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Theme: International Cooperation in the Financial Crisis

Topic overview

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States with a history of 158, filed for bankruptcy. Greenspan called the United States into a once-in-a-century financial crisis.

By 2009, the financial crisis has swept the world.

The financial crisis is characterized by people's expectation that the future economy will be more pessimistic. The currency of the whole region has depreciated sharply, resulting in huge losses in economic aggregate and scale, which has hit economic growth. It is often accompanied by a large number of business failures, rising unemployment rate, general economic depression in society, and sometimes even social unrest or national political turmoil.

Financial crisis can be divided into currency crisis, debt crisis and banking crisis. In recent years, the financial crisis has increasingly presented some mixed forms of crisis.

Former Deputy Prime Minister China the State Council once pointed out that the financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States is getting worse. At present, the financial crisis has not yet bottomed out, and its impact on the real economy is deepening, and its serious consequences will gradually emerge. China is willing to cooperate with the international community to ease the financial crisis.

The financial crisis is a worldwide disaster. All countries in the world should pay close attention to the changes in the international economic situation and participate in international cooperation to alleviate the financial crisis in a more active manner. The continued unity of governments will be decisive for overcoming this crisis. Nowadays, in the fields of finance and many global interdependence and connections, we cannot overemphasize and exaggerate international cooperation beyond national boundaries, but in fact, many problems cannot be solved by the government itself. Therefore, it is very important to strengthen international cooperation in the financial crisis, which is also a major challenge facing all countries in the world.

The first part of the financial crisis

First, the causes of the financial crisis

Rome was not built in a day. Although the global financial crisis broke out and spread in September 2008, its fuse was buried several years or even decades ago.

1. The improper real estate financial policy of the US government has laid the groundwork for the crisis. Owning a house was once part of the American dream. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, domestic demand in the United States was sluggish. One of the decisions of Roosevelt's New Deal was to set up Fannie Mae to provide housing financing for citizens, help people buy houses and stimulate domestic demand. 1970, the United States established Freddie Mac, which was the same size as Fannie Mae. Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are privately held enterprises, they enjoy the privileges of implicit government guarantee, so their bonds have the same rating as US Treasury bonds. Since the end of last century, with the loose monetary policy, asset securitization and the accelerated innovation of financial derivatives, the implicit guarantee scale of Fannie and Freddie has expanded rapidly, and the mortgage loans directly held and guaranteed by them and the securities backed by mortgage loans have exploded from $740 billion in 1990 to $4.9 trillion by the end of 2007. In the process of rapid business development, "Fannie and Freddie" ignored the quality of assets, which became the "hotbed" of the subprime mortgage crisis.

2. The abuse of financial derivatives prolongs the chain of financial transactions and encourages speculation. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac attract financial institutions such as investment banks by buying illiquid loans from commercial banks and mortgage companies and converting them into bonds for sale in the market through asset securitization, while investment banks use "exquisite" financial engineering technology to divide, package, combine and sell them. In this process, the initial one-yuan loan can be enlarged into financial derivatives of several yuan or even ten yuan, thus lengthening the chain of financial transactions. In the end, no one cares about the true basic value of these financial products, which further encourages the occurrence of short-term speculation. The greed behind speculation intensifies speculation.

3. American monetary policy added fuel to the fire. In response to the bursting of the Internet bubble around 2000, from May 438, 2006 to June 2003, the Federal Reserve continuously lowered the federal funds rate 13 times, from 6.5% to the lowest level in history, and stayed at the level of 1% for one year. Low interest rates prompted Americans to invest their savings in assets, and banks issued too many loans, which directly led to the continuous expansion of the US real estate bubble. Moreover, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy also "lures" the market into an expectation: as long as the market is depressed, the government will certainly rescue the market, so the whole Wall Street is filled with speculation. However, when the monetary policy is constantly tightened, the real estate bubble begins to burst, and the default rate of the low credit class rises first, and the ensuing default frenzy begins to sweep all ambitious financial institutions eager to make money.

Second, the impact of the financial crisis on the world.

Unemployment situation

The International Labour Organization made this worrying prediction in its annual report "World Employment Trends" released today. According to the report, the world unemployment rate will rise to 7. 1% in 2009. The organization takes the expected data of world economic growth published by the International Monetary Fund as the basis for calculation and prediction.

