如何终结大萧条

BEYOND THE AGE OF LEVERAGE: NEW BANKS MUST ARISE
Niall Ferguson 2009-02-05

Call it the Great Repression. The reality being repressed is that the western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Many governments are too highly leveraged, as are many corporations. More importantly, households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Worst of all are the banks. The best evidence that we are in denial about this is the widespread belief that the crisis can be overcome by creating yet more debt.

The US could end up running a deficit of more than 10 per cent of gross domestic this year (adding the cost of the stimulus package to the Congressional Budget Office's optimistic 8.3 per cent forecast). Today's born-again Keynesians seem to have forgotten that their prescription of a deficit-financed fiscal stimulus stood the best chance of working in a more or less closed economy. But this is a globalised world, where unco-ordinated profligacy by national governments is more likely to generate bond market and currency market volatility than a return to growth.

There is a better way to go but it is in the opposite direction. The aim must be not to increase debt but to reduce it. Two things must happen. First, banks that are de facto insolvent need to be restructured – a word that is preferable to the old-fashioned “nationalisation”. Existing shareholders will have to face that they have lost their money. Too bad; they should have kept a more vigilant eye on the people running their banks. Government will take control in return for a substantial recapitalisation after losses have meaningfully been written down. Bondholders may have to accept either a debt-for-equity swap or a 20 per cent “haircut” (a reduction in the value of their bonds) – a disappointment, no doubt, but nothing compared with the losses when Lehman went under.

There are precedents for such drastic action, notably the response to the Swedish banking crisis of the early 1990s. The critical point is to avoid the nightmare of a state-dominated financial sector. The last thing America needs is to have all its banks run like the rail company Amtrak or, worse, the Internal Revenue Service. State life-support for moribund dinosaur banks is an expedient designed to avert the disaster of a generalised banking extinction not a belated victory for socialism. It should not and must not impede the formation of new banks by the private sector. So recapitalisation must be a once-only event, with no enduring government guarantees or subsidies. There should be a clear timetable for “reprivatisation” within, say, 10 years.

The second step we need to take is a generalised conversion of American mortgages to lower interest rates and longer maturities. The idea of modifying mortgages appals legal purists as a violation of the sanctity of contract. But there are times when the public interest requires us to honour the rule of law in the breach. Repeatedly during the course of the 19th century governments changed the terms of bonds that they issued through a process known as “conversion”. A bond with a 5 per cent coupon would simply be exchanged for one with a 3 per cent coupon, to take account of falling market rates and prices. Such procedures were seldom stigmatised as default. Today, in the same way, we need an orderly conversion of adjustable rate mortgages to take account of the fundamentally altered financial environment.

Another objection to such a procedure is that it would reward the imprudent. But moral hazard only really matters if bad behaviour is likely to be repeated. I do not foresee anyone asking for or being given an option adjustable rate mortgage for many, many years. The issue, then, is simply one of fairness. One solution would be for the government-controlled mortgage lenders and guarantors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to offer all borrowers – including those on fixed rates – the same deal. Permanently lower monthly payments for a majority of US households would almost certainly do more to stimulate consumer confidence than all the provisions of the stimulus package, including the tax cuts.

No doubt those who lose by such measures will not suffer in silence. But the benefits of macroeconomic stabilisation will surely outweigh the costs to bank shareholders, bank bondholders and the owners of mortgage-backed securities.

Only a Great Restructuring can end the Great Repression. It needs to happen soon.

The writer is a contributing editor of the FT and the author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

如何终结大萧条
作者：英国《金融时报》资深编辑尼尔?弗格森(Niall Ferguson) 2009-02-05

就把它叫做大萧条吧。而萧条的现实是，西方世界正遭遇一场过度负债的危机。许多政府负债过多，许多企业也是如此。更重要的是，家庭正在前所未有的债务重荷下痛苦呻吟。情况最糟的是银行。我们不肯接受这一事实的最佳证据是，人们普遍相信，可以通过制造更多的债务来战胜危机。

到今年年底，美国的赤字可能会超过国内生产总值的10%（在国会预算办公室(Congressional Budget Office) 8.3%的乐观预测上，加上财政刺激计划支出）。如今重生的凯恩斯主义者似乎已经忘记，他们开出的赤字型财政刺激药方，最有可能在多少有些封闭的经济环境下起作用。但如今是一个全球化的世界，各国政府间不协调的恣意挥霍更有可能导致债券和外汇市场动荡，而非经济重新增长。

有一条更好的出路，但方向截然相反。目标决不是增加债务，而是削减它。必须采取两项措施。首先，事实上没有偿付能力的银行必须重组——这个词比过时的“国有化”更合人心意。现有股东将不得不面对资金亏损的现实——太糟糕了，他们本应对经营其银行的人更警惕一些。政府将接管银行，在对亏损进行大额减记后，进行大规模资本结构调整。债券持有人可能不得不接受债转股，或是20%的“折扣”（扣减所持债券的价值）——毫无疑问，这令人失望，但与雷曼(Lehman)破产所受的损失相比，简直微不足道。

上述激烈手段已有先例，特别是上世纪90年代初对瑞典银行业危机的反应。关键点在于要避免政府统驭金融领域的噩梦。美国最不应采取的措施是，让所有银行都像美国铁路公司(Amtrak)或（更糟糕的是）像美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)那样经营。政府对濒临倒闭的大型银行施以援手，是旨在避免银行业全面崩溃灾难的权宜之计，并非社会主义取得了迟到的胜利。不应该也决不能阻碍私人部门成立新的银行。因此，资产重组只能是仅此一次，政府不应长久提供担保或财政补贴。应制定一份例如10年内 “再私有化”的明确日程表。

我们需要采取的第二个步骤是，将美国的抵押贷款全面转换为利率更低、期限更长的合约。法律卫道士对修正抵押条款的想法感到惊骇，将其视作对契约神圣性的侵犯。但有的时候，公众利益要求我们一边尊重法治一边违法它。19世纪期间，政府通过所谓的“转换”过程，一再更改了他们所发行债券的条款。考虑到市场利率和价格不断下降，面息为5%的债券可以简单更换为面息3%的债券。这种做法很少被打上违约的烙印。如今，我们需要以同样的方式有序转换可调利率抵押贷款，以将彻底改变的金融环境纳入考虑之中。

对上述做法的另一种反对意见是，这会鼓励不谨慎之风。但只有在不良行为可能再次发生时，道德风险才真正事关紧要。我预见不会有人要求或被给予许多年可调利率抵押贷款的选择。那么，这就仅仅是一个公平问题。一个解决方案是，政府控制的抵押贷款发放及担保机构房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)为所有借款人——包括固定利率借款人——提供同样的协议。永久性地降低大多数美国家庭的月还款额，几乎肯定会比之前出台的所有财政刺激计划（包括减税）都更能刺激消费者信心。

毫无疑问，那些因上述措施而遭受损失的人不会无声地忍受。但宏观经济稳定带来的好处无疑会超出银行股东、银行债券持有人及抵押担保证券持有人所付出的代价。

只有大重组才能终结大萧条。我们需要尽快采取行动。

本文作者为英国《金融时报》特约编辑，并著有《金钱的崛起：世界金融史》(The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World)

译者/陈云飞