[2008.07.19] 银行业与市场：二房飓风

Banks and markets
银行业与市场

Twin twisters
二房飓风

Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The financial crisis claims another two victims-and once again the taxpayer picks up the pieces
金融危机又落两城–纳税人再度收拾残局

IT WAS another of those frantic weeks that were never meant to happen in the world’s most advanced economy. On July 13th Hank Paulson, America’s treasury secretary, stood on his department’s steps like some emerging-market finance minister, and unveiled an emergency plan to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage giants that owe or guarantee $5.2 trillion. Two days later, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, put the fear of God into the markets, warning Congress of a foul amalgam of inflation and economic distress.

本周，和前几回一样，狂乱无序的局面再一次出人意料地出现在这个全球最发达的经济体。7月13日，美国财长汉克•保尔森（Hank Paulson）像某位新兴市场的金融大臣一样，站在财政部门前的台阶上，宣布了一项紧急计划：援手房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)。这两家房贷巨擘亏欠或担保的抵押额高达52亿美元。两天后，美联储主席伯南克带着人们对他如同”上帝”般的敬畏，出手房贷市场，警告国会，称通货膨胀和经济困境或将并肩袭来。

The immediate lesson is that the financial crisis, nearly a year old, is far from over (see our coverage, beginning with this article). Gloomy investors are gunning for banks of all types. In America the prices of houses and shares are falling, and the cost of food and energy has soared. Consumers are almost certain to cut back. The euro-area economy may have shrunk in the latest quarter. Central banks around the world are having to raise interest rates to curb inflation, and the dollar looks vulnerable. Even if the downturn proves less sharp than pessimists fear, it is likely to last longer than optimists hope.

直观的教训是，延烧了将近一年之久的金融危机还远未结束。愁容惨淡的投资人正把目光投向各类银行。美国的房价和股价持续下跌，粮食和能源成本飙升，消费者紧缩开支几成定局，欧元区经济在本季度可能缩水，各国央行不得不提升利率遏制通胀，美元呈现疲软之势。这一轮的经济低迷，其影响即便在事实上没有悲观者担心得那样严重，但周期则很可能比乐观派希望得要长。

Freddie and Fannie have changed that equation only slightly. Their importance lies in what their rescue says about the financial system. At Fannie and Freddie-and, shockingly, at the investment banks-the profits were privatised, but the risks were socialised. One Republican senator complained that he thought he had “woken up in France”. Mr Paulson was still right to intervene: the collapse of Fannie and Freddie would have been a catastrophe. But by not formally nationalising them, he has let down taxpayers and made the same deeply uncapitalist mistake the British government initially made with Northern Rock, a failed mortgage bank it tried to prop up.

二房危机轻微地打破了这种平衡。这两家机构的重要性，从政府救市对于金融体系的意义中就可见一斑。房地美和房利美–以及投资银行（这让人触目惊心）– 利润私有化，但风险却社会化了。一位共和党参议员抱怨说，他以为自己当时是”在法国醒来。”保尔森插手干预仍是明智之举：二房的倒闭将会酿成一场灾难。可是，他未能将之正式国有化，因而辜负了纳税人，犯了和英国同样严重的非资本主义的错误–英国政府之前力图挽救濒临倒闭的北岩抵押房贷银行。

Mark to market, or market to Marx?
市场还是计划？

The debt is what matters with Fannie and Freddie, but the shares were the trigger. When investors realised they would eventually need more money to cover their looming losses, there was a run on the stock. This rapidly became a test of a tacit government pledge to back their debt. Had the government hinted that it wanted to wriggle free from its vague promises, the debt would have crashed; the banking system would have been crippled by new losses; foreign investors would have fled a country that broke its word; and the housing market, a trifle short of lenders just now, would have lost its main backers. Mr Paulson vowed to lend Fannie and Freddie money and buy their shares if necessary. They could also borrow from the Fed. The next day investors queued up to buy Freddie’s bonds.

二房的债务是关键所在，但股价乃为诱因。投资人在意识到最终需要更多的资金才能弥补迫在眉睫的损失时，便在股市上狂抛撤资。这很快成为了检测政府是否暗中允诺插手纾困的手段。如果政府此前暗示要转变暧昧的态度，便宜行事，那么高举的债务早已崩塌，银行系统业已陷入新的亏损，外国投资者业已然逃离这个言而无信的国家；而之前贷方略显不足的房市，也已失去了主要的支撑者。保尔森先生誓言要贷款给二房，并在必要的时候收购其股票。两家机构也可从联储会借款。翌日，投资人排起长龙，争购房地美的债券。

That is plainly not the end of it for the taxpayer. It seems quaint that critics once complained that finance was all about untrammelled markets and deregulation. On July 11th regulators took over IndyMac Bancorp, a Californian thrift, after the second-biggest bank failure in American history. After the rescue of Bear Stearns in March, the Fed agreed to back investment banks with its balance sheet. Congress is chewing over a small subsidy to troubled mortgage owners. If another large bank became vulnerable, more rescues would beckon.

