...en defendant la "penalty-rate" n'oublie-t-il pas eventuellement l'augmentation de la probabilite du risque de
"carry-trading"...?
...tandis que Monsieur Breton...(tt le monde est d'accord la dessus)...nous devoile "indirectement" le fait qu'il n'aurait pas voulu devenir vendeur d'avions...?
Par Pancho Villa
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Publié dans : Paul de Grauwe
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The Belgian chocolate theory of the dollar
By Paul de Grauwe
"A year ago, most analysts agreed: the dollar could only go down against the euro and the other main currencies. The huge US current account deficits had become unsustainable and called for a big
decline of the dollar. A year later these analysts proved to be wrong. The dollar went up by close to 15 per cent against the euro. What went wrong? Let me answer the question by telling a story
about Belgian chocolates.
A few weeks ago an interesting experiment was undertaken at the Brussels food fair... A shop was put up selling boxes of Belgian chocolates. The first day the price was set at €9 for each box.
Sales went well. The next day the price was raised to €15 per box. ... Demand doubled. On the third day the price was lowered to €2 for each box. Demand for chocolates collapsed. What went wrong
...?
It is very difficult, if not impossible, for the consumer to find out the quality of chocolates by just looking at their appearance in the shop. When confronted with such uncertainty..., consumers
use simple rules of thumb that they understand. ... Most consumers have some experience that allows them to associate high price with high quality. ... not always ... but on average ... Thus when
looking at the €15 box the consumers infer ... high ... quality and they buy the chocolates. Consumers who see the boxes priced at €2 infer ... the quality ... is not to be trusted, and they do not
buy them. ...
Most people dealing in the foreign exchange market have no clue about the fundamental value of the dollar (the “quality” of the dollar). Specialists and professors do not know either, at least
within a broad range of dollar-euro rates between say, $1.0 and $1.3. ... Faced with such uncertainty, traders in dollars and euros ... will therefore use a rule of thumb, an easy guide that they
understand. ... Thus when the dollar goes up ..., the increasing dollar is a signal ... there must be some hidden economic strength driving the dollar. And they buy dollars... Conversely, when the
dollar moves down for whatever reason, people interpret the decline ... as reflecting a fundamental weakness..., and they sell dollars. As a result..., the dollar moves up and down within upper and
lower bounds ... determined by our lack of knowledge ...
There is a difference, though, between Belgian chocolates and the dollar. The Belgian chocolate lover ... can immediately check the quality by tasting the chocolates. The buyer of dollars cannot.
But he is in need of a justification of his buy as a good one. And here the analyst comes in handy.
The analyst, who does not know more about the fundamental value of the dollar than the unsuspecting buyer, invents stories. Thus when the dollar goes up, the analyst goes on a search for variables
that move in the right direction and that can be linked to the rising dollar, carefully eliminating ... all the other fundamental variables that move in the wrong direction. And so we are told that
the strength of the dollar last year was due to interest rate differentials favouring the dollar. The further widening of the current account deficit, which in a previous analysis got centre stage,
is carefully dropped from the new analysis.
The honest story of why the dollar increased last year is that we simply do not know. But we do not like to admit that we do not know. ... [A]nalysts ... fulfill a psychological need to understand.
Exchange rate economics ... satisfies this need by telling a new story each time the dollar goes up or down. What does that tell us about the coming year? You may now be concluding that the
sceptical tone ... does not leave me much scope to say something useful. Yet I do think that the cumulated force of increasing US current account deficits and debts will be overwhelming, bringing
down the dollar. But do not ask me when this will happen."
Cela me rappelle une anecdote d'un restaurant en Allemagne qui, paradoxe de l'histoire, plus il augmentait ses prix, plus
de gens etaient prets a vouloir (a tout prix, Ha, Ha!) y aller... (mais cela a surement ete le cas aussi dans d'autres pays avec d'autres marchandises)
Je definierais dans ce cas cette reaction du public, des consommateurs, du marche, en tant qu' augmentation de la demande
a travers la vente non-pas de la qualite d'un repas, d'un plat, d'une denree alimentaire, mais a travers la vente avant tout de la qualite d'une "exclusivite" (qui est aussi un service, donc:
P = Prix de revient (Bouffe) + Service; Service qui est ici un repas dans une societe "pseudo-exclusive") s'etant essentiellement basee sur le "filtrage" ou bien "raffinage" de la societe
brute afin d'en extraire 'artificiellement?' une certaine souche bien pre-definie, qui convient le mieux...au restaurant. Donc...
D'apres un vieux dicton et une vieille loi de la nature:
"Qui se ressemble, s'assemble..."
Ergo, conclusion de cette petite histoire:
Cadre;Societe = primordial, Bouffe = marginale
Par Pancho Villa
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Publié dans : Paul de Grauwe
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