[2008.09.16] 美国国际集团：被拯救还是破产？

AIG美国国际集团

Bail-out or bust?
被拯救还是破产？

Sep 16th 2008
From Economist.com

AIG could be the next casualty of the credit crisis, unless the authorities step in
如果美国政府不介入的话，美国国际集团可能是下一个受害者

BARRY RITHOLTZ, a prominent financial pundit, writes with tongue not entirely in cheek that the first lesson from the government’s bail-out of Bear Stearns in March was to “Go Big”. “Don’t just risk your company, risk the entire world of finance. Modest incompetence is insufficient-if you merely destroy your own company, you won’t get rescued. You have to threaten to bring down the entire global financial system.”

著名金融专家BARRY RITHOLTZ不完全是调侃地写道，从三月份政府拯救贝尔斯登学到的第一课便是”将事情搞大”。”仅仅让你自己的公司处于风险之中是远不够的，要有把全球金融市场托进泥潭的本事。公司局部运转失灵是不足关注的—如果你的公司不是陷入绝境，是没有办法获得援手的。你必须危及到会搞垮整个全球金融体系才行。”

On Tuesday September 16th, a day after America’s Treasury boldly let Lehman Brothers go bust, again the “Go Big” theory is being tested. This time, the focus is on American International Group (AIG), one of the world’s biggest insurers. As well as writing general-insurance policies all over the world, the firm has plunged disastrously into the market for derivatives linked to housing and credit. Its exposure to the murky credit-default swaps market alone is a notional $441 billion, enormous by anyone’s standards. Do such exposures make it too big to fail, especially given the possible risk, however small, to ordinary folk around the world who insure with AIG?

9月16日，在美国财政部大胆地让雷曼公司破产后，”将事情搞大”的理论再次受到考验。这次的焦点集中到美国国际集团上，这是世界最大的保险公司之一。随着在世界各地开展保险业务，这家公司已经悲惨地卷入与住房和信贷有关的衍生品市场中。美国国际集团仅在信贷违约交易市场所曝光的交易额就达4410亿美元，无论以什么标准来看这都是非常巨大的。这么大的交易量会使得美国国际集团因为规模巨大而能免于倒闭吗？特别它给全世界的在其公司参保普通民众也带来一定的风险。

Hopes that this question would be met with a tentative “yes” helped New York stocks erase some of their earlier losses on Tuesday-though AIG’s shares were still down sharply. There were reported rumours that Treasury support for AIG would be forthcoming. But the Federal Reserve, whose policymakers were meeting on Tuesday, resisted pressure to give a boost to markets and chose not to cut rates.

希望这个问题能够得到肯定的回答以避免纽约交易市场周二早盘的损失–虽然美国国际集团的股票已经下跌非常厉害了。据报道有传言说财政部对美国国际集团的支持即将到来。但是美联储的决策者在周二开会却决定不给予市场激励并且拒绝降息。

These rumours were not confirmed, but it has already become painfully clear how hard it is for America’s financial authorities to steer a straight course through a crisis that is piling one systemic threat onto another. On Monday, Hank Paulson, America’s treasury secretary, was hailed for bringing back moral hazard, or the risk of failure, to the banking system by letting Lehman fall into Chapter 11. Faced with the collapse of the much bigger and more entangled AIG, can he afford to defend that line in the sand?

这些传言尚未得到证实，但是已经很明确的是，对于美国金融当局来说，在危机中保持正确的航线向前行进是多么的困难，因为这意味着将系统威胁传递给其它人。周一，美国财长保尔森将雷曼以破产法11章破产从而恢复了银行系统的道德或破产的风险，因此他受到了人们的拥戴。面对更大更麻烦的美国国际集团的垮台，他能恪守他的底线吗？

Even those battling to find a solution for AIG admit that time is running out. On Monday the Fed asked two banks, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, to find up to $120 billion in new funds for AIG. The firm also won a concession from New York state, which supervises it, to raise $20 billion by borrowing against the insurance assets of its subsidiaries. On Tuesday markets around the world tumbled after two ratings agencies, Moody’s and Standards & Poor’s, cut AIG’s credit rating. That decision forced the insurer to seek at least $13 billion in extra collateral to back its credit derivatives.

即使对于那些寻求解决美国国际集团问题的人也承认，时间已经用完了。周一，美联储责令高盛和摩根大通为美国国际集团筹集1200亿美元的资金。美国国际集团同样也获得其监管者纽约州的授权，允许它从其子公司借款200亿美元。周二，全球市场随着两大评级机构穆迪和标准普尔对美国国际集团的信誉评级下调而大幅下挫。这项评级决定使得美国国际集团必须寻找至少130亿美元的额外担保来支持其信贷衍生品。

But cash is not easy to come by for big institutions with concerns about their solvency, as Lehman’s collapse showed. As of Tuesday, there appeared to be no private-sector solution for AIG, and the matter was in the hands of the government.

但是现金对于这个大型机构来说很难获取，因为随着雷曼的垮台，人们担心其偿还能力。在周二，显然没有私人资本来给美国国际集团以帮助，所以只能由政府来负责这件事了。

Meanwhile, fears that a collapse of AIG could paralyse the financial system were reflected in the interbank market, where banks tap each other for cash. Dollar rates of the London Interbank-Offered Rate, known as LIBOR, doubled overnight. Central banks, including the Fed, pumped in liquidity.

与此同时，对于美国国际集团的倒台会使整个金融体系瘫痪的担心已经体现到银行间的交易中，银行间都以现金交易。伦敦银行同业拆借利率中美元的利率在一夜之间升了一倍。包括美联储在内的中央银行都为市场注入现金。

Not all the news was bad. Goldman reported a 70% slump in third-quarter profits, which may have looked ghastly, but it beat analysts’ estimates. There had been fears that it and Morgan Stanley, the other Wall Street bank left standing, were at risk from a possible collapse of AIG. But a Goldman spokesman said its exposure was “not material”, according to reports. Washington Mutual, America’s largest savings-and-loan bank, helped its share price by declaring it would be able to withstand the latest cut in its credit rating.

并不是所有都是坏消息。高盛报表显示第三季度利润骤跌70％，这可能看起来非常糟糕，但是比分析员的预期要好。对于仅存的两家投行高盛和摩根斯坦利，人们担心它们会由于美国国际集团将要发生的倒闭而陷入危机。但是高盛发言人说，根据报表，高盛的受到的影响”并不是非常严重”。美国最大的储蓄借贷银行–华盛顿互惠银行声明它会抵御住信誉等级降低的影响。这项声明提升了其股价。

Meanwhile, August saw the first drop in America’s consumer-price index in almost two years. The 0.1% fall was helped by the decline in fuel prices, and the oil market remained in retreat on Tuesday, with prices hovering above $91 a barrel. The dollar remained firm.

与此同时，美国八月份的消费价格指数（CPI）出现了几乎两年的首次下降。0.1％的降幅是受石油价格下跌的影响，而且油价在周二继续下跌，徘徊在91美元每桶。美元汇率依旧坚挺。

But in this crisis, the only things that have given Wall Street real fillips have been the chances of government intervention, and easier monetary policy. Now almost all the markets’ hopes are pinned on the authorities. If AIG goes, it is hard to think what else would be considered as too big to fail.

但在这次危机中，真正给华尔街的刺激是政府干预的时机和宽松的货币政策。现在市场几乎所有的希望都寄托在当局身上。如果美国国际集团也倒了，那么很难想象还有任何可以认为是”大就不会倒”的公司。

译者：rushor   http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=14062&extra=page%3D1