The collapse of Greece's economy, and its domino effect on Spain, Portugal, and other countries in the euro currency zone, is in many ways a replay of an earlier financial crisis--the break-up of the continent's Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. Then, as now, Europe's policymakers showed little patience with--or understanding of--markets. Then, as now, Germany often seemed contemptuous of the less competitive economies on the periphery of Europe.
The 1992 crisis came to a head on Friday September 9, when currency speculators forced the devaluation of the Italian lira. By the following Tuesday, Britain was facing the same fate. In this excerpt from More Money Than God, his new history of hedge funds, Sebastian Mallaby tells the story of the crisis from inside the cockpit of George Soros's Quantum Fund.
On Tuesday, September 15, the pound took another beating. Spain's finance minister telephoned Norman Lamont, his British counterpart, to ask him how things were. "Awful," Lamont answered.
That evening Lamont convened a meeting with Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the governor of the Bank of England. The two men agreed that the central bank should buy the pound aggressively the next morning. As the meeting wound down, Leigh-Pemberton read out a message from his press office. Helmut Schlesinger, the president of the German Bundesbank, had given an interview to the Wall Street Journal and a German financial newspaper, Handelsblatt. According to a news agency report on his remarks, Schlesinger believed there would have to be a broad realignment of Europe's currencies.
Lamont was stunned. Schlesinger's remark was tantamount to calling for the pound to devalue. Already his public statements had triggered an assault on Italy's lira. Now the German central banker was attacking Britain. Lamont asked Leigh-Pemberton to call Schlesinger immediately, overruling Leigh-Pemberton's concern that the punctilious Bundesbanker did not like to have his dinner interrupted.
Read entire article here
No comments:
Post a Comment