对于纳税人来说，这还不是真正的结束。批评家曾经抱怨金融业务都在围绕着不受制约的市场和违规行为打转，眼下这倒显得奇怪。7月11日，在印地麦克（IndyMac）这一美国历史上第二宗最大规模的银行倒闭案后，监理机构接管了这家位于加州的存贷公司。继今年3月援手贝尔斯登之后，联储会此次同意直接注资支持投行。国会正反复考虑向身陷困境的抵押人提供小额补贴。如果再有一家大型银行撑不住了，更多的援救计划也指日可待。

Capitalism rests on a clear principle: those who get the profits should take the pain. For the system to work, bankers sometimes need to lose their jobs and investors their shirts. Yet were a collapsing Bear Stearns or Fannie Mae to sow destruction for the sake of a principle, it would impose a terrible price in lost jobs and output on everyone else. The unpalatable truth is that by the time a financial crisis hits, the state often has to compromise-to impose as much pain as it can, of course, but to shoulder a large part of the losses nonetheless.

资本主义建基于一个清晰的原则，即获利者应付出代价。为了让这一体系运转下去，银行家有时要丢掉饭碗，投资人可能会倾家荡产。但是，如果摇摇欲坠的贝尔斯登或房利美为了一个原则而走向灭亡，那么由此导致的失业和经济产量下跌等极高的代价都将平摊到其他所有人身上。这正是令人不快的真相：金融危机来袭之时，国家常常不得不妥协–尽可能多地让人付出代价，但也承担起一大部分的损失。

That formula comes at a heavy price. Fannie and Freddie were supposed to help Americans buy their own homes, by making the mortgage market work better. But it has been an awful deal for the taxpayer-a Fed economist calculated the implicit debt-guarantee was worth a one-off sum of between $122 billion and $182 billion. Because Fannie and Freddie barely lowered the cost of borrowing, little of this subsidy went towards boosting home ownership. Instead, just over half-about $79 billion-went straight to their shareholders.

这么做代价不小。二房本该帮助美国人购置房产，保持房贷市场的健康运转，但事实上，这对纳税人来说却是一笔糟糕的交易–根据联储会一名经济学家的计算，二房暗中持有的债务担保，其一次性总额价值在1220到1820亿美元之间。由于两家企业几乎没怎么降低借贷的成本，这些补贴中只有很少的一部分用于促进房贷业务，而超过一半–大约790亿美元–直接由其股东收益。

Normal financial-services firms should have been dealing in the safe, middle-of-the road mortgages that Fannie and Freddie specialise in. Except that they were crowded out into subprime mortgages. Fannie and Freddie should never have grown so large. Except that they wanted to exploit the margin between the government-guaranteed borrowing costs and the commercial lending income. They should have been stopped by Congress and their regulator. Except that they spent some of their subsidy on a fierce lobbying machine.

正常的金融服务商本该经营二房擅长的不冒风险、中规中矩的抵押业务–可惜它们被挤入了次贷市场；房利美和房地美原本不会成长到今天的规模–可惜它们想赚取政府担保的贷款成本和商业贷款收入之间的差额；二房本该受制于国会和监理机构–可惜它们将部分补贴用于雇佣强劲有力的游说机器。

Fannie must not
“房”不可倒

In the past, we have argued for privatising Fannie and Freddie completely. But now that the guarantee is explicit, Mr Paulson should seek to secure the gains for taxpayers and treat Fannie and Freddie like one of their own mortgages, by nationalising them, breaking them up and selling them on. That would almost double the public debt-but only in book-keeping terms. The liability is already implicit (as at Northern Rock), and, unlike Treasuries, it is ultimately backed by housing as collateral.

过去，我们支持对二房实行彻底的私有化，但眼下，既然政府的担保已经明确无误，保尔森就该为纳税人考虑，谋求保护其财富，并将二房当作自身抵押的资产之一，进行国有化，拆分，继而出售。这么做几乎要让国债翻一番–不过只会出现在簿记账面上。二房的债务已转入后台操作（如同北岩银行），而且最终有房市的间接支撑，这一点不同于国库券。

It is harder to know what to do about all those other implicit state guarantees-seemingly to any financial outfit. The first instinct should be to make sure someone suffers; shareholders and managers at the very least. It was a valuable lesson when some of IndyMac’s depositors could not get hold of their money because they exceeded the government guarantee.

想知道其它那些拥有国家暗中担保的机构何去何从，这更不容易–对于任何金融机构似乎都是这样。依据本能，第一步应该是确保有人承受苦痛，而股东和管理层至少该承担责任。印地麦克的一些存款人由于未受政府担保而无法保住钱财，这是个宝贵的教训。

If you cannot let firms fail in a bust, then you must contain them in the boom. That helps explain why the investment banks now need more supervision; why financial firms should have to hold more capital as a boom gathers pace; and why monetary policy should lean against rising asset prices. Regulation is necessary, but beware the state being seduced into taking on duties it cannot possibly carry out well. As Fannie and Freddie show, regulators are easily captured and outwitted. The best controls are transparency and competition. When possible the government needs to stand back. Sadly, it failed to do so in the American mortgage market.

如果不能让企业完全破产，就应保证它们业务兴旺。这有助于解释投行在眼下为什么需要更多的监管；金融机构为什么得在繁荣行将消失时握有更多的资本；以及货币政策为什么应向上涨的资产价格倾斜。监管是必需的，但得谨防政府被误入歧途，承担起可能无法良好履行的职责。二房危机表明，监理机构的政策容易落后于、受困于时局。最好的管制手段是透明度和相互竞争，政府应在可能的时候退居二线。遗憾的是，在美国的房贷抵押市场中，政府没能这么做。

译者： 零下1℃　　http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12818&extra=page%3D1