A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed

The promised bland

Sep 15th 2009
From Economist.com
Barack Obama marks a year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers with a speech to Wall Street
奥巴马在金融街发表一年后就雷曼兄弟倒塌后的演讲

“THIS sucker could go down.” George Bush’s verdict during the worst of the financial crisis a year ago was crude but penetrating. Barack Obama, delivering a speech in New York on September 14th to mark the anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ failure, managed the opposite trick. He produced plenty of elegant phrases but little that was new, and quite a bit that was confusing.

“这类寄生虫必须清除。”乔治布什在一年前金融危机最糟糕鲁莽的裁决显得颇为明智。奥巴马在9月14号在纽约发表的雷曼兄弟覆灭一周年的演讲中运用了反讽的技巧。他运用了大量优美的辞藻与一点也不新颖，而且十分让人匪夷所思。

To be fair, this was not an occasion for detailed policy pronouncements. The big areas of financial reform have been endlessly rehearsed in speeches, summits and papers (which may explain why the occasion felt a little flat). This was more about applying a bit of presidential pressure. By sketching out the rationale behind his principal legislative proposals—a systemic-risk regulator, a new consumer-protection agency, the need for strong capital and better resolution regimes—he reminded Congress that health care is not his only priority. He also used his time at the podium to chide bonus-hungry bankers for failing to learn the lessons of Lehman.

说句公道话，这并不是最佳时机来仔细研讨公共政策。演讲中无止尽的讨论着经济改革方针政策。这更多也是迫于总统的压力。通过他主要合法化提议的逻辑化阐述——一种系统风险的调节，一个新的消费保护机构，需要更大的资本和更合理的监管手段——他提醒国会医疗改革并不是他唯一关注的焦点。他也时常发表演讲谴责那些唯利是图的银行家吸取类似雷曼兄弟事件的教训。

Even so, much of what Mr Obama said was disingenuous. He included some helpful words on the responsibility borne by homeowners for taking risks they could not afford. But he also urged banks to bring financial services to those currently outside the financial system, and put the consumer-protection agency first on his list of reforms. He said that the cost of future failures would fall on shareholders and creditors. But it is far from clear that he will force money-market funds, a major source of bank funding, to give up their promise to return their capital to investors intact.

即便如此，奥巴马先生所谈论的还是有所保留。其演讲中也涉及到对于那些对偿还房地产债务有风险的给予一定的帮助。但是他也鼓励银行对外部的金融系统提供一些服务，而且他也把消费者保护机构改革列入了他清单的首列。他宣称未来失败的成本将涉及到股东和债权人。然而美国民众却非常困惑其将强迫货币市场基金，银行债卷的主要发售点放弃他们的承诺转而将其资本投向没有受到波及的投资者。

He pledged that if taxpayers ever had to step in again to rescue the system, they would get every cent back, a nonsensical promise. True, as Mr Obama pointed out, taxpayers have earned a 17% return on their “investment” in banks that have since bought the government out. But such figures, which are being disseminated with increasing regularity, ignore the money shelled out on institutions such as AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to say nothing of the myriad financing and bond-purchase programmes put in place to support the banks. Nor do they adjust the returns for risk, the very sin that banks committed during the go-go years.

他许诺如果纳税人不得不再次求助于紧急救助系统，他们不用会费任何费用，而这简直是无稽之谈。确实，就像奥巴马所说的那样，纳税人得到了17%的回报率得益于他们投资于政府出资买办的银行。但是发布的这些有不断规律增长的指数，忽略了对类似美国国际集团、房丽美和房地美这样的机构的注资，更不用说那些为了支持银行而实施的无数的资金和债卷回购计划。根本无须调整风险回报，最为邪恶的是银行再投资高峰年的作为。

The intricacies of bank reform were never likely to get a thorough airing in a set-piece political speech. But the casual listener to Mr Obama’s oratory might conclude that the crisis occurred because there were no regulations, that big banks would be allowed to fail in the future and that the proposed constraints of finance will create a new age of prosperity. (They would also think that the incomprehensible decision on Friday to impose tariffs on Chinese tyre imports was designed to save free trade.) The truth is far messier. Reform is badly needed, but people will still be greedy, banks will still need saving and a more stable system will entail less credit flowing through it. Mr Obama is eloquent but too often he does not tell it like it is.

银行系统复杂的改革决不可能在一次老调陈词的政治演讲中得到充分的体现。但是庭中偶然也会被奥巴马华丽的演讲忽悠到觉得经济危机是缺乏监管所导致的，而其大银行将在未来退隐，而所提出的金融强制体系将打造新经济时代。（公众依然认为周五关于强制性征收中国轮胎关税这种难以理解的决定也是为了挽救自由贸易。）事实却是十分肮脏的。改革是十分必要的，但是人类却依旧贪婪，银行依旧需要储蓄和一个更为稳定的系统来承担无信誉自己的流动。奥巴马的口才虽然卓越，但他通常不愿意提及此事。