Abstract
The triggering element of the present financial crisis was the real-estate crisis in the United States. The crisis began with certain indifference in 2006, but then it reached its peak during the second semester of 2008. This was when we observed, day after day, a fall in prices of shares, simultaneously in all the financial centers and activities sectors, along with bankruptcies of certain prestigious banking institutions, as well as serious and expensive internal dysfunctions in many others. These events have led to unusual interventions from the public authorities. These interventions became more and more massive and were coordinated with the view of containing the crisis confidentially. This was done to contain the crisis in the functioning of the financial systems and to limit the gravity of an economic recession in developed countries, with its predictable social consequences. Since the beginning of 2007, certain economists had tried to warn the authorities and the markets on the financial risks ensuing from the increasing debt of the United States, of the insufficient savings in the country, and the potential dangers arising from the volumes of securitized credits. If nobody paid attention to those warnings, particularly in 2007 and during the first semester of 2008, it is because the world growth was still significant, pushing the prices of all assets, up (raw materials, in particular) and therefore the majority of the actors involved believed that this stock-exchange situation, which showed consequent profits, could still last, maybe forever. They were incited to take their stands through sophisticated mathematical approaches of the risk factor, greatly reducing human responsibilities on decisions. Furthermore this dangerous situation was compounded by the weak audience to the predictions of doom as well as the wide range of conflicting opinions on the subject. In September 2008, awareness was finally made public on the occasion of the bankruptcy of the American bank Lehman Brothers. The world was facing a banking crisis of major proportions.
