The complement to that fraction – what is due to excessive financial sophistication, abnormal risk tolerance and shortcomings in risk management; and what is due to the persistence of international imbalances and the steady appreciation of commodities – will pass. At this stage, let me make three remarks.
First, we have exercised an ongoing warning function, whenever the amount and the price of risk traded in financial markets had departed from the trends that appeared justified by lasting changes in macroeconomic fundamentals. Our communication on the financial imbalances that were being created in the over-confident market conditions that prevailed until the summer of 2007 has been vindicated ex post.