Leap 2020

Financially speaking, Iceland thought of itself as UK (1), in the same way as, financially speaking, UK thought of itself as the US and the US thought of themselves as the entire world. It is therefore quite useful to study the case of Iceland (2) in order to understand the course of events that London and Washington will follow in the next 12 months (3).

What we see today is a double historical phenomenon:

. on the one hand, since September 2008 (as anticipated in the February 2008 edition of the GEAB - N°22), the whole planet has become aware that a global systemic crisis is unfolding, characterised by the collapse of the US financial system and its contagion to the rest of the world.

. on the other hand, a growing number of global players are beginning to act on their own, in reaction to the ineffectiveness of the measures advocated or implemented by the US though they are the centre of this global financial system. What happened with this first Euroland (or Eurozone summit which took place on Sunday, October 12, 2008, and whose decisions, by their scope (close to 1,700-billion EUR) and their nature (4), resulted in a regain of confidence on financial markets from all over the world, is typical of the « post-September 2008 world ».


Map of deposit insurances in the EU - Source AFP - 10/09/2008
Indeed there is such a thing as a « post-September 2008 world ». According to our team, it is now clear that this past month will remain in the history books of the whole planet as the month when the global systemic crisis started; even if what is really at play is its decanting phase, the last of a series of four phases of the crisis described by LEAP/E2020 as early as June 2006 (5). As always when it comes to large human groups, the perception of change among the general public only occurs when change is already far on its way.

As a matter of fact, September 2008 is the month when the « financial detonator » of the global systemic crisis exploded. According to LEAP/E2020 indeed, this second semester 2008 is the time when « the world dives into the heart of the impact phase of the global systemic crisis » (6); which means for our researchers that, at the end of this semester, the world enters the « decanting phase » of the crisis, i.e. a phase when the outcome of the shock settles down. This phase is the longest (from 3 to 10 years, according to the country) and the one affecting the largest number of people and countries. It is also the phase when the components of new global equilibriums will start to appear, two of them being already described by LEAP/E2020 in this 28th edition of the GEAB in the graphic illustrations below (7).

Leap 2020