(A) Introduction to the financial crisis

1. Definition:

The financial crisis, also known as the financial storm, refers to the sharp, short-term and super-cycle deterioration of all or most financial indicators of a country or several countries and regions (such as short-term interest rates, monetary assets, securities, real estate, land prices, commercial bankruptcies, financial institution failures, etc.).

2. Features:

Its characteristic is that people's expectations of the future economy are more pessimistic, the currency of the whole region has depreciated sharply, and the economic aggregate and scale have lost a lot, which has hit economic growth. It is often accompanied by a large number of business failures, rising unemployment rate, general economic depression in society, and sometimes even social unrest or national political turmoil.

3. The evolution of American financial crisis has gone through three stages.

The Wall Street storm triggered by the American subprime mortgage crisis has now evolved into a global financial crisis. The rapid development, large quantity and great influence of this process can be said to be unexpected. Generally speaking, it can be divided into three stages: first, the debt crisis, housing lenders can not repay the principal and interest on time caused by the problem. The second stage is the liquidity crisis. Due to the debt crisis, some of these financial institutions cannot have enough liquidity in time to meet the creditors' requirements for liquidation. The third stage is the credit crisis. In other words, people have doubts about credit-based financial activities, leading to such a crisis.

(b) The impact of the financial crisis on the world economy

1. Financial institutions are facing serious business crisis and credit crisis.

Excessive investment and lending, a large number of financial derivatives out of control after the launch, so that banks form a large number of non-performing assets, leading to financial institutions' capital chain fracture, unable to operate normally. The disappearance of the five major investment banks in the United States, especially the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, which has a history of 1.50 years, has caused huge losses to banks and investors all over the world, and financial institutions are facing serious business crisis and credit crisis.

2. The world monetary system is disordered, and the exchange rates of various countries fluctuate greatly.

After the financial crisis, the currency exchange rates of various countries fluctuated violently, which had a great impact on international operations and foreign exchange. In the recent financial crisis, the dollar stimulated the economy by increasing currency issuance and lowering interest rates, thus devaluing the dollar. Therefore, the interaction of the two factors will inevitably increase the fluctuation of the exchange rate of the US dollar against other countries' currencies.

3. Some countries have financial crisis, and the national economy is on the verge of bankruptcy.

After the financial crisis, the economies of some countries were severely impacted by high dependence on foreign countries and insufficient foreign exchange reserves. For example, Iceland, whose economy is on the verge of bankruptcy, has to urgently seek help from the International Monetary Fund and Russia. Other countries such as Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Argentina are also on the verge of bankruptcy. Some western banks that created real estate bubbles in eastern European countries will also go bankrupt.

The world economy will enter a long-term recession.

With the integration of the world economy, the problems of the financial system have penetrated into the world economic system. Affected by the financial crisis, the world economy is bound to face a long-term recession. This is mainly reflected in:

(1) Orders and consumption have fallen sharply, and many economic entities are facing operational difficulties.

Large enterprise groups, represented by the three American automobile giants and the world's largest flowering bank, are on the verge of bankruptcy. Tens of thousands of enterprises around the world cut production, reduced prices or closed down, and the world economy fell into depression. The impact of the financial turmoil has really hit businessmen and profoundly affected the future direction of the world economy.

(2) The layoffs have intensified and the unemployment rate has risen sharply.

American economic figures in September 2008 show that enterprises laid off nearly10.6 million people in September 2008, and the unemployment rate reached 6. 1%, the highest point since the "9 1 1" terrorist attacks in 2006. Employment in finance, manufacturing, construction and many service industries has generally declined, and the number of unemployed people in Wall Street finance alone may be as high as 40,000. In August 2008, there were 32,500 unemployed people in Britain, and the total number of unemployed people was 1.72 million, accounting for 5.5%, the highest level since 1.992. According to the forecast of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Labour Organization, the number of unemployed people in the world will reach a record 2 1 10,000 in 2009 due to the slowdown of world economic growth and other factors.

(3) The global stock market plummeted repeatedly.

Since the financial crisis, stock markets around the world have plummeted, mostly by 40-70%, which has brought losses of about $30 trillion to global investors. People's capital and property have suffered huge losses, which will seriously affect people's expected consumption.

(4) The price of raw materials has dropped sharply.

Due to the sharp drop in consumption expectations of countries around the world, the demand for raw materials and the import of various products will be greatly reduced, and the prices of raw materials will generally fall sharply. Crude oil has dropped from the high of 147 in August 2008 to about 50 dollars at present, and the prices of raw materials such as nonferrous metals, steel and coal have mostly dropped by 40-60%, which will have a huge impact on the world economy.

(C) the impact of the financial crisis on China

1. The sharp contraction of external demand led to a sharp decline in export growth. This downward trend is very obvious. Although China's surplus still maintains a certain scale, the impact of exports on economic growth is obviously weakened.

2. Inventory is also increasing obviously, and the downward trend of industrial added value growth continued until the end of last year, especially the main industrial products such as steel, cement and glass all experienced negative growth, and the situation of overcapacity was more serious.

3. The output of energy and electricity dropped sharply.

4. The pressure of economic slowdown continues to increase. From an annual perspective, the decline is very large.

5. The employment situation tends to be severe. Especially in coastal areas, enterprises that have stopped production or closed down have increased. In 2008, there were 6 1 10000 college graduates nationwide, and there were130,000 new jobs in cities and towns. The employment situation is very grim.

6. Consumption hotspots such as real estate and automobiles have obviously cooled down. This has a great impact on cement, steel, aluminum alloy and other related industries.

7. Corporate profits and financial income have dropped significantly, and profits in many industries have experienced negative growth. This is the main thread of our financial crisis.

8.20081On October 28th, the Shanghai Composite Index fell to 1664.