作者：罗杰?阿尔特曼(Roger Altman)为英国《金融时报》撰稿 2008-09-22
金融市场状况现已降至1932年银行业倒闭以来的最低点。在96个小时的时间里，我们目睹了3起无法想象的事件。美国第四大券商雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)申请破产。一夜之间，最负盛名的公司美林(Merrill Lynch)被迫将自己卖给美国银行(Bank of America)。迫于市场压力，美联储(Fed)被迫斥资850亿美元，接管美国国际集团(AIG)，以避免这家最大的保险公司陷于破产。
而发生的这一切，距联邦政府救助房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)的行动仅两周，距贝尔斯登垮台也只有3个月。世界各地的市场参与者被这一系列破产案惊得目瞪口呆。他们已信心尽失，取而代之的是前所未有的恐惧感。这就是贷款冻结、全球市场出现暴跌的原因。
现在，每个人都想问同样的问题：上述情况会恶化至何种境地？这种信心缺失在自我应验，并危及其它金融机构。每天，这些公司在资本市场上为自身进行再融资。它们的命运取决于贷款机构的信心。然而，如果这种信心消失，那么它们的偿付能力就会受到威胁。现状就是如此。
这种状况已使美联储和美国财政部陷入一种进退维谷的境地。某种程度上讲，美联储的核心任务在于保护金融体系的稳定。美联储策划了对贝尔斯登的救助，并向房利美和房地美提供了紧急信贷，因为它判断，金融体系可能无法承受“两房”的崩溃。美联储拥有向其它机构提供无限援助的法律授权。
但在实际中，提供进一步救助是存在界限的；如果逾越这条界限，那么在通胀、汇率和信心方面都可能引发反作用。这就是美联储上周末拒绝向雷曼和美林提供直接救助的原因。美联储判断，金融体系能挺过雷曼破产，并决定必须对援助行为的规模加以限制。很明显，它也不想拯救AIG。
哪些打击是金融体系可以承受的，哪些打击可能引发崩盘，让当局对这一点做出判断依然极为困难。是否允许最大的保险公司破产，是否随后会出现多米诺效应，当局在做判断时并没有先例可依。最终，美联储见证了太多的系统性风险，于是改弦易辙，对AIG进行了干预。
美联储和财政部能否继续进行这种极为痛苦的逐案判断仍未可知。如果被迫在审慎援助与拯救金融体系之间做出选择，那么美联储必须选择后者。正如美联储前主席保罗?沃尔克(Paul Volcker)曾建议过的，对银行业和证券系统来说，可能需要一个庞大的清债信托公司(Resolution Trust Corporation)式的解决方案。
这可能涉及制定法律来清洗这些机构：可能会以美国国债作为交换条件，收购它们的不良抵押贷款及其它资产。这些机构随后才会趋稳，虽然纳税人承担的代价会非常巨大，即便在政府逐步恢复出售这类资产后也会如此。但如有必要，那么这个代价是必须付出的。
这将被视为现代史上最大的监管失败。这些机构使用的杠杆级别使之极为脆弱。2007年中期，大型券商的平均杠杆比率为27:1，但未受到任何审慎监管机构的监管。事实上，它们在自我监管。这种透明度的缺失令人震惊。许多大型贷款机构并未透露表外风险。在某些情况下，它们自己也不理解这些风险。而更为根本的是，我们允许另一个庞大的金融体系在正常的银行业网络之外发展起来。这个体系包括投行和抵押贷款金融公司等。它既不受监管又不透明，而且杠杆比例实在太高。但是在9家相对独立并且很大程度上无效的金融监管机构眼皮底下，这些风险被忽略了。就是说，这种情况一直维持到这个体系崩塌。
我们从这次金融困境中走出，需要很长时间。正常的贷款功能恢复可能需要三、四年时间。在过渡期间，我们的经济将无法获取所需的全部信贷并可能表现不佳，从而让我们的社会承担巨大的代价。而所有这一切本来都是可以避免的。
本文作者是Evercore Partners的董事长兼首席执行官，曾在比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)总统任期内任美国财政部副部长。上世纪80年代，他曾是雷曼兄弟投行业务联合主管及董事会成员。
译者/汪洋
MODERN HISTORY’S GREATEST REGULATORY FAILURE
Roger Altman 2008-09-22
Financial market conditions have now descended to the lowest point since the banking shutdown of 1932. In one 96-hour period, we saw three nearly unimaginable events. Lehman Brothers, America’s fourth-largest securities firm, filed for bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch, the best-known firm, was forced overnight to sell itself to Bank of America. And market pressures forced the Federal Reserve into a huge $85bn takeover of AIG, our largest insurer, to avert its bankruptcy.
All of this occurred only two weeks after the massive federal rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and three months after the collapse of Bear Stearns. Market participants around the world have been shocked senseless by these serial failures. Their confidence has evaporated, replaced by an unprecedented level of fear. That is why lending is frozen and worldwide markets are plunging.
Now, everyone has the same question: how much worse can this get? This lack of confidence is self-fulfilling and endangers other financial institutions. These are companies that refinance themselves in the capital markets every day. They depend on the confidence of lenders. But, if that disappears, their solvency is threatened. This is where we are now.
This has put the Fed and the US Treasury into a nearly impossible position. At one level, the Fed’s core mission is to protect the stability of our financial system. It engineered the rescue of Bear Stearns and extended emergency credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because it judged that the systems might not withstand their collapse. It has legal authority to provide unlimited assistance to others.
But there is a practical limit to further bail-outs; a line beyond which an inflation, currency and confidence backlash could result. This is why, this past weekend, the Fed refused a direct rescue of either Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch. It judged that the system could survive a Lehman bankruptcy and that it had to enforce a limit on the size of its assistance. Clearly, it did not want to rescue AIG.
Yet it is extremely difficult for the authorities to judge which blows the system can endure and which might trigger a meltdown. There were no precedents for judging whether the biggest insurance company could be allowed to fail or whether a domino effect would follow. Ultimately, the Fed saw too much systemic risk, reversed course and intervened in AIG.
Whether the Fed and Treasury can continue to make these excruciating case-by-case judgments is unknowable. If forced to choose between staying within prudent limits on its assistance, or saving the financial system, it must choose the latter. As Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, has suggested, an enormous Resolution Trust Corporation-style approach for the banking and securities system may be required.
This might involve legislation to cleanse these institutions by acquiring their distressed mortgages and other assets in exchange, perhaps, for US Treasury bonds. The institutions would then be stabilised, although the cost to taxpayers, even after gradual recoveries on federal sale of those assets, would be huge. But, if necessary, this price would have to be paid.
This will come to be seen as the greatest regulatory failure in modern history. The degree of leverage that these institutions took on is indefensible. The average large securities firm was leveraged 27 to one in mid-2007. They were not regulated by any prudential supervisor. In effect, they regulated themselves. The lack of transparency was stunning. Many big lenders did not disclose off-balance-sheet risks. In some cases, they did not understand these risks themselves. More fundamentally, we allowed a second, huge financial system to develop outside the normal banking network. It consisted of investment banks, mortgage finance companies and the like. It was unregulated, not transparent and way too leveraged. But with nine separate and mostly ineffective financial regulators, these risks were ignored. That is, until this second system crashed.
We will be climbing out of this financial hole for a long time. Three or four years may pass before normal lending functions are resumed. In the interim, our economy will not have access to all of the credit it needs and may underperform, at great cost to our society. All of this could have been prevented.
The writer is chairman and chief executive of Evercore Partners and was deputy US Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton. He was a co-head of investment banking and a board member at Lehman Brothers in the 1980s