Juan, Director-General of the International Labour Organization? Somavia pointed out that since the International Monetary Fund lowered its forecast of world economic growth in 2009 today, the forecast of unemployment rate and new unemployed population this year also needs to be adjusted accordingly. The unemployment rate forecast released by the organization in 2009 is 6. 1%.

According to Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao website (65438+29 October), the International Labour Organization said on the 28th that the global economic crisis has turned into an employment crisis, and by the end of this year, the world may lose 5 1 10,000 jobs.

The report also mentioned: "If the economic recession deepens this year, the global employment crisis will deteriorate rapidly." The report said: "We can expect that many people will get worse income and working conditions in order to keep their jobs."

According to the latest trend forecast, the newly increased unemployment is mainly in developing countries.

According to the estimation of the International Labour Organization, the unemployment rate in North Africa and the Middle East was the highest at the end of last year, reaching 10.3% and 9.4% respectively, 8.8% in Central and Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe and the former Soviet Union, 7.9% in sub-Saharan African countries and 7.3% in Latin America. East Asia is the best region in the world, with an unemployment rate of 3.8%.

The high unemployment rate has brought a lot of troubles to mankind and also created panic. The economic crisis of 1929 caused the unemployment rate of 25% in the United States and Germany, which accelerated the outbreak of World War II. For that period of history, modern people can only look for it in Hollywood movies. But now, the unemployment tide has spread from Wall Street to the whole world. The British "Guardian" once asserted that "in most countries, it is very dangerous for the unemployment rate to exceed 10%, which makes the society on the verge of large-scale protests and riots". Now, even the unemployment rates in Oman and Qatar, the oil-producing countries in the Gulf, have reached 17% and 12%. Some experts believe that in a sense, the world will enter the era of unemployment, and in the future, the unemployment problem will plague many countries. Whether the unemployment problem can be handled well is related to the stability of these countries and also determines whether these countries can recover quickly from the economic crisis.

The global unemployment "list" is shocking.

65438+February 22nd, this day for Donna of 5 1 year old? For Anderson, this means that "the days of independence, self-sufficiency, working and dedication for American society" are over. She became one of the first 35 people to be fired from top American companies. She will have to live with her children after losing her job. Johnson? Bowen was not the first person to be fired, but he had a hunch that he would soon lose his job. To his headache, he just bought a new house and may not be able to pay the mortgage.

This is just a microcosm of the global high unemployment tide. The financial crisis and subsequent economic recession led to a global unemployment frenzy. According to American government statistics, the national unemployment rate reached 6.7% in June from 5438+065438+ 10, setting a new record of monthly unemployment rate in 34 years. Agence France-Presse reported on February 24th that the number of unemployed people in the United States has increased by 586,000 in the past four weeks. The number of new unemployed people in Canada in the month was 1 10000, and the unemployment rate rose from 5.3% in the previous month to 6.3%, which not only set a new record for the number of new unemployed people in a single month since 1982, but also was more than three times as expected.

Contrary to people's imagination, the hardest hit areas of unemployment are not financial and high-tech industries. According to the statistics of the US Department of Labor, the industries with the fastest rising unemployment rate in the United States are manufacturing, construction, retail, finance, entertainment and service. In response to the financial crisis, many well-known enterprises around the world have laid off employees. The number of unemployed people caused by this move is enough to pull out a shocking ranking: Citibank laid off 73,000 people; Bank of America laid off 35,000 people: General Motors laid off 34,000 people: 23,000 people lost their jobs after the collapse of Lehman Brothers; DHL Express Company laid off employees10.5 million; Starbucks laid off 1.2 million people, and Sony of Japan laid off 8,000 full-time; Another 8,000 seasonal and temporary workers will also be laid off. ...

At the same time, it is easy to be overlooked that the highest unemployment rate in the world is not those rich countries and large enterprises that frequently appear in the world media. Because the United States is the world's largest economy with strong self-adjustment ability, although it is the source of financial turmoil and a country that paid early attention to high unemployment rate, the horizontal comparison unemployment rate is not high. This wave of unemployment has already crossed national boundaries, and there has been a vicious circle of mutual spread and transfer. Some economists believe that in the unemployment tide triggered by the financial crisis, the "dominoes" that were finally knocked down are the vast number of developing countries, which will be worse than the United States and bear the weight of all the fallen cards. If the United States predicts that the unemployment rate will be 7% next year, the unemployment rate in some Asian and African countries with improved economies will be five or six times higher. Take Angola, whose economy was "turned over" by the oil industry as an example. In 2005, the unemployment rate was as high as 80%, and it dropped to 25% at the beginning of this year. However, due to the chain reaction of the global economy, it rose to 40% in June165438+1October. In Asian countries that are good at export processing industry, due to the economic recession in Europe and America, orders received by some light industry, toys and household appliances enterprises have dropped sharply, leading to a large number of factory closures and rising unemployment rate of workers.

