To dragonbleu69719 and Maya

After facing disagreement on my blog, I was feeling that I should explain myself about the starting point of the crisis which, in my opinion, was the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

We can compare the actual crisis to the Great Depression in 1929. Banks had collapsed because the governments were believing in the perfection of the markets. The market collapsed closely after the banks. The crisis existed for twelve long years impacting hardly the world and probably leading to World War II (but that's another debate).

However, currently, the governments did not make the same mistake of letting down the banks. They understood that letting down a bank is leading indoubtedly to the crisis. One collapse impact the financial markets and the real economy because the banks are the basis of all investments with loans.

Therefore, banks in the United States were saved by the governments. Only one collapsed : Lehman Brothers. This bank collapsed on the 14th of September and we can see that for example the FTSE 100 started to decrease on the 15th of September after a relative stable period in July and August. So that's why I tend to say that Lehman Brothers' collapse is the starting point of the crisis. Because the investors remind the Great Depression and so the confidence in future was not existing anymore.

I do not say that the collapse of this bank is the only factor of the crisis. For example, the lack of liquidity is one of course. But why does the bank not lend to eachother anymore ? Because the banks are not sure that the other bank will repay back, and why ? Because the US government did not saved Lehman. If the US had saved Lehman, the interbank market could have been much more confident and not have this impact on the real growth economy.