollar crisis would spread from the world of currencies to the real world of factories, businesses and household accounts within days.

Major and minor private investments yield lower returns when interest rates climb. People would start to save, the economy would falter and eventually shrink. The first mass layoffs would arrive soon afterwards. US citizens would have to once more drastically reduce their level of consumption, as unemployment and waves of bankruptcy would shake up the country. Millions of households would become unable to pay back their bank loans. Then real estate prices and share values would begin to drop, having been overpriced for years and used as mortgages for consumer credit. When the real estate bubble bursts, consumption inevitably dwindles even further. The hunger for imports would fade, causing problems for exporting countries as well. It would only be a matter of days before newspapers would once more feature a term that seemed to have disappeared decades ago: world economic crisis.