The total population of Arab countries is about 300 million, but the World Bank reported last year that the number of unemployed people in Arab countries will reach 654.38+200 million in the next 10 year. Ahmad, head of the Middle East region of the United Nations Development Programme, said recently that due to the international financial tsunami, the average unemployment rate in Middle East countries has reached 15%, and the unemployment rate of young people aged 5 to 25 is as high as 40%. Arab Market Network reported on the 24th that in the last two months, the Gulf countries laid off more than 30,000 people in the fields of finance, stock market and real estate, and the average wages of major companies also dropped by about 40%. Harlem, chairman of the Arab Committee of Experts on Management and Construction Industry and an expert on human resources? Salam said that the annual unemployment rate in Arab countries is rising at the rate of 3%, which is the highest in the world.

The wave of unemployment has also had a great impact on Russia. Yevgeny, an economist and head of the Social Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted that "the official unemployment rate in Russia, which has been below 6%, will double in 2009". Former Prime Minister kasyanov recently thought that the number of unemployed people in Russia will double next year, reaching11million. Employment is also the biggest livelihood issue in China. According to the Social Blue Book published by China Academy of Social Sciences in mid-June+February, 5438, the actual unemployment rate in China in 2008 was 9.4%.

The unemployment tide has brought great trouble to mankind.

The concept of modern unemployment was first put forward by Pigou, a famous British economist, in 19 14. Pigou mentioned "friction unemployment" in his book On Unemployment, that is, some people need to move in different jobs because of economic adjustment or imbalance in resource allocation, and they are unemployed because they are waiting to change jobs. The earliest global high unemployment wave broke out in the late 1920s. During the Great Depression in the early 1930s, 1928 the unemployment rate in Europe and America was around 2%, but 1933 the unemployment rate in Germany, the United States and other countries was as high as 25%, with an average of 1 person out of work for every four people. The global economic crisis and high unemployment rate also accelerated the outbreak of World War II. After World War II, in order to cope with the global employment problem and improve the labor situation, the United Nations also established a specialized agency, the International Labour Organization.

In the encyclopedias edited in the Soviet era, unemployment is considered as a problem that only exists in the capitalist system. In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union announced the complete elimination of unemployment. It was not until a few months before the disintegration that Soviet officials first admitted the existence of unemployment. In the early 1990s and during the 1998 Russian economic crisis, there were two major unemployment waves in Russia. Now, the financial crisis has caused Russia to encounter the third unemployment peak. Many Russian media believe that it is only the beginning of the peak of unemployment, and the real peak has not yet arrived. People are generally pessimistic about the prospect of the economic crisis and full of panic about the future employment situation.

In addition to war, global unemployment has also caused many serious social problems. Unemployment will increase the crime rate, and even the rampant pirates in Somalia have the shadow of high unemployment rate. In developed countries, around the unemployment problem, not only various trade unions organized demonstrations, but also serious riots occurred in France, Greece and other countries in the last two years.

Besides, unemployment will reduce people's loyalty. San Antonio Business Magazine reported on February 23rd that employees facing dismissal will pose a security threat to the company. According to a survey of 226 employees on Wall Street by Cyber Ark, an American network security company, 58% employees said they might take away the company's important data. Half of the respondents admitted that they downloaded sensitive trade secret data and used it as a negotiation tool to keep their jobs. 62% employees said it was easy to leak company information.

Governments and companies around the world are nervous.

The high unemployment rate has hidden unstable factors, which has become one of the most intractable problems in various countries. To this end, governments and enterprises all over the world are struggling to find countermeasures. Russian "New Policy" magazine 65438+February 23 quoted Russian experts as saying that speeding up infrastructure construction is a good way to solve the unemployment problem, and the infrastructure problem has not been solved in Russia for a long time. Mironov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council, said on June 17 that the construction of roads, houses and other public projects will help solve the unemployment problem. According to the Russian "Independent" reported on the 23rd, in order to reduce expenses, Vaz Automobile Factory, Russia's largest automobile manufacturer, extended the New Year holiday to February 2nd next year by giving employees a long holiday. During this period, although wages are paid as usual, employees can't get the usual allowance, which makes the expenditure of enterprises relatively reduced. This relieves the pressure on enterprises to a certain extent, and at the same time, it will not make employees unemployed. According to the French "Express" reported on the 24th, some French enterprises began to implement the "compulsory vacation" system.

In the United States, more and more employers try their best to cut labor costs without firing employees. For example, Dell began to extend unpaid leave, Cisco stopped work for four days at the end of the year, Motorola reduced its salary, Nevada casino began to work four days a week, Honda adopted a voluntary unpaid leave system, and Seattle Times Company "ordered" 500 employees to take unpaid leave for one week. ...

In San Francisco, a network design company laid off a large number of employees when the 200 1 network bubble burst. But Maria, the boss of the company, said that this measure was very painful and she didn't want to repeat it. This time, she adopted the method of cutting dividends. Jennifer, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California? Kaitman said that these methods will help to cultivate employees' loyalty to the company and save the cost of recruiting new employees and training in the future. However, Bulho, a professor of economics at Yale University, believes that this "magnanimity" will not last long. If employees' behavior of sacrificing personal interests seems to last for a long time, they will be disappointed and hope to get all the compensation back. "At present, these measures are only temporary measures."

At present, the measures taken by Arab countries to solve the unemployment problem are unique. A joint-venture chemical plant in Egypt stipulates that if a foreign company wants to win the bid, it must solve the local surplus labor force according to the ratio of 1:20, that is, if there are 1 foreigner, it must place 20 Egyptians in employment. In addition, in view of the large number of disabled people, Saudi Arabia and other countries stipulate that enterprises with more than 50 employees must employ disabled people. South Korea's Chosun Ilbo reported on the 24th that in order to solve the problem of youth unemployment, the South Korean government decided to hire 54,000 young people for internships next year, and specially held a meeting of the "Employment Countermeasures Task Force" for this purpose.

Unemployment may stimulate a new round of growth.

Ding Gang, a senior editor of China People's Daily, believes that the difficulty in obtaining employment is an inevitable problem at a certain stage of modernization, and it will exist for a long time with the development of human society. Of course, during the economic crisis, the unemployment problem will be more serious. Different countries have different ways to solve the unemployment problem, which is closely related to the social structure of this country. Now we see that the unemployment rate in the United States is rising very fast, on the one hand, because American enterprises have been hit hard by the crisis, on the other hand, it also shows that the American economy is dynamic. Carrying employees behind your back in the company means getting rid of the burden, quickly dispersing the pressure and spending more financial resources on research and development and expanding reproduction. This mechanism will stimulate a new round of growth in the United States.

Ding Gang believes that the increase of unemployment rate will not cause great social unrest in the United States. First, the social relief capacity of the United States is much stronger than that of 1929 during the Great Depression, and the investment of ordinary individuals and families in social security has also increased a lot; Second, the United States is an immigrant society. For immigrants who pursue the "American dream", although the economic crisis has lowered their living standards, their tolerance is still relatively strong. Today, the unemployment rate in the United States is rising fastest, which means that the United States will take the lead in getting out of the crisis in the near future. On the contrary, some European countries have a heavy burden of welfare policies, making it difficult for enterprises to get out of the predicament.

For a country, it is necessary to solve the employment problem for a long time, strengthen vocational training, and let the labor force adapt to economic transformation as soon as possible. Unemployment is painful for individuals, and training and re-employment require patience. In some cases, people should also help each other. Brandeis University is a famous private university in the United States. William, a professor at the school, recently called on all teachers to voluntarily deduct 1% of their salary to save costs for the school and avoid firing colleagues. William said that more than 30% teachers have voluntarily reduced their salaries, saving the school $654.38 million+and saving several colleagues who are in danger of being fired.

economy

The overall situation of the world

-Algerian Finance Minister Karim attending the meeting in Washington? Judy 1 1 said in an interview with Algerian news agency that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank believe that Algeria's economy is limited by the international financial crisis, mainly because Algeria's financial industry is underdeveloped and relatively isolated in the global economy. However, the decline in oil prices in the international market has had a relatively negative impact on Algeria's balance of payments based on oil and natural gas.

-Asaf, Saudi Finance Minister, stressed on June1/KLOC-0 that relying on high oil revenue and abundant fiscal surplus, Saudi Arabia's original economic development plan will not be affected by the current world financial crisis. Asaf pointed out that the impact of the world financial crisis on the Saudi stock market is indirect and temporary. In the third quarter of this year, the major banks in Saudi Arabia generally achieved outstanding results and their profits continued to grow, so there was no risk of bank mortgage.

-Argentine Minister of Economy Carlos? Fernandez 1 1 attending the G20 meeting in Washington, D.C., said that emerging market countries must be fully prepared to meet the challenges of the global financial crisis. In order to avoid becoming victims of the financial crisis, emerging market countries must maintain macroeconomic health, strive to achieve a double surplus in foreign trade and public finance, and at the same time accumulate sufficient foreign exchange reserves in order to calmly cope with capital outflows and currency depreciation. Judging from the current situation, the overall economic development of Latin American countries is good, and the financial market bubble is not big, so the state can make flexible adjustments and interventions. Therefore, the probability of a large-scale financial crisis in Latin America is not great.

-Chile's central bank announced on June 1 1 that it would inject $5 billion into the country's financial system to increase market liquidity and stabilize investor confidence. It is reported that the capital injection operation will start next week, and it is planned to inject 500 million US dollars into the financial system at one time, with a payback period of 60 to 90 days. Chile's central bank said it would pay close attention to the international financial situation and the domestic market trend, and was prepared to take further action when necessary.

-Some officials of the International Monetary Fund in Africa recently said that this round of financial crisis may spread to Africa within six to eight months. By then, remittances from African countries may drop sharply and tourism will also be affected. In addition, there are signs that developed countries are considering reducing their aid to Africa.

Europe

The European Commission said recently that the economic situation in the EU is deteriorating rapidly. At the same time, the Committee lowered its forecast for the overall economy of the euro zone and the European Union in 2009. At the same time, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet also said that the economic prospects of the euro zone in 2009 will be significantly less than previously expected; However, he believes that a proactive fiscal policy and a loose monetary policy will help the euro zone economy rebound significantly in 20 10.

The unemployment rate in the euro zone will be close to 10%.

According to the European Commission's forecast, in 2009, the economy of the euro zone will decline by 1.9%, and that of the 27 member countries of the European Union will decline by 1.8%, far below the expected growth of 0.2% in June 2008. At the same time, the unemployment rate in the euro zone may rise from 7.5% in 2008 to 9.3% in 2009, and the unemployment rate in the EU will also rise from 7.0% in 2008 to 8.7%. According to the European Commission, with the sharp deterioration of the financial market situation in 2008, the impact on the real economy is more obvious.

Within the EU, the European Commission predicts that the British economy will decline by 2.8% in 2009, and increase by only 0.2% in 20 10. In 2009, the French economy will shrink by 1.8% under the influence of the decline of industrial output value and confidence and the obvious slowdown of trading partner economy, and will rebound to increase by 0.4% next year; As the locomotive of European economy, Germany's economy will shrink by 2.3% in 2009 and increase by about 0.7% in 20 10.

In this regard, Liu Liqun, a researcher at the European Institute of China Academy of Social Sciences, said that since Germany will hold a general election in late September 2009, the current German government will vigorously restore the economy in the first half of 2009. The unification of the attitudes of the main political parties in Germany on economic issues will also largely avoid the lack of policy continuity that may be brought about by the general election. Therefore, the prospect of economic recovery in Germany is better than other major European economies.

The recession may last until this summer.

Senior EU economic officials said that fiscal measures and interest rate cuts should limit the extent of the economic recession. The decline in inflation has caused the European Central Bank to cut interest rates from 4.25% to 2.0% in the past four months.

The Committee believes that the average inflation rate in the euro zone in 2009 should be 1.0%, far below the upper limit of 2.0% set by the European Central Bank. The low inflation rate and the fiscal stimulus plan of 200 billion euros launched in February 2008 will help the euro zone economy recover moderately at 20 10, although this expectation faces great uncertainty. The European Commission predicts that the euro zone economy will grow by 0.4% and the EU economy by 0.5% next year, and thinks that the recession in the euro zone may last until the summer of 2009.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet also said that in 20 10, the euro zone economy will rebound obviously. He believes that investors underestimate the ability of policy makers to cope with the crisis, and a proactive fiscal policy and a loose monetary policy will contribute to economic recovery. At the same time, developing countries will maintain high-speed growth after experiencing a brief decline in economic growth, and the fall in oil prices is also a positive factor.