Algumas Evidências

Abaixo segue um texto da Economist sobre a corrida bancária que ocorreu na Inglaterra ontem, fato esquisito muito comum na crise de 1930 e o Crack da Bolsa de NY. O Banco Central Inglês teve até que emprestar dinheiro para salvar a instituição que não conseguiu crédito para arcar com suas despesas de curto prazo (ou seja, o sistema financeiro está restringindo os empréstimos interbancários, sinal de apreensão). Por que que só no Brasil a economia de Lula está às mil maravilhas?

Tem também um texto abaixo do Observatório da Imprensa falando do blackout que houve no Senado no momento da votação sobre a cassação de Renan Calheiros. A cachorrada do Senado Federal chegou a inventar a desculpa de pane nos sistemas para que votassem em sigilo. Simplesmente pediram pra cagar e saíram.

Hit by a rock
Sep 14th 2007From Economist.com
The credit crisis hits the high street
AP
A CENTURY ago, the depth of a banking crisis was measured by the length of the queue outside banks. These days, financial panics are more likely to be played out through heavy selling in share, bond or currency markets than old-fashioned bank runs. That makes the sight on the morning of Friday September 14th of a queue of people waiting (patiently in most cases) to take their money out of Northern Rock, a wounded British mortgage bank, all the more extraordinary. A crisis that started in America’s subprime mortgage market where dodgy loans were made to unsound borrowers has shaken the world’s financial capitals since mid-August. Now it has landed on the high street at one of Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders.

Northern Rock faced the triple ignominy of becoming the first British lender in 30 years to be granted a bailout by the Bank of England, losing 29% of its value on the stockmarket, and having to coax savers not to withdraw their money in a rush. (Customers queuing up in its home town of Newcastle reportedly burst out laughing when bank staff asked if anyone wanted to deposit money.) Its troubles weakened the world’s stockmarkets, and sterling also fell.

Yet Northern Rock appears to be less of a protagonist in the current credit crisis than a bad case of collateral damage. Its problems were caused not because it risked its shareholders’ money on poorly judged investments linked to American subprime mortgages, as many far bigger and more international banks have. Instead, it has been hit by a failure to borrow from other banks to fund its mortgage lending practices. The interbank market where such borrowing usually takes place has partially seized up in recent weeks because big banks are hoarding as much capital as they can to pay for the cost of their own bad investments.

Granted, Northern Rock’s racy business model exposed it more to such shocks than conservative lenders with large branch networks and steadier sources of finance, such as extensive customer deposits. It chose instead to borrow cheap funds when they were available in the markets, which enabled it to offer more attractive mortgage rates than some of its competitors. Its loan book has increased aggressively in recent years to about £17.4 billion ($35 billion).

In agreeing to bail it out, British financial authorities stressed that Northern Rock was “solvent, exceeds its regulatory capital requirement and has a good quality loan book.” The Bank of England charged the bank a penalty rate for the loans, but allowed it to borrow as much as it could provide collateral to support. That suggests the line of credit is potentially very large, but the neatest solution may eventually be its sale to a bigger bank.

The rescue has brought the crisis directly to the Bank of England’s front door. Until this month, it had stood aloof from efforts by America’s Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to provide liquidity to banks to ease the crunch in the short-term money markets. Its governor, Mervyn King, this week made clear the importance of charging at penalty rates to prevent moral hazard. But Northern Rock is not alone among the world’s banks in funding itself in the wholesale markets. Until global interbank borrowing and lending opens up a bit, central bankers around the world will be watching anxiously for a repeat performance in their own neighbourhoods.

Texto Observatório da Imprensa:

http://observatorio.ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/artigos.asp?cod=450JDB010


A corrida bancária do Northern Rock:
http://oglobo.globo.com/economia/mat/2007/09/14/297724526.asp
http://www.northernrock.co.uk/
http://br.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2007-09-14T124256Z_01_N14430085_RTRIDST_0_NEGOCIOS-BANCOS-ACOES-ROCK-POL.